conscience that was troubling him:

"These young men have got free, they say--but _how_? It is not
likely that their lord hath set them free."

"Oh, no, I make no doubt they escaped."

"That is my trouble; I have a fear that this is so, and your
suspicion doth confirm it, you having the same fear."

"I should not call it by that name though. I do suspect that they
escaped, but if they did, I am not sorry, certainly."

"I am not sorry, I _think_--but--"

"What is it? What is there for one to be troubled about?"

"_If_ they did escape, then are we bound in duty to lay hands upon
them and deliver them again to their lord; for it is not seemly
that one of his quality should suffer a so insolent and high-handed
outrage from persons of their base degree."

There it was again. He could see only one side of it. He was
born so, educated so, his veins were full of ancestral blood that
was rotten with this sort of unconscious brutality, brought down
by inheritance from a long procession of hearts that had each done
its share toward poisoning the stream. To imprison these men
without proof, and starve their kindred, was no harm, for they were
merely peasants and subject to the will and pleasure of their lord,
no matter what fearful form it might take; but for these men to