She looked up distressed and flurried. The old man set his jaw. "Go on," he said, and Meg continued. She could scarcely follow the drift of what she read for sympathy with the pain she was inflicting upon her benefactor. She confusedly gathered that Sir Malcolm had raised rents in order to get rid of certain tenants on his estate; that the compensation he gave his ejected cottagers might appear to justify the proceeding, which nevertheless remained in the eyes of the writer of the article an infamous cruelty.
"I think this will suffice for to-day, Miss Beecham," said the baronet, when she had read to the end.
She rose as he spoke. She noticed he looked paler. "Is there no letter, sir, that I can write for you?" asked Meg.
"None this morning, I thank you," he replied with that fine air of dismissal which awed Meg. He preceded her to the door, and held it open for her to pass out.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE EDITOR OF THE "GREYWOLDS MERCURY."
Morning after morning Meg appeared at her post. She was punctual. As the clock struck ten her knock sounded at the library door, and she glided in. The greeting between her employer and herself was always the same—a formal and courtly bow from him, an inclination of the head and low "Good morning, sir," from her. Then she would begin to read. She knew the order in which he liked to listen to the contents of the various journals. Sometimes also Meg remained to write letters. She had rebelled at first against the business contract her benefactor had proposed to her; she liked it well enough now that she had entered upon it. The touch of frigidity it brought into the more emotional relationship of gratitude with which she regarded him imparted definiteness to their intercourse. The somewhat elaborate courtesy with which he treated her lent a charm to service.
On Wednesday and Saturday the Greywolds Mercury appeared among the papers to be read. Its columns usually contained an attack, covert or personal, against Sir Malcolm Loftdale. Sometimes he was mentioned by name; sometimes he was alluded to in pointed and unmistakable terms as "a large landed proprietor living in unsympathetic isolation." In his dealings toward his tenants he was represented as a tyrant, not so much actively as passively; and "passive injustice," the writer maintained, "is worse than active, for it leaves no hope behind."