THE MATING OF LYDIA

by

MRS. HUMPHRY WARD

1913

TO R. J. S. 

BOOK I

I

"Aye, it's a bit dampish, " said Dixon, as he brought a couple more logsto replenish a fire that seemed to have no heart for burning. 

The absurd moderation of the statement irritated the person to whom itwas addressed. 

"What I'm thinkin'"--said Mrs. Dixon, impatiently, as she moved to thewindow--"is that they'll mappen not get here at all! The watter'll beover t' road by Grier's mill. And yo' know varra well, it may be runnin'too fasst to get t' horses through--an' they'd be three pussons inside, an' luggage at top. "

"Aye, they may have to goa back to Pengarth--that's varra possible. "

"An' all t' dinner spoilin', an' t' fires wastin'--for nowt. " The speakerstood peering discontentedly into the gloom without: "But you'll nottrouble yoursen, Tammas, I daursay. "

"Well, I'm not Godamighty to mak' t' rain gie over, " was the man'scheerful reply, as he took the bellows to the damp wood which lay feeblycrackling and fizzing on the wide hearth. His exertions produced aspasmodic flame, which sent flickering tongues of light through the widespaces and shadows of the hall. Otherwise the deepening gloom of theOctober evening was lightened only by the rays of one feebly burning lampstanding apparently in a corridor or gallery just visible beyond a richlypillared archway which led from the hall to the interior of the house. Through this archway could be seen the dim ascending lines of a greatdouble staircase; while here and there a white carved doorway or corniceglimmered from the darkness. 

A stately Georgian house, built in a rich classical style, and datingfrom 1740: so a trained eye would have interpreted the architectural anddecorative features faintly disclosed by lamp and fire. But the house andits contents--the house and its condition--were strangely at war. Everywhere the seemly lines and lovely ornament due to its originalbuilders were spoilt or obliterated by the sordid confusion to which somemodern owner had brought it. It was not a house apparently, so far as itspresent use went, but a warehouse. There was properly speaking nofurniture in it; only a multitude of packing-cases, boxes of all shapesand sizes, piled upon or leaning against each other. The hall was chokedwith them, so that only a gangway a couple of yards wide was left, connecting the entrance door with the gallery and staircase. And any onestepping into the gallery, which with its high arched roof ran the wholelength of the old house, would have seen it also disfigured in the sameway. The huge deal cases stood on bare boards; the splendid staircase wascarpetless. Nothing indeed could have been more repellant than thegeneral aspect, the squalid disarray of Threlfall Tower, as seen from theinside, on this dreary evening. 

The fact impressed itself on Mrs. Dixon as she turned back from thewindow toward her husband. 

She looked round her sulkily. 

"Well, I've done my best, Tammas, and I daursay yo' have too. But it'snot a place to bring a leddy to--an' that's the truth. "

"Foaks mun please theirsels, " said Dixon with the same studied mildnessas before. Then, having at last made the logs burn, as he hoped, withsome brightness, he proceeded to sweep up the wide stone hearth. "Is t'rooms upstairs finished?"

"Aye--hours ago. " His wife dropped with a weary gesture upon a chair nearthe fire. "Tammas, yo' know it's a queer thing awthegither! What are theycoomin' here for at all?"

"Well, master's coom into t' property, an' I'm thinkin' it's nobbut hisdooty to coom an' see it. It's two year sen he came into 't; an' he'sdone nowt but tak' t' rents, an' turn off men, an' clutter up t' housewi' boxes, iver sense. It's time, I'm thinkin', as he did coom an' lukeinto things a bit. "

Thomas rose from his knees, and stood warming himself at the fire, whilehe looked pensively round him. He was as tired as his wife, and quite asmistrustful of what might be before them; but he was not going to confessit. He was a lean and gaunt fellow, blue-eyed and broad-shouldered, of aCumbria type commonly held to be of Scandinavian origin. His eye was alittle wandering and absent, and the ragged gray whiskers whichsurrounded his countenance emphasized the slight incoherence of itsexpression. Quiet he was and looked. But his wife knew him for one ofthe most incurably obstinate of men; the inveterate critic moreover ofeverything and every one about him, beginning with herself. This trait ofhis led her unconsciously to throw most of her remarks to him into theform of questions, as offering less target to criticism than other formsof statement. As for instance:

"Tammas, did yo' hear me say what I'd gotten from Mr. Tyson?"

