"The men are very much cut up," she said, after a little lull in their talk, which had been mainly about London. "Several of them called this afternoon to know if I had heard any news; and when I told them that you were not going to contest the claim of the company, and that the works would cease, they looked as if they would cry." "I hope they will be able to get work somewhere else," he answered quietly. "But they will not get such wages as you have been giving them. You cannot imagine how popular you are. I believe the men would do anything for you." "I believe they would do anything in reason," he said. "I have tried to treat them fairly, and I am quite sure they have done their best to treat me fairly. People are generally paid back in their own coin." "And have you any idea what you will do next?" she questioned, after a pause. "Not the ghost of an idea, Ruth. If I had not you to think of, I would go abroad and try my fortune in a freer air." "Don't talk about going abroad," she said, with a little gasp. "Yet it may have to come to it," he answered. "One feels bound hand and foot in a country like this." "But are other countries any better?" "The newer countries of the West and our own Colonies do not seem quite so hidebound. What with our land laws and our mineral dues, and our leasehold systems, and our patent laws, and our precedents, and our rights of way and all the bewildering entanglements of red-tapeism, one feels as helpless as a squirrel in a cage. One cannot walk out on the hills, or sit on the cliffs, or fish in the sea without permission of somebody. All the streams and rivers are owned; all the common land has been appropriated; all the minerals a hundred fathoms below the surface are somebody's by divine right. One wonders that the very atmosphere has not been staked out into freeholds." "But things are as they have always been, dear," Ruth said quietly. "No, not always," he said, with a laugh. "Well, for a very long time, anyhow. And, after all, they are no worse for us than for other people." He did not reply to this remark. Getting angry with the social order did not mend things, and he had no wish to carp and cavil when no good could come of it. Within the little cottage everything was ready for the evening meal. The kettle was singing on the hob, the table was laid, the food ready to be brought in. "It is delightful to be home again," Ralph said, throwing himself into his easy-chair. "After all, there's no place like home." "And did you like London?"