o my books. Mr. Henslowe is there on purpose to
protect my literary freedom. What he thinks desirable is good enough for
me, as I have already informed you. I am sorry for it if his methods do
not commend themselves to you. But I have yet to learn that the Rector
of the parish has an ex-officio right to interfere between a landlord
and his tenants.'

Robert kept his temper with some difficulty. After a pause he said,
feeling desperately, however, that the suggestion was not likely to
improve matters,--

'If I were to take all the trouble and all the expense off your hands,
Mr. Wendover would it be impossible for you to authorize me to make one
or two alterations most urgently necessary for the improvement of the
Mile End cottages?'

The Squire burst into an angry laugh.

'I have never yet been in the habit, Mr. Elsmere, of doing my repairs by
public subscription. You ask a little too much from an old man's powers
of adaptation.'

Robert rose from his seat, his hand trembling as it rested on his
walking-stick.

'Mr. Wendover,' he said, speaking at last with a flash of answering
scorn in his young vibrating voice, 'what I think you cannot understand,
is that at any moment a human creature may sicken and die, poisoned
by the state of your property, for which you--and nobody else--are
ultimately responsible.'

The Squire shrugged his shoulders.

So you say, Mr. Elsmere. If true, every person in such a condition has a
remedy in his own hands. I force no one to remain on my property.'

'The people who live there,' exclaimed Robert, 'have neither home nor
subsistence if they are driven out. Murewell is full--times bad--most of
the people old.'

'And eviction "a sentence of death," I suppose,' interrupted the
Squire, studying him with sarcastic eyes. 'Well, I have no belief in a
Gladstonian Ireland, still less in a Radical England. Supply and demand,
cause and effect, are enough for me. The Mile End cottages are out
of repair, Mr. Elsmere, so Mr. Henslowe tells me, because the site is
unsuitable, the type of cottage out of date. People live in them at
their peril; I don't pull them down, or rather'--correcting himself with
exasperating consistency--'Mr. Henslowe doesn't pull them down, because,
like other men, I suppose, he dislikes an outcry. But if the population
stays, it stays at its own risk. Now have I made myself plain?'

The two men eyed one another.

'Perfectly plain,' said Robert quietly. 'Allow me to