"Aye. "

"That the mistress was an Eye-talian. "

"Aye--by the mother--an' popish, besides. "

Mrs. Dixon sighed. 

"How far 'ull it be to t' chapel at Scargill Fell?"

"Nine mile. She'll not be for takkin' much notice of her Sunday dootiesI'm thinkin'. "

"An' yo' unnerstan' she'll be juist a yoong thing? An't' baby only juistwalkin'. "

Dixon nodded. Suddenly there was a sound in the corridor--a girl's laugh, and a rush of feet. Thomas started slightly, and his wife observed him assharply as the dim light permitted. 

"Thyrza!" she raised her voice peremptorily. "What are you doing there?"

Another laugh, and the girl from whom it came ran forward into thelamp-light, threading her way through the packing-cases, and followed bya small fox-terrier who was jumping round her. 

"Doin'? There's nowt more to do as I know on. An' I'm most droppin'. "

So saying the girl jumped lightly on one of the larger packing-cases andsat there, her feet dangling. 

Mrs. Dixon looked at her with disapproval, but held her tongue. Thyrzawas not strictly her underling, though she was helping in the housework. She was the daughter of the small farmer who had been for years thetenant of part of the old house, and had only just been evicted inpreparation for the return of the owner of the property with his foreignwife. If Thyrza were too much scolded she would take her ways home, and, as her parents spoilt her, she would not be coerced into returning. Andhow another "day-girl" was to be found in that remote place, where, beyond the farm, a small house belonging to the agent, and a couple ofcottages, the nearest house to the Tower was at least three miles away, Mrs. Dixon did not know. 

"My word! what a night!" said Thyrza with another laugh a little stifledby the sweets she had just transferred from her pocket to her mouth. "They'll be drowned oot afore they get here. "

As she spoke, a wild gust flung itself over the house, as though tryingits strength against the doors and windows, and the rain swished againstthe panes. 

"Are t' fires upstairs burnin' reet?" asked Mrs. Dixon severely. She hadalready told Thyrza half a dozen times that day that such a greed forsweet things as she displayed would ruin her digestion and her teeth; andit ruffled a dictatorial temper to be taken no more notice of than if shewere a duck quacking in the farmyard. 

"Aye, they're burnin', " said Thyrza, with a shrug. Then she looked roundher with a toss of her decidedly graceful head. "But it's a creepy oldplace howivver. I'd not live here if I was paid. What does Muster Melrosewant wi' coomin' here? He's got lots o' money, Mr. Tyson says. He'llnivver stay. What was the use o' turnin' father out, an' makkin' a lot o'trouble?"

"This house is not a farmin' house, " said Dixon slowly, surveyingthe girl, as she sat on the packing-case swinging her feet, herstraw-coloured hair and pink cotton dress making a spot of pleasantcolour in the darkness as the lamp-light fell on them. "It's a house fort' gentry. "

"Well, then, t' gentry might clean it up an' put decent furnishin's into't, " said Thyrza defiantly. "Not a bit o' paperin' doon anywhere--juisttwo three rooms colour-washed, as yo' med do 'em at t' workhouse. An'that big hole in t' dinin'-room ceilin', juist as 'twas--and such shabbysticks o' things upstairs an' down as I nivver see! I'll have a goodsight better when _I_ get married, I know!"

Contempt ran sharply through the girl's tone. 

As she ceased speaking a step was heard in the corridor. Thyrza leapt tothe ground, Mrs. Dixon picked up her brush and duster, and Dixon resumedhis tending of the fire. 

A man in a dripping overcoat and leggings pushed his way rapidly throughthe cases, looking round him with an air of worried authority. 

"I don't call that much of a fire, Dixon. "

"I've been at it, sir, for near an hour. "

"You've got some damp wood. What about the drawing-room?"

He threw open a door on the right. The others followed him in. 

The open door revealed a room of singular architectural charm; an ovalroom panelled in dark oak, with a stucco ceiling, in free Italianatedesign. But within its stately and harmonious walls a single oil lamp, ofthe cheapest and commonest pattern, emitting a strong smell of paraffin, threw its light upon furniture, quite new, that most seaside lodgingswould have disdained; viz. , a cheap carpet of a sickly brown, leavingedges of bare boards between itself and the wainscot; an ugly "suite"covered with crimson rep, such as only a third-rate shop in a smallprovincial town could have provided; with a couple of tables, and a"chiffonier, " of the kind that is hawked on barrows in an East Endstreet. 

