Knight at once took leave of his travelling companions. “My father’s chief business manager has come to meet me at my request,” he said, “and we travel together. Good-bye, Dallington, and thank you for everything, old fellow. Hope you will find your Margaret unchanged. I should be sorry to think we had come to the end of the story. Remember, we are but beginning it.” “I will not forget,” answered Dallington. “Good-bye, Miss Wentworth. I am glad to have your address. You will be sure to hear from me.” When they were in the carriage, Knight and Hancourt looked steadfastly at each other before either spoke, and each noted the changes which the years had made. “How is Mrs. Hancourt? And how are your children?” asked Knight. “They are very well, thank you. Mr. Arthur, I am not sure that I ought to have met you, for there have been many changes in the last few months, and I am no longer in your father’s employment.” “How is that? I thought my father could not do without you.” “You are wanted at home, sir. Mr. Knight has become a universal manufacturer, and has an enormous business, or a dozen businesses, and employs thousands of hands. He has been for the last few years making money fast; but as fast as he has got rich his workpeople have got poor, and that is not right, Mr. Arthur.” “You must take care what you say of my father, Hancourt.” “Very good, sir. I am out of the concern, so it is nothing to me; but I hope you will let me tell you what is in my heart.” “Go on, then.” “Lately, indeed almost ever since you went away, the master has been cutting things very close and underselling everybody, and to do that he has used the commonest material, and has frequently lowered the wages of his hands. Many things which go across the sea are not worth the cost of carriage; they are just put together to look well and that is all. I think it is a great pity, and I ventured to say so to Mr. Knight, because he will lose his customers, and the business will go down as quickly as it went up if he does not change his method. But Mr. Knight told me he did not care for that. He thinks it is no business of his that other English manufacturers will be suspected because he has got England a bad name, but I think it ought to be, and that such conduct is unpatriotic. But excuse me, Mr. Arthur, I can’t help getting warm over it. I want to ask you, however, if you will not try and bring about a better state of things?” Arthur felt as if a stone had been given him when he asked for bread. Could it be that this and not that was his duty? How should he give up his cherished ideas, and the work to which he honestly believed himself called, and come down to business? Hancourt broke in upon his musings. “You see, sir, I am one of the people, and know what it is to work for starvation wages, and so I thought I would try and enlist your sympathy.” “What are you doing yourself?”