‘I believe you and Mrs. Elsmere are just killing yourselves all in a corner, with no one to see,’ she said indignantly. ‘If you won’t let me see, I shall send Sir Harry. But who’--and her brown fawn’s eyes ran startled over the cottages before her--‘who, Mr. Elsmere, does this _dreadful_ place belong to?’ ‘Mr. Wendover,’ said Robert shortly. ‘Impossible!’ she cried incredulously. ‘Why, I wouldn’t ask one of my dogs to sleep there,’ and she pointed to the nearest hovel, whereof the walls were tottering outward, the thatch was falling to pieces, and the windows were mended with anything that came handy--rags, paper, or the crown of an old hat. ‘No, you would be ill-advised’ said Robert, looking with a bitter little smile at the sleek dachshund that sat blinking beside its mistress. ‘But what is the agent about?’ Then Robert told her the story, not mincing his words. Since the epidemic had begun, all that sense of imaginative attraction which had been reviving in him toward the Squire had been simply blotted out by a fierce heat of indignation. When he thought of Mr. Wendover now, he thought of him as the man to whom in strict truth it was owing that helpless children died in choking torture. All that agony, of wrath and pity he had gone through in the last ten days sprang to his lips now as he talked to Lady Helen, and poured itself into his words. ‘Old Meyrick and I have taken things into our own hands now,’ he said at last briefly. ‘We have already made two cottages fairly habitable. To-morrow the inspector comes. I told the people yesterday I wouldn’t be bound by my promise a day longer. He must put the screw on Henslowe, and if Henslowe dawdles, why we shall just drain and repair and sink for a well, ourselves. I can find the money somehow. At present we get all our water from one of the farms on the brow.’ ‘Money!’ said Lady Helen impulsively, her looks warm with sympathy for the pale, harassed young rector. ‘Sir Harry shall send you as much as you want. And anything else--blankets--coals?’ Out came her notebooks and Robert was drawn into a list. Then, full of joyfulness at being allowed to help, she gathered up her reins, she nodded her pretty little head at him, and was just starting off her ponies at full speed, equally eager ‘to tell Harry’ and to ransack Churton for the stores required, when it occurred to her to pull up again. ‘Oh, Mr. Elsmere, my aunt, Lady Charlotte, does nothing but talk about your sister-in-law. _Why_ did you keep her all to yourself? Is it kind, is it neighborly, to have such a wonder to stay with you and let nobody share?’ ‘A wonder?’ said Robert, amused. ‘Rose plays the violin very well, but--’