Mr. Tyson looked at the room uneasily. He had done his best with theridiculous sum provided; but of course it was all wrong. 

He passed on silently through a door in the wainscoting of thedrawing-room. The others again followed, Thyrza's mouth twitching withlaughter. 

Another large room, almost dark, with a few guttering candles on thetable. Mrs. Dixon went hastily to the fire and stirred it up. Then adining-table spread for supper was seen, and a few chairs. Everythinghere was as cheap and nasty as in the drawing-room, including the chinaand glass on the table. 

Thyrza pointed to the ceiling. 

"That's a pity howivver!" she said. "Yo' might ha' had it mended up abit, Mr. Tyson. Why t' rats will be coomin' through!"

She spoke with the pert assurance of a pretty girl who is only playingthe servant "to oblige. " The agent looked irritably at the ugly gap inthe fine tracing overhead, and then at Thyrza. 

"Mind your own business, please, Miss Thyrza!" And he walked quickly ontoward a farther door. 

Thyrza flushed, and made a face at him as he turned his back. The Dixonsfollowed the agent into the next room, Mrs. Dixon throwing behind her aninjunction to Thyrza to run upstairs and give a last look to thebedrooms. 

"Why isn't there a light here?" said the agent impatiently. He struck onefrom some matches in his pocket, and Mrs. Dixon hastily brought a candlefrom a huge writing-table standing in the middle of the floor. 

Except for that writing-table, and some fine eighteenth-centurybookcases, brass-latticed, which ran round the walls, fitting their everyline and moulding with delicate precision, the room was entirely empty. Moreover, the bookcases did not hold a single book, and the writing-tablewas bare. But for any person of taste, looking round him in the light ofthe candle which Mrs. Dixon held, the room was furnished. All kinds ofhuman and civilized suggestion breathed from the table and the bookcases. The contriving mind, with all its happy arts for the cheating andadorning of life, was to be felt. 

Mr. Tyson took it differently. 

"Look here!"--he said peremptorily to Mrs. Dixon--"you mind what you'redoing with that table. It's worth a mint of money. "

The Dixons looked at it curiously, but coldly. To them it was nothing buta writing-table with drawers made out of a highly polished outlandishwood, with little devices of gilt rails, and drawer-furnishings, and tinyfigures, and little bits of china "let in, " which might easily catch aduster, thought Mrs. Dixon, and "mak' trooble. " That it had belonged to aFrench dramatist under Louis Quinze, and then to a French Queen; that theplaques were Sèvres, and the table as a whole beyond the purse of any buta South African or American man of money, was of course nothing to her. 

"It bets me, " said Dixon, in the tone of one making conversation, "whyMuster Melrose didn't gie us orders to unpack soom more o' them cases. Summat like thatten"--he pointed to the table--"wud ha' lukit fine i'the drawin'-room. "

Tyson made no reply. He was a young man of strong will and taciturnhabit; and he fully realized that if he once began discussing with Dixonthe various orders received from Mr. Edmund Melrose with regard to hishome-coming, during the preceding weeks, the position that he, Tyson, intended to maintain with regard to that gentleman would not be made anyeasier. If you happened by mischance to have accepted an appointment toserve and represent a lunatic, and you discovered that you had done so, there were only two things to do, either to hold on, or "to chuck it. "But George Tyson, whose father and grandfather had been small land agentsbefore him, of the silent, honest, tenacious Cumbria sort, belonged toa stock which had never resigned anything, till at least the next stepwas clear; and the young man had no intention whatever of "chucking it. "But to hold on certainly meant patience, and as few words as might be. 

So he only stopped to give one more anxious look round the table to seethat no scratches had befallen it in the process of unpacking, gaveorders to Mrs. Dixon to light yet another fire in the room, which struckexceedingly chill, and then left them for a final tour round theground-floor, heaping on coals everywhere with a generous hand. On thispoint alone--the point of warmth--had Mr. Melrose's letters shown adisposition to part with money, in ordinary domestic way. "The odiousnessof your English climate is only matched by the absurdity of your Englishgrates, " he had written, urbanely, from Paris. "Get the house up tosixty, if you can. And get a man over from Carlisle to put in a furnace. I can see him the day after we arrive. My wife is Italian, and shiversalready at the thought of Cumbria. "

Sixty indeed! In this dank rain from the northeast, and on this highground, not a passage in the house could be got above forty-six; and thesitting-rooms were alternately stifling and vaultlike. 

