"I know Sir Malcolm well. I am staying at Greywolds Manor. I am taking the place of his secretary," said Meg, determinedly ignoring the shyness that, without chilling her indignation, yet threatened to overcome her under the scrutinizing glance of the editor. "I am under great obligations to Sir Malcolm, I owe him everything."

The editor bowed his head, but did not break the silence. He appeared to be waiting for more cogent reasons to be advanced. Meg felt to a certain degree baffled by his manner.

"You do not know how good he is," she resumed with energy, "and you represent him as unjust and tyrannical."

"You must remember the criticisms are upon Sir Malcolm in his public capacity of landlord and magistrate. They do not apply to him as a private individual," said the editor.

Meg made a movement as if repudiating this line of argument.

"A man cannot be one thing in his public capacity and another in his private relationship," she said quickly.

"I am afraid he can," answered the editor, with a smile distantly brightening his glance.

"I cannot believe it," said Meg with energy. "He is old and feeble. It is cruel to hurt him, and I know those attacks hurts him. He never says a word. He has never mentioned the subject to me. I watch him as I read aloud to him, and I think they will kill him."

"I think you exaggerate their importance," said the editor, averting his glance in which Meg thought she detected a sparkle of amus.e.m.e.nt. After a moment he resumed with seriousness. "You must understand me. I do not like to hurt your feelings, but this is a matter of principle with me.

To put it plainly, Sir Malcolm Loftdale is a bad landlord, and in a public sense a bad man."

Meg gave an exclamation. "I do not believe it; I do not accept this statement. You misjudge him, You do not know him as I know him. He leads a lonely life and perhaps does not know."

"Exactly! That is one of the reasons that make him a bad landlord. He ignores the needs of his tenants by indulging his selfish love of loneliness, he becomes utterly unsympathetic. He cares nothing for the laborers who look to him for securing them the commonest rights, more decent dwellings, fair rents. And yet what wonder," continued the editor, turning his head away and speaking as if to himself, "that he should not care for them, when he did not care for his own son."

Meg thought of the picture with its face turned to the wall. She felt she touched a boundary that lay beyond her self-imposed task, and she rose.

"I see that I am making no way," she said in hurt accents. "I cannot influence you to abandon the cruel course you seem determined to pursue.

Nothing remains for me to do but to apologize for having made the attempt, and to go."

"Indeed," said the editor, rising also, "I am sorry I should have given this wrong impression of the interest with which I have listened to your arguments in favor of Sir Malcolm Loftdale, and of your appeal against the censure p.r.o.nounced upon him in the _Greywolds Mercury_. But, believe me, there are many upon his estate who daily talk of him more bitterly than I do; many who have been compelled to leave and to face ruin in already over-crowded cities after accepting his offer of compensation, which was a hard bargain driven on his side alone. You do not know, perhaps, the merits of the case against him. He turns his tenants out, if they are not punctual with their rents as soon as the law allows. In his selfish desire for isolation he allows no cottages to be built on his extensive estates. He has checked innocent amus.e.m.e.nts; barred the right of way. These sufferers represent the people. I shall not offend you by stating what I could of the cla.s.s to which Sir Malcolm belongs.

You see I have argued and discussed the matter fairly with you,"

continued the editor, checking the warmth of his tone.

"I cannot judge the case as you state it," said Meg with a pained frown.

"I am sure it is one-sided." Then with gathering energy she went on: "Cannot you conceive that your continued persecution may drive him to worse acts? It is enough to make him shun his neighbors to be thus always held up to them as cruel and exacting. It is enough to make him wish to remove them from his sight when he knows that they are taught to revile him. I know that he is good. Take my case. I owe him everything; yet I have no claim upon him. Doubtless mine is not an isolated case.

He may be helping many others in an obscure way. n.o.ble natures shrink from publicity. I know he shrinks from being thanked. He will not allow me to thank him. It almost led to a misunderstanding between us when I tried to express to him my grat.i.tude. You talk of his getting rid of tenants after giving them compensation. What is that suffering compared to the one you inflict upon him by these words that may sting to death?"

Meg's defense of her guardian was not logical, but it was of the heart, and womanly. She ignored all her antagonist's arguments, and saw everything colored by her emotions of the moment. The editor looked at her with a sort of half-amused amazement. Her vehemence was not to be answered by balanced sentences or editorial dignity.

