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 passed 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 assure 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 impassible 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.