"Well, I didn't build the house!" thought the agent with a quietexasperation in his mind, the result of much correspondence; and havingcompleted his tour of inspection, which included the modest supper nowcooking according to Mr. Melrose's orders--Mrs. Melrose had had nothingto do with it--in the vast and distant kitchen, the young man hung up hiswet overcoat, sat himself down by the hall fire, drew a newspaper fromhis pocket, and deliberately applied himself to it, till the carriageshould arrive. 

Meanwhile through the rain and wind outside, the expected owner ofThrelfall Tower and his wife and child were being driven through theendless and intricate lanes which divided the main road between Keswickand Pengarth from the Tower. 

The carriage contained Mr. Melrose, Mrs. Melrose, their infant daughteraged sixteen months, and her Italian nurse, Anastasia Doni. 

There was still some gray light left, but the little lady who satdismally on her husband's right, occasionally peering through the window, could make nothing of the landscape, because of the driving scuds of rainwhich drenched the carriage windows, as though in their mad charges fromthe trailing clouds in front, they disputed every inch of the miry waywith the newcomers. From the wet ground itself there seemed to rise alivid storm-light, reflecting the last gleams of day, and showing thedreary road winding ahead, dim and snakelike through intermittent trees. 

"Edmund!" said the lady suddenly, in a high thin voice, as though thewords burst from her--"If the water by that mill they talked about isreally over the road, I shall get out at once!"

"What?--into it?" The gentleman beside her laughed. "I don't remember, mydear, that swimming is one of your accomplishments. Do you propose tohang the baby round your neck?"

"Of course I should take her too! I won't run any risks at all with her!It would be simply wicked to take such a small child into danger. " Butthere was a fretful desperation in the tone, as of one long accustomed toprotest in vain. 

Mr. Melrose laughed once more--carelessly, as though it were not worthwhile to dispute the matter; and the carriage went on--battling, as itseemed, with the storm. 

"I never saw such an _awful_ place in my life!" said the wife's voiceagain--with the same note of explosion--after an interval. "It'shorrible--just _horrible_! All the way from Pengarth we've hardly seen ahouse, or a light!--and we've been driving nearly an hour. You don'texpect me to _live_ here, Edmund!" The tone was hysterical. 

"Don't be a fool, Netta! Doesn't it ever rain in your infernal country, eh? This is my property, my dear, worse luck! I regret it--but here weare. Threlfall has got to be my home--so I suppose it'll be yours too. "

"You could let or sell it, Edmund!--you know you could--if you cared afarthing about making me happy. "

"I have every reason to think it will suit me perfectly--and you too. "

The tone of the man which, hitherto, though mocking had been in the mainindulgent, had suddenly, harshly, changed. The wife dropped into thecorner of the carriage among her furs and wraps, and said no more. 

In another quarter of an hour the carriage turned a corner of the road, and came upon a tall building, of which the high irregular outline wasjust visible through the growing darkness. In front of it stood a groupof men with lanterns, and the carriage stopped beside them. 

A noise of tongues arose, and Mr. Melrose let down the window. 

"Is this where the road is flooded?" he asked of a stout man in a whitishcoat and cap who had come forward to speak to the coachman. 

"Aye, sir--but you'll get through. In an hour's time, mebbe ye couldn'tdo it. The water fro' the mill-race is over t' road, but it's nobbut afoot deep as yet. Yo'll do it varra well--but yo'd best not lose time!"

"Edmund!"--screamed the voice from inside--"Edmund!--let me out--let meout at once--I shall stay here with baby for the night. "

Mr. Melrose took no notice whatever. 

"Can you send those men of yours alongside us--in case there is anydanger of the coachman losing the road?" he said, addressing the man. 

"Aye, they'll keep along t' bank with the lanterns. Noa fear, missis, noafear!"

Another scream from inside. Mr. Melrose shut the window abruptly, and thecoachman whipped up his horses. 

"Let me get out, Edmund!--I will _not_ go on!"

Melrose brought a hand of iron down on his wife's wrist. 

"Be quiet, Netta! Of all the little idiots!--There now, the brat'sbegun!"--for the poor babe, awakened, had set up a wail. "Damn it!"--heturned fiercely to the nurse--"Keep it quiet, will you?"

