know,
'll put me into my place again on his return."

Lionel did not reply immediately. The sun was coming down upon his
uncovered head like a burning furnace, and he was casting a glance round
to see if any friendly shade might be at hand. In his absorption over
the moment's business he had not observed that he had halted with Roy
right underneath its beams. No, there was no shade just in that spot. A
public pump stood behind him, but the sun was nearly vertical, and the
pump got as much of it as he did. A thought glanced through Lionel's
mind of resorting to the advice of the women, to double his handkerchief
cornerwise over his head. But he did not purpose staying above another
minute with Roy, to whom he again turned.

"Don't deceive yourself, Roy. Mr. Massingbird is not likely to
countenance such doings as these. That Mrs. Verner will not, I know;
and, I tell you plainly, I will not. You shall pay the men's wages at
the proper and usual time; you shall pay them in full, to the last
halfpenny that they earn. Do you hear? I order you now to do so. We will
have no underhanded truck system introduced on the Verner estate."

"You'd like to ruin poor Peckaby, I suppose, sir!"

"I have nothing to do with Peckaby. If public rumour is to be credited,
the business is not Peckaby's, but yours--"

"Them that says it is a pack of liars!" burst forth Roy.

"Possibly. I say I have nothing to do with that. Peckaby--"

Lionel's voice faltered. An awful pain--a pain, the like of which, for
acute violence, he had never felt--had struck him in the head. He put
his hand up to it, and fell against the pump.

"Are you ill, sir?" asked Roy.

"What can it be?" murmured Lionel. "A sudden pain has attacked me here,
Roy," touching his head; "an awful pain. I'll get into Frost's, and sit
down."

Frost's cottage was but a minute's walk, but Lionel staggered as he went
to it. Roy attended him. The man humbly asked if Mr. Lionel would be
pleased to lean upon him, but Lionel waved him off. Matthew Frost was
sitting indoors alone; his grandchildren were at school, his son's wife
was busy elsewhere. Matthew no longer went out to labour. He had been
almost incapable of it before Mr. Verner's annuity fell to him. Robin
was away at work: but Robin was a sadly altered man since the death of
Rachel. His very nature appeared to have changed.

"My head! my head!" broke from Lionel, as he entered, in the intensity
of his pain. "Matthew, I thin