"Bad," he answered. "He's got a lung in a fever and did ought to have seen doctor sooner." "Good night, then. I must be gone," she said, and without more words left the men and started running. Palk turned to Lawrence. "I shouldn't wonder if Bamsey was a goner," he prophesied. "If the breathing parts be smote, then the heart often goes down into a man's belly, so I believe, and can't come up again. And that's death." The other was silent. For a moment it flitted through his mind that, if such a thing happened, it might go far to simplify Dinah's hold upon the world and make the future easier for them both; but he forgot this aspect in sympathy for Dinah herself. He knew that danger to her foster-father must mean a very terrible grief for her. "He's a hard, tough old chap. He'll come through with such care as he'll get. But Stockman said as that biting day might breed trouble among the grey heads. He was right." He talked with a purpose to divert Tom's mind from the fact that he had met him walking alone with Dinah; but he need not have felt apprehension: Mr. Palk was immersed in his own thoughts, and no outside incident ever influenced his brain when it happened to be engaged with personal reflections. "Stockman always looks ahead--granted," he answered as they climbed the hill together, "and for large views and putting two and two together, there's not his equal. But self-interest is his god, though he foxes everybody it ain't. For all his fine sayings, there is only one number in his mind and that's number One. He hides it from most, but he don't hide it from me, because the minute you've got the key to his lock, you see how every word and thought and deed be bent in one direction. And under his large talk of the greatest good to the most, there's always 'self' working unseen." "You ain't far out, yet in honesty there's not much for you and me to quarrel with," said Maynard. "When you say that, you'm as ownself as him. And if you and me was everybody, I wouldn't feel what I do. He don't quarrel with us, though he often says a thing so pleasant and easy that you don't know you're cut, till you find the blood running. But we ain't everybody. He may see far, but he don't see near. He's fairly civil to us, because he don't mean to lose us if he can help it; but what about her as can't escape? How does he treat his own flesh and blood?" Maynard was astonished. He had not given Thomas credit for much wit or power of observation. Nor had he ever concerned himself with the inner life of the farm as it affected Susan. "Would you say Miss was put upon?" he asked. "God's light!" swore Mr. Palk. "And be you a thinking man and can ask that? Have you got eyes? If Orphan Dinah had to work like her, would you ax me if she was put upon?" The challenge disturbed Lawrence, for it seemed that Thomas had observation that extended into the lives of his neighbours--a gift the younger man had not guessed.