On swayed the carriage, the water splashing against the wheels. Carriedby the two labourers who walked along a high bank beside the road, acouple of lanterns threw their wavering light on the flooded highway, the dripping, wind-lashed trees, the steaming horses. The yellow raysshowed the whirling eddies of autumnal leaves, and found fantasticreflection in the turbid water through which the horses were struggling. Presently--after half a mile or so--a roar on the right hand. Mrs. Melrose screamed again, only to be once more savagely silenced by herhusband. It was the roar of the mill-race approaching the weir, overwhich it was rushing in sheets of foam. The swollen river, a thunderouswhiteness beside the road, seemed every moment as if it must breakthrough the raised bank, and sweep carriage and horses into its own abyssof fury. Mrs. Melrose was now too terrified to cry out. She satmotionless and quivering, her baby on her lap, her white pointed face andstraining eyes touched every now and then by a ghostly gleam from thelanterns. Beside her--whispering occasional words in Italian to hermistress--sat the Italian nurse, pale too, but motionless, a woman fromthe Campagna, of a Roman port and dignity, who would have scorned to givethe master whom she detested any excuse for dubbing her a weakling. 

But the horses pulled bravely, the noise and the flood were left behind, and a bit of ascending road brought the travellers on to dry land again. 

The carriage stopped. The two labourers who had guided them approachedthe window, which Melrose had let down. 

"Yo'll do now!" they shouted with cheerful faces. "You've nobbut to dobut keep straight on, an' yo'll be at t' Tower in a coople o' miles. "

"Thank you, my men, thank you. Here's a drink for you, " said Melrose, stretching out his hand. 

The foremost labourer took the coin and held it to the lantern. He burstinto rough laughter. 

"Saxpence! My word, Jim!--here's a gentleman wot's free wi' his muny. Saxpence! Two men--and two lanterns--fur t' best part of a mile! We'regoin' cheap to-night, Jim. Gude meet to yer, sir, an' next time yo'may droon for me!"

"Saxpence!" The lad behind also applied his lantern to the coin. "Gie itme, Bob!" And raising it with a scornful gesture he flung it into theriver. Then standing still, with their hands on their hips, the lightfrom the lanterns on the ground breaking over their ruddy rain-washedfaces, they poured out a stream of jeers in broad Cumbrian, from whichthe coachman, angrily urged on by Melrose, escaped as quickly as hecould. 

"Insolent boors!" said Melrose as men and flood disappeared from view. "What did we want with them after all? It was only a device for bleedingus. "

Mrs. Melrose awoke from her trance of terror with a quavering breath. Shedid not understand what had passed, nor a word of what the labourers hadsaid; and in her belief over the peril escaped, and her utter fatigue, she gave the child to Anastasia, lay back, and closed her eyes. A suddenand blessed sleep fell upon her for a few minutes; from which she wasroused all too soon by grating wheels and strange voices. 

"Here we are, Netta--look alive!" said Melrose. "Put something round thechild, Anastasia. We have to walk through this court. No getting up tothe door. Find some umbrellas!"

The two women and the child descended. From the open house-door figurescame hurrying down a flagged path, through an untidy kitchen garden, tothe gate in a low outer wall in front of which the carriage had drawn up. 

Netta Melrose grasped the nurse's arm, and spoke in wailing Italian, asshe held an umbrella over the child. 

"What a place, Anastasia!--what a place! It looks like a prison! I shalldie here--I know I shall!"

Her terrified gaze swept over the old red sandstone house rising dark andgrim against the storm, and over the tangled thickets of garden dank withrain. 

But the next moment she was seized by the strong hands of Mrs. Dixon andThyrza, who half led, half carried, her into the hall of the Tower, whileDixon and young Tyson did the same for the nurse and baby. 

 * * * * *

"A very interesting old place, built by some man with a real fine taste!As far as I can see, it will hold my collections very well. "

The new owner of Threlfall Tower was standing in the drawing-room withhis back to the fire, alternately looking about him with an eagercuriosity, and rubbing his hands in what appeared to be satisfaction. Theagent surveyed him. 

Edmund Melrose at that moment--some thirty years ago--was a tall andremarkably handsome man of fifty, with fine aquiline features deeplygrooved and cut, a delicate nostril, and a domed forehead over which fellthick locks of black hair. He looked what he was--a man of wealth andfamily, spoilt by long years of wandering and irresponsible living, during which an inherited eccentricity and impatience of restraint haddeveloped into traits and manners which seemed as natural to himself asthey were monstrous in the sight of others. He had so far treated theagent with the scantest civility during their progress through the house;and Tyson's northern blood had boiled more than once. 

