which he resembled a couching Sphinx.

But this afternoon, with his tail down, his lips pouting, his shoulders
making heavy work of it, his nose lifted in deprecation of that
ridiculous and unnecessary plane on which his master sat, he followed at
a measured distance. In such-wise, aforetime, the village had followed
the Squire and Mr. Barter when they introduced into it its one and only
drain.

Mr. Pendyce rode slowly; his feet, in their well-blacked boots, his
nervous legs in Bedford cord and mahogany-coloured leggings, moved in
rhyme to the horse's trot. A long-tailed coat fell clean and full over
his thighs; his back and shoulders were a wee bit bent to lessen
motion, and above his neat white stock under a grey bowler hat his
lean, grey-whiskered and moustachioed face, with harassed eyes, was
preoccupied and sad. His horse, a brown blood mare, ambled lazily, head
raking forward, and bang tail floating outward from her hocks. And so,
in the June sunshine, they went, all three, along the leafy lane to
Worsted Scotton....

On Tuesday, the day that Mrs. Pendyce had left, the Squire had come in
later than usual, for he felt that after their difference of the night
before, a little coolness would do her no harm. The first hour of
discovery had been as one confused and angry minute, ending in a burst
of nerves and the telegram to General Pendyce. He took the telegram
himself, returning from the village with his head down, a sudden prey to
a feeling of shame--an odd and terrible feeling that he never remembered
to have felt before, a sort of fear of his fellow-creatures. He would
have chosen a secret way, but there was none, only the highroad, or
the path across the village green, and through the churchyard to his
paddocks. An old cottager was standing at the turnstile, and the Squire
made for him with his head down, as a bull makes for a fence. He had
meant to pass in silence, but between him and this old broken husbandman
there was a bond forged by the ages. Had it meant death, Mr. Pendyce
could not have passed one whose fathers had toiled for his fathers,
eaten his fathers' bread, died with his fathers, without a word and a
movement of his hand.

"Evenin', Squire; nice evenin'. Faine weather fur th' hay!"

The voice was warped and wavery.

'This is my Squire,' it seemed to say, 'whatever ther' be agin him!'

Mr. Pendyce's hand went up to his hat.

"Evenin', Hermon. Aye, fine weather for the hay! Mrs. Pendyce has