"It seems very hard," she said, with a distant look in her eyes.
"It's terribly hard," he answered; "and made all the harder by the landlord letting the farm over father's head."
"Of course he could, if he had been disposed to be generous, or even just."
"I've often heard that Lord St. Goram is a very hard man."
He started, and looked at her with a questioning light in his eyes.
"He needn't have claimed all his pound of flesh," she went on. "Law isn't everything. Nobody would have expected that all three 'lives' would have died in a dozen years."
"I believe the law of average works out to about forty-seven years," he said.
"In which case your father ought to have his farm another thirty-five years."
"He ought. In fact, no lease ought to be less than ninety-nine years. However, the chances of life have gone against father, and so we must submit."
"I don't understand any man exacting all his rights in such a case," she said sympathetically. "If only people would do to others as they would be done unto, how much happier the world would be!"
"Ah, if that were the case," he said, with a smile, "soldiers and policemen and lawyers would find all their occupations gone."
"But, all the same, what's religion worth if we don't try to put it into practice? The lord of the manor has, no doubt, the law on his side. He can legally claim his pound of flesh, but there's no justice in it."
"It seems to me the strong do not often know what justice means," he said, with an icy tone in his voice.
"No; don't say that," she replied, looking at him reproachfully. "I think most people are really kind and good, and would like to help people if they only knew how."
"I'm afraid most people think only of themselves," he answered.
"No, no; I'm sure----" Then she paused suddenly, while a look of distress or of annoyance swept over her face. "Why, here comes Lord Probus," she said, in a lower tone of voice, while the hot blood flamed up into her pale cheeks in a moment.
Ralph turned quickly round and looked towards the park gates.
"Good----" But he did not finish the sentence. She looked up into his face, and saw that it was dark with anger or disgust. Then she glanced again at the approaching figure of her affianced husband, then back again to the tall, handsome youth who stood by her side, and for a moment she involuntarily contrasted the two men. The lord and the commoner; the rich brewer and the poor, ejected tenant.