But the inspection of the house had apparently put its owner in a goodtemper, and he seemed to be now more genially inclined. He lit acigarette and offered Tyson one. Upstairs the child could be heardwailing. Its mother and nurse were no doubt ministering to it. Mrs. Melrose, so far as Tyson had observed her arrival, had cast hasty andshivering looks round the comfortlessness of the hall and drawing-room;had demanded loudly that some of the cases encumbering the hall andpassages should be removed or unpacked at once, and had then bade Mrs. Dixon take her and the child to their rooms, declaring that she wasnearly dead and would sup upstairs and go to bed. She seemed to Tyson tobe a rather pretty woman, very small and dark, with a peevish, excitablemanner; and it was evident that her husband paid her little or noattention. 

"I can't altogether admire your taste in carpets, Tyson, " said Melrose, presently, with a patronizing smile, his eyes fastening on themonstrosity in front of him. 

The young man flushed. 

"Your cheque, sir, was not a big one, and I had to make it go a long way. It was no good trying the expensive shops. "

"Oh, well!--I daresay Mrs. Melrose can put up with it. And what aboutthat sofa?" The speaker tried it--"Hm--not exactly Sybaritic--but veryfair, very fair! Mrs. Melrose will get used to it. "

"Mrs. Melrose, sir, I fear, will find this place a bit lonesome, and outof the way. "

"Well, it is not exactly Piccadilly, " laughed Melrose. "But a woman thathas her child is provided for. How can she be dull? I ask you"--herepeated in a louder and rather hectoring voice--"how can she possibly bedull?"

Tyson murmured something inaudible, adding to it--"And you, sir? Are youa sportsman?"

Melrose threw up his hands contemptuously. "The usual British question!What barbarians we are! It may no doubt seem to you extraordinary--but Ireally never want to kill anything--except sometimes, perhaps, --a dealer. My amusements"--he pointed to two large cases at the end of theroom--"are pursued indoors. "

"You will arrange your collections?"

"Perhaps, yes--perhaps, no. When I want something to do, I may beginunpacking. But I shall be in no hurry. Any way it would take me months. "

"Is it mostly furniture you have sent home, sir?"

"Oh, Lord, no! Clocks, watches, ironwork, china, stuffs, brasses--something of everything. A few pictures--no great shakes--asyet. But some day I may begin to buy them in earnest. Meanwhile, Tyson--_economy_!"--he lifted a monitory finger. "All my income isrequired--let me inform you at once--for what is my hobby--my passion--mymania, if you like--the collecting of works of art. I have graduallyreduced my personal expenditures to a minimum, and it must be the samewith this estate. No useless outlay of any kind. Every sixpence will beimportant to me. "

"Some of the cottages are in a very bad state, Mr. Melrose. "

"Paradises, I'll be bound, compared to some of the places I have beenliving among, in Italy. Don't encourage people to complain; that's thegreat point. Encourage them, my dear sir, to make the best of things--totake life _cheerfully_. "

Certain cottages on the estate presented themselves to the agent's mind. He lifted his eyebrows imperceptibly, and let the subject drop, inquiringinstead whether his employer meant to reside at the Tower during thewhole or the greater part of the year. 

Melrose smiled. "I shall always spend the winterhere--arranging--cataloguing--writing. " Again the cigarette, held in verylong, thin fingers, described a wide semicircle in the dim light, asthough to indicate the largeness of the speaker's thoughts. "But in Marchor April, I take flight from here--I return to the chase. To use ahunting metaphor, in the summer I kill--and store. In the winter Iconsume--ruminate--chew the cud. Do you follow my metaphor?"

"Not precisely, " said Tyson, looking at him with a quiet antagonism. "Isuppose you mean you buy things and send them home?"

Melrose nodded. "Every dealer in Europe knows me by now--and expectsme. They put aside their best things for me. And I prefer to hunt insummer--even in the hot countries. Heat has no terror, for me; andthere are fewer of your damned English and American tourists about. "

"I see. " Tyson hesitated a moment, then said: "And I suppose, sir, Mrs. Melrose goes with you?"

"Not at all! You cannot go dragging babies about Europe any more than isabsolutely necessary. Mrs. Melrose will make her home here, and will nodoubt become very much attached to this charming old house. By the way, what neighbours are there?"