"You are so good an advocate," he said, smiling, "that you almost incline me to be a convert."

"I wish I could convert you to believe in his goodness--to me, and perhaps to many others," said Meg, with the constraint of shy awkwardness upon her, as she accepted the homage of his softened mood.

"His kindness to you is all that I care for," said the editor, gallantly.

"Will you promise me not to write any more articles against him?" asked Meg, with the childlike almost primitive directness that occasionally distinguished her speech when greatly in earnest.

"I promise to remember your advocacy whenever I begin to write, or to think of Sir Malcolm Loftdale," answered the editor.

"You promise it?" repeated Meg.

"I promise it," said the editor.

After a pause of awkward hesitation Meg bowed and turned away. The editor held open the door for her, and she pa.s.sed out of the dingy office.

As Meg walked home she was conscious of a certain light-heartedness. The interview had been, on the whole, antagonistic; yet the impression it left on her mind was pleasant. The editor was a stranger, and yet he almost seemed to her a friend. She could not account for a sense of trustfulness with which she felt inclined to regard him. There was nothing to justify this confidence, yet the impression remained.

CHAPTER XXIII.

FRIEND OR FOE.

The impression, for which she could give no reason, that this stranger was a friend remained with Meg. When on the following Wednesday she recognized the _Greywolds Mercury_ lying among the morning newspapers, she looked at its pages with confidence.

She read the _Times_ abstractedly, eager to get to the local organ. Her voice lost its intelligent enunciation. Sir Malcolm, with courteous apologies for what might be, he owned, his lack of attention, asked on two occasions for a paragraph to be read over again, the sense of which he had not gathered. Meg, the second time, recognized the implied rebuke, and compelled herself to concentrate her mind upon her task.

When the turn of the _Greywolds Mercury_ came she took it up deliberately, and slowly unfolded its pages. She turned to the leader; she glanced over it; the print swam before her eyes. The article was an onslaught upon Sir Malcolm. Last week he had pa.s.sed a hard sentence upon a poacher caught red-handed in his preserves, and this severity had roused the editor's ire. Meg dropped the paper with an exclamation, her heart beat with indignation and with an exaggerated sense of disappointment.

"What is it, Miss Beecham?" asked Sir Malcolm.

"I cannot read it!" replied Meg unsteadily.

"I suppose it is one of those low-bred, personal attacks upon myself.

Pray do not let it discompose you, Miss Beecham," said Sir Malcolm with formal coldness. "I a.s.sure you it affects me as little as would the barking of an ill-bred puppy."

As Meg still hesitated he added, after a moment's pause, with impa.s.sible politeness, "I must beg you, Miss Beecham, to be so good as to read this article aloud."

The formality of the tone, into which Sir Malcolm had infused a touch of command, reminded Meg that he was her employer, and she proceeded. She went steadily on to the end. The article seemed to her to be marked by increased virulence. She could not judge the merits of the case that formed the subject of the editor's attack. She did not care to judge them. These were outside the point.

The concluding phrases ran: "There is a justice that keeps within the letter of the law, and ignores every suggestion of compa.s.sion and fellow-feeling for other human beings. But this justice fails in severity before that which deals out punishment for breaking the edicts contained in the code of so-called social honor. The modern Brutus would immolate not the unhappy peasant only, to whom belong no human rights, he would immolate his own son, if he conspired to rebel against the sacred commandments contained in that code."

Meg was startled by a low exclamation. She looked up. Sir Malcolm was lying back in his chair, his eyes closed, his countenance ashen and drawn.

As she paused he opened his eyes and looked round; his expression was one of mental anguish.

"Thank you," he said, with a ghastly attempt to a.s.sume that fine air of dismissal he knew so well how to put on, "that will suffice for to-day."

"May I not do something more for you, sir?" asked Meg, affected by his tone and manner.

"Thank you, I am much obliged," he replied, turning away and taking up a book.

Meg noticed that his hand trembled. She remembered the editor's words.

"He was not good to his son."

Was it for this that the reckless allusion to a father's condemnation of a son to death in the name of justice had hit him so hard?

She dared no longer intrude upon the presence of that sorrow or remorse, and left the room. What did it all mean? She went to the great dining-room and stood before the picture with its face turned to the wall. The disgrace appealed to her with tragic piteousness; and the father's unforgiveness acted upon her like a chill repulse.