‘One is prepared for almost anything.’

‘He will learn the business, before long,’ said Dr. Arthur, ‘if close attention can do it.’

‘What should he learn the business for?’ said his sister.  ’He has already all that the mill business could give him, without any trouble. I think he’s troubled in his wits; I do indeed.  He was always a wild boy, and now he’s a wilder man.’

‘Troubled in his wits!’ said Dr. Arthur, with such supreme derision, that Wych Hazel laughed.  To her own great relief, be it said.

‘But what is this that he has done?’ Mr. Falkirk inquired, his brows looking very much disgusted.

’My dear sir!  Fancy it.  Fancy it, Miss Kennedy.  The first thing he did was to raise the wages of his hands!’

Just one person caught the gleam from under Hazel’s down-cast eyes,—­perhaps something made his own quick-sighted.  Dr. Arthur answered for her.

’They were not half paid before, Mr. Falkirk.  That explains it.’

‘Weren’t they paid as other mill hands are paid, Dr. Arthur?’

‘The more need for a change, then,’ said the young man, who was a trifle Quixotic himself.

’But if the change is made by one man alone, he effects nothing but his own ruin.’

‘That is what Dane is about, I am firmly persuaded,’ said Mrs. Coles.

‘No man ever yet went to ruin by doing right,’ said Dr. Maryland.

‘Many a one!’ said Mr. Falkirk,—­’by doing what he thought right; from John Brown up to John Huss, and from John Huss back to the time when history is lost in a fog bank.’

‘They’ll get their reward, I suppose, in the other world,’ said Prudentia comfortably.

‘How will his ruin affect the poor mill people?’ said Wych Hazel, so seriously, that perhaps only Mr. Falkirk—­knowing her—­ knew what she was about.

’Why, my dear, it ruins them too in the end; that’s it.  When he fails, of course his improvements fail, and everything goes back where it was before.  Only worse.’

‘Precisely,’ said Mr. Falkirk.  ’You cannot lift the world out of the grooves it runs in, by mere force; and he who tries, will put his shoulder out of joint.’

’Then my picture of “the loss of all things,” is the portrait of a ruined man!’ said Wych Hazel, with an expressive glance at Dr. Maryland.  He smiled.

’It partly depends, you know, Miss Kennedy, upon where the race is supposed to end.  But our friend is running well at present, for both worlds.’

‘Arthur, he is not!’ said his sister emphatically.  ’Paul and John Charteris, the other mill-owners, hate him as hard as they can hate him; and if they can ruin him, they will; that you may depend upon.’

’And his own people love him as hard as they can,—­so that, even if you allow one rich mill-owner to be worth a hundred poor employes, Dane can still strike a fair balance.’—­Rather more than that, Dr. Arthur thought, as his quick eye took notice of the little screening hand that came suddenly up about Wych Hazel’s mouth and chin.