nt to do
whatever I can. I should like you to point out everything----"

Amherst's resolve had been taken while she spoke. He _would_ point out
everything, would stretch his opportunity to its limit. All thoughts of
personal prudence were flung to the winds--her blush and tone had routed
the waiting policy. He would declare war on Truscomb at once, and take
the chance of dismissal. At least, before he went he would have brought
this exquisite creature face to face with the wrongs from which her
luxuries were drawn, and set in motion the regenerating impulses of
indignation and pity. He did not stop to weigh the permanent advantage
of this course. His only feeling was that the chance would never again
be given him--that if he let her go away, back to her usual life, with
eyes unopened and heart untouched, there would be no hope of her ever
returning. It was far better that he should leave for good, and that she
should come back, as come back she must, more and more often, if once
she could be made to feel the crying need of her presence.

But where was he to begin? How give her even a glimpse of the packed and
intricate situation?

"Mrs. Westmore," he said, "there's no time to say much now, but before
we get to the mills I want to ask you a favour. If, as you go through
them, you see anything that seems to need explaining, will you let me
come and tell you about it tonight? I say tonight," he added, meeting
her look of enquiry, "because later--tomorrow even--I might not have the
chance. There are some things--a good many--in the management of the
mills that Mr. Truscomb doesn't see as I do. I don't mean business
questions: wages and dividends and so on--those are out of my province.
I speak merely in the line of my own work--my care of the hands, and
what I believe they need and don't get under the present system.
Naturally, if Mr. Truscomb were well, I shouldn't have had this chance
of putting the case to you; but since it's come my way, I must seize it
and take the consequences."

Even as he spoke, by a swift reaction of thought, those consequences
rose before him in all their seriousness. It was not only, or chiefly,
that he feared to lose his place; though he knew his mother had not
spoken lightly in instancing the case of the foreman whom Truscomb, to
gratify a personal spite, had for months kept out of a job in his trade.
And there were special reasons why Amherst should heed her warning. In
adopting a manual t