Presently inaction became prickly. She decided to walk to the village and inquire after Isaac Burble. Mixed up with all her thoughts and speculations was this neglected old man who had served faithfully the House of Chandos. He had suffered abominably. Because of that it seemed a soft of judgment that Lady Selina’s daughter must suffer too. The mills of God worked that way.

By the time she reached Upworthy the sun was nearly overhead, pouring down redhot shafts upon just and unjust. Once more the smell of the unclean animal assailed Cicely’s nostrils as she passed Martha Giles’s sties. Close by, in striking apposition, stood Timothy Farleigh’s picturesque, heavily-thatched cottage. Mary Farleigh was in her garden, hanging out the Monday washing. Cicely beheld garments patched and darned incredibly. Mary’s pale, thin face seemed paler and thinner; she looked an attenuated shadow of a woman, worn to skin and bone. Nick, the softy, was helping her, with a vacuous grin upon his round, amorphous face.

“Good morning, Mary.”

“Marning, miss. A be-utiful marning, to be sure.”

“How are you?”

“I bain’t feeling very grand, miss. Tired-like. But I allers feels that way o’ Mondays. ’Tis the washing, I reckons. So you be marriage-ripe, they tells me.”

“What be that?” asked Nick.

“’Tis something you’ll never be, my pore lad,” replied his mother, not tartly, but with pathetic resignation. She looked penetratingly at Cicely, adding softly: “I wishes you all happiness, Miss Cicely; you be a rare good, kind maid.”

“Thank you, Mary. Can I send you anything? A little strong beef-tea?”

Mary’s eyes brightened, but her thin lips closed.

“Thank’ee kindly, miss. I ain’t much stomach for my vittles. ’Tis the heat, maybe.”

Something in her face made Cicely say hastily:

“If you feel ailing, Mary, send for Mr. Grimshaw. Don’t put it off till it’s too late. He’s very clever.”

Mary nodded doubtfully. Cicely passed slowly on.

She did not hear very encouraging news from Isaac Burble’s niece, who seemed to be more concerned—as well she might—with her own “symptings,” as she called them. Her uncle, so Cicely gathered, had long survived his usefulness. The thought that mainly engrossed the niece was obviously the difficulty and necessity of providing a respectable funeral for one whose time had come.

Cicely insisted on seeing him, and found him fairly comfortable and cheerful. At any rate, Isaac was not contemplating his own funeral. He said with a chuckle:

“I be going to disappint Maggie. Yas, we Burbles be long-lived. Take a squint at Nicodemus. He was here along this marning. I told ’un I’d wager a tankard of ale that this young doctor sets my old leg. ’Twill be a rare joke on Dr. Snitterfield.”

Cicely left him still chuckling.

Soon afterwards she ran into Grimshaw, although she wished to avoid him. He spoke of Isaac:

“I believe he’ll pull through. The amazing thing is, he won’t die—positively refuses to do so. If the bed-sores yield to treatment, I shall tackle his leg.”

Cicely said tranquilly:

“I have faith in you, and so has he. It’s too awful that he should be in this condition.”

“Lady Selina has told you?”

He spoke with his usual incisiveness. Beneath his glance she flushed, saying hurriedly:

“She will consult Lord Wilverley to-night.”

“Good!”

“If—if you have anything you care to say to me—something you may have withheld from my mother out—out of consideration for her, I want to hear it.”

He hesitated. They had met in the middle of the green, and it was now unbearably hot, swelteringly so. Close to Farleigh’s cottage stood an immense tree, with a seat encircling it. Grimshaw indicated this with a wave of his hand.

“Shall we get into the shade for a minute?”

Cicely assented, reflecting that she would remain in the shade for the rest of her life. She was torn in two by the wish to leave Grimshaw and the desire to hear what he might have to say. Must more horrors be faced?

She sat down on the rustic bench and furled her parasol. He stood near her, removed his soft felt hat, and began crumpling it between his hands. Her eyes rested upon his thin, nervous fingers.

“I dared not tell Lady Selina about the milk.”

“The milk?”

Very deliberately, in his most professional tone and manner, he dropped the bomb.

“I have examined fifteen samples of milk taken from cows in and about Upworthy. All—all the samples held organisms derived from manure.”

“Heavens!”

“Worse than that—some of the cows are tuberculous.”

Cicely wailed out:

“How and why have things come to this pass? It isn’t as if mother didn’t care. She does. So do I—tremendously. And with good-will on our part, with—with the sincere wish to do our duty—why have we failed?”

“If I could answer all questions as easily as that!”

“Please answer me.”

“I hate preaching. I hate indicting individuals. What is wrong here, and in thousands of other parishes, is the system. Peter is robbed to pay Paul. Compromise is the mot d’ordre. How can your mother or you know whether milk is pure or not? Of course, there is a man who is supposed to attend to these matters, a state-paid official. In my experience, most of these fellows—not too well paid, by the way—shirk their duties. Why? Because the foundations of the land system are rotten. Now and again a big fuss is made, and then things go on as before, simply because there is, as yet, no real awakening, no vital co-operation amongst land-owners. Many are good, some are outrageously bad—and they are ear-marked. The immense majority are indifferent, because they are ignorant. They simply don’t know what ought to be done. It’s futile to blame individuals. In a sense Gridley is responsible for the insanitary conditions in your pretty village. But I only blame him up to a point. With the best will in the world he would blunder horribly if he attempted drastic reform. Your mother would say that she can’t afford to employ an expert, but, between ourselves, she can’t afford not to do so. And really it comes to this: if land-owners can’t afford experts they must become experts themselves and teach their sons to become experts.”

“And their daughters?”

“And their daughters. This war, of course, has made things, the bad things, blatant. All the farmers are short-handed. I see an immense change in cow-sheds since I left last autumn. What drainage was done is now left undone. All I have said, Miss Chandos—and I have said it under pressure from you, and with the greatest reluctance—applies to everything here. Snitterfield, for instance, would not have neglected a patient so—so damnably, if he were not overworked. In his way, too, he is just as ignorant as Gridley. If ever he knew anything he has forgotten it. And there you are!”

She thanked him for his candour. He stared rather ruefully at his crumpled hat, smoothed it, and straightened it, put it on his head, and laughed.

“I feel these things too much,” he admitted.

“I can guess how you feel.”

“If your mother will be guided by Lord Wilverley, all will be well. He is a man of remarkable executive ability. But, if you have any influence, entreat Lady Selina to give him a free hand.”

“I promise to do that.”

“What it will mean to this village is—immeasurable. And co-operation between two large owners may lead to the one thing needful—a more general realisation of what union can achieve. A league of landlords is wanted. The farmers should be asked to adopt a more definite policy, but most of them, again, are ignorant and obstinate.” His voice softened. “All this is hard luck on you.”

“They are fighting in France,” replied Cicely.