the mills--might
visit some of the people in their houses. Seeing their way of living, it
might have occurred to her to ask a reason for it--and one enquiry would
have led to another. She spoke this morning of going to the hospital to
see Dillon."

"She did go to the hospital: I went with her. But as Dillon was
sleeping, and as the matron told us he was much better--a piece of news
which, I am happy to say, Dr. Disbrow has just confirmed--she did not go
up to the ward."

Amherst was silent, and Mr. Tredegar pursued: "I gather, from your
bringing up Dillon's case, that for some reason you consider it typical
of the defects you find in Mr. Truscomb's management. Suppose,
therefore, we drop generalizations, and confine ourselves to the
particular instance. What wrong, in your view, has been done the
Dillons?"

He turned, as he spoke, to extract a cigar from the box at his elbow.
"Let me offer you one, Mr. Amherst: we shall talk more comfortably," he
suggested with distant affability; but Amherst, with a gesture of
refusal, plunged into his exposition of the Dillon case. He tried to put
the facts succinctly, presenting them in their bare ugliness, without
emotional drapery; setting forth Dillon's good record for sobriety and
skill, dwelling on the fact that his wife's ill-health was the result of
perfectly remediable conditions in the work-rooms, and giving his
reasons for the belief that the accident had been caused, not by
Dillon's carelessness, but by the over-crowding of the carding-room. Mr.
Tredegar listened attentively, though the cloud of cigar-smoke between
himself and Amherst masked from the latter his possible changes of
expression. When he removed his cigar, his face looked smaller than
ever, as though desiccated by the fumes of the tobacco.

"Have you ever called Mr. Gaines's attention to these matters?"

"No: that would have been useless. He has always refused to discuss the
condition of the mills with any one but the manager."

"H'm--that would seem to prove that Mr. Gaines, who lives here, sees as
much reason for trusting Truscomb's judgment as Mr. Westmore, who
delegated his authority from a distance."

Amherst did not take this up, and after a pause Mr. Tredegar went on:
"You know, of course, the answers I might make to such an indictment. As
a lawyer, I might call your attention to the employe's waiver of risk,
to the strong chances of contributory negligence, and so on; but happily
in this case