the
thatched slopes were green with moss and weed; and the blue smoke wreaths
that rose from the chimneys, together with the few flowers that gleamed
in the gardens, the picturesque irregularity of the houses, and the
general setting of wood and distant mountain, made of the poisoned
village a "subject," on which a wandering artist, who had set up his
canvas at the corner of the road, was at the moment, indeed, hard at
work. There might be death in those houses; but out of the beauty which
sunshine strikes from ruin, a man, honestly in search of a few pounds,
was making what he could.

To Faversham's overstrung mind the whole scene was as the blood-stained
palace of the Atreidae to the agonized vision of Cassandra. He saw it
steeped in death--death upon death--and dreaded of what new "murder" he
might hear as soon as he approached the houses. For what was it but
murder? His conscience, arguing with itself, did not dispute the word.
Had Melrose, out of his immense income, spent a couple of thousand pounds
on the village at any time during the preceding years, a score of deaths
would have been saved, and the physical degeneracy of a whole population
would have been prevented.

* * * * *

Heavens! that light figure in Dobbs's garden, talking with the old
shepherd--his heart leapt and then sickened. It was Lydia.

A poignant fear stirred in him. He gave his horse a touch of the whip,
and was at her side.

"Miss Penfold!--you oughtn't to be here! For heaven's sake go home!"

Lydia, who in the absorption of her talk with the shepherd had not
heard his approach, turned with a start. Her face was one of passionate
grief--there were tears on her cheek.

"Oh, Mr. Faversham--"

"The child?" he asked, as he dismounted.

"She died--last night."

"Aye, an' there's another doon--t' li'le boy--t' three-year-old," said
old Dobbs sharply, straightening himself on his stick, at sight of the
agent.

"The nurses are here?" said Faversham after a pause.

"Aye," said the shepherd, turning toward his cottage, "but they can do
nowt. The childer are marked for deein afore they're sick." And he walked
away, his inner mind shaken with a passion that forbade him to stay and
talk with Melrose's agent.

Two or three labourers who were lounging in front of their houses came
slowly toward the agent. It was evident that there was unemployment as
well as disease in the village, and that the neighbouring fa