two on the way home, and met Westall at the gate coming
out. He says he and his men are being harried to death round about
Tudley End by a gang of men that come, he thinks, from Oxford, a driving
gang with a gig, who come at night or in the early morning--the smartest
rascals out, impossible to catch. But he says he thinks he will soon
have his hand on the local accomplice--a Mellor man--a man named Hurd:
not one of our labourers, I think."

"Hurd!" cried Marcella, in dismay. "Oh no, it _can't_ be--impossible!"

Lord Maxwell looked at her in astonishment.

"Do you know any Hurds? I am afraid your father will find that Mellor is
a bad place for poaching."

"If it is, it is because they are so starved and miserable," said
Marcella, trying hard to speak coolly, but excited almost beyond bounds
by the conversation and all that it implied. "And the Hurds--I don't
believe it a bit! But if it were true--oh! they have been in such
straits--they were out of work most of last winter; they are out of work
now, No one _could_ grudge them. I told you about them, didn't I?" she
said, suddenly glancing at Aldous. "I was going to ask you to-day, if
you could help them?" Her prophetess air had altogether left her. She
felt ready to cry; and nothing could have been more womanish than her
tone.

He bent across to her. Miss Raeburn, invaded by a new and intolerable
sense of calamity, could have beaten him for what she read in his
shining eyes, and in the flush on his usually pale cheek.

"Is he still out of work?" he said. "And you are unhappy about it? But I
am sure we can find him work: I am just now planning improvements at the
north end of the park. We can take him on; I am certain of it. You must
give me his full name and address."

"And let him beware of Westall," said Lord Maxwell, kindly. "Give him a
hint, Miss Boyce, and nobody will rake up bygones. There is nothing I
dislike so much as rows about the shooting. All the keepers know that."

"And of course," said Miss Raeburn, coldly, "if the family are in real
distress there are plenty of people at hand to assist them. The man need
not steal."

"Oh, charity!" cried Marcella, her lip curling.

"A worse crime than poaching, you think," said Lord Maxwell, laughing.
"Well, these are big subjects. I confess, after my morning with the
lunatics, I am half inclined, like Horace Walpole, to think everything
serious ridiculous. At any rate shall we see what light a cup of coffee