"Does it follow that he's mistaken because he doesn't agree with you?"
Harding laughed.
"If I were singular in my way of thinking, I'd be more modest, but all over the country farmers are getting ready for the change. There's a big expansion in the air, and your people can't stand out against it."
"Then I suppose we'll be crushed, and we'll deserve our fate." Beatrice smiled at him as she started the horses. "But at least it will not be from lack of advice!"
CHAPTER XVII
A HEAVY BLOW
Snow was drifting around the Grange before a bitter wind when Mowbray sat in his study with a stern, anxious face. The light of the lamp on his writing table fell upon a black-edged letter that lay beside a bundle of documents; the big stove in a corner glowed a dull red, and acrid fumes of burning wood escaped as the icy draughts swept in. Mowbray's hands and feet were very cold, but he sat motionless, trying to rally his forces after a crushing blow.
The sound of music reached him from the hall, where some of his younger neighbors were spending the evening, and he frowned when an outbreak of laughter followed the close of a song. He had left his guests half an hour before, when the mounted mail-carrier had called, and he could not force himself to rejoin them yet. He must have time to recover from the shock he had received. Since he left the hall he had been trying to think; but he had no control of his mind and was conscious of only a numbing sense of grief and disaster.
He looked up as his wife came in. Her movements were generally quiet, and when she sat down her expression was calm.
"I got away as soon as I could," she said. "I am afraid you have had bad news."