e
details of English land management--ignorance guaranteed by the learned
habits of a lifetime--on his complete lack of popular sympathy, and on
the contempt felt by the disciple of Bismarck and Mommsen for all
forms of altruistic sentiment. The Squire despised priests. He hated
philanthropic cants. Above all things be respected his own leisure, and
was abnormally, irritably sensitive as to any possible inroads upon it.

All these things Henslowe knew, and all these things be utilized. He
saw the Squire within forty-eight hours of his arrival at Murewell. His
fancy picture of Robert and his doings was introduced with adroitness,
and colored with great skill, and he left the Squire walking up and down
his library, chafing alternately at the monstrous fate which had planted
this sentimental agitator at his gates, and at the memory of his
own misplaced civilities toward the intruder. In the evening those
civilities were abundantly avenged, as we have seen.

Robert was much perplexed as to his next step. His heart was very sore.
The condition of Mile End--those gaunt-eyed women and wasted children,
all the sordid details of their unjust, avoidable suffering weighed upon
his nerves perpetually. But he was conscious that this state of
feeling was one of tension, perhaps of exaggeration, and though it was
impossible he should let the matter alone, he was anxious to do nothing
rashly.

However, two days after the dinner-party he met Henslowe on the hill
leading up to the Rectory. Robert would have passed the man with a
stiffening of his tall figure and the slightest possible salutation. But
the agent just returned from a round wherein the bars of various local
inns had played a conspicuous part, was in a truculent mood and stopped
to speak. He took up the line of insolent condolence with the Rector on
the impossibility of carrying his wishes with regard to Mile End into
effect. They had been laid before the Squire of course, but the Squire
had his own ideas and wasn't just easy to manage.

'Seen him yet, sir?' Henslowe wound up jauntily, every line of his
flushed countenance, the full lips under the fair beard, and the light
prominent eyes, expressing a triumph he hardly cared to conceal.

'I have seen him, but I have not talked to him on this particular
matter,' said the Rector quietly, though the red mounted in his cheek.
'You may, however, be very sure, Mr. Henslowe, that everything I know
about Mile End, the Squire sha