"Practically none, sir. "

"But there is a church--and I suppose a parson?"

"Not resident. The clergyman from Gimmers Wick comes over alternateSundays. "

"H'm. Then I don't see why I was asked to contribute to church repairs. What's the good of keeping the place up at all?"

"The people here, sir, set great store both by their church and theirservices. They have been hoping, now that you and Mrs. Melrose have cometo live here, that you might perhaps be willing to pay some suitable manto take the full duty. "

Melrose laughed aloud. 

"I? Good Heavens! I pay a parson to read me the English Church services!Well, I don't wish to inflict my religious opinions upon any one, Tyson;but I may as well tell you that they don't run at all in the direction ofparsons. And Mrs. Melrose--why I told you she was a Catholic--a RomanCatholic. What does she want with a church? But a parson's wife mighthave been useful. By the way, I thought I saw a nice-looking girl when wearrived, who has since disappeared. "

"That was Thyrza Smart, sir--the daughter of Smart, the farmer. "

"Excellent! Mrs. Melrose shall make friends with her. "

"And of course, sir, both Pengarth and Keswick are within a drive. "

"Oh, that's no good, " said Melrose, easily. "We shall have no carriage. "

The agent stared. "No carriage? I am afraid in that case you will find itvery difficult getting about. There are no flys anywhere near that youcan hire. "

"What do we want with them?" Melrose lit another cigarette. "I may have ahorse--possibly. And of course there's the light cart I told you to get. We can't trust these things"--he pointed to the packages in theroom--"to irresponsible people. "

"The cart, sir, has been constantly at work. But--it won't exactly suitMrs. Melrose. " Tyson smiled discreetly. 

"Oh! leave that to me--leave that to me!" said Melrose with an answeringgood humour. "Stable and carriage expenses are the deuce. There never wasa coachman yet that didn't rob his employer. Well, thank you; I'm glad tohave had this talk with you, and now, I go to bed. Beastly cold, I mustsay, this climate of yours!"

And with a very evident shiver the speaker buttoned the heavy fur coat hehad never yet taken off more closely round him. 

"What about that man from Carlisle--and the furnace?" he inquiredsharply. 

"He comes to-morrow, sir. I could not get him here earlier. I fear itwill be an expensive job. "

"No matter. With my work, I cannot risk incessant attacks of rheumatism. The thing must be done, and done well. Good-night to you, Tyson. "

Mr. Melrose waved a dismissing hand. "We shall resume our discussionto-morrow. "

The agent departed. Melrose, left solitary, remained standing a whilebefore the fire, examining attentively the architecture and decorationsof the room, so far as the miserable light revealed them. Italian, nodoubt, the stucco work of the ceiling, with its embossed nymphs andcupids, its classical medallions. Not of the finest kind or period, butvery charming--quite decorative. The house had been built on the site ofan ancient border fortess, toward the middle of the eighteenth century, by the chief of a great family, from whose latest representative, hismother's first cousin, Edmund Melrose had now inherited it. Nothing couldbe more curious than its subsequent history. For it was no soonerfinished, in a pure Georgian style, and lavishly incrusted in all itsprincipal rooms with graceful decoration, than the man who built it died. His descendants, who had plenty of houses in more southern and populousregions, turned their backs upon the Tower, refused to live in it, and, failing to find a tenant of the gentry class, let part of it to thefarmer, and put in a gardener as caretaker. Yet a certain small sum hadalways been allowed for keeping it in repair, and it was only within thelast few years that dilapidation had made head. 

Melrose took up the lamp, and carried it once more through theground-floor of the Tower. Save for the dying fires, and the sputteringlamp, everything was dark and still in the spacious house. The storm wasdying down in fitful gusts that seemed at intervals to invade the shadowyspaces of the corridor, driving before them the wisps of straw and paperthat had been left here and there by the unpacking of the greatwriting-table. There could be no ghosts in the house, for nothing but afraction of it had ever sheltered life; yet from its architecturalbeauty there breathed a kind of dumb, human protest against thedisorderly ill-treatment to which it had been subjected. 

In spite of his excitement and pre-occupation, Melrose felt it, andpresently he turned abruptly, and went upstairs, still carrying the lamp;through the broad upper passage answering to the corridor below, wheredoors in deep recesses, each with its classical architrave, and itscarved lintels, opened from either side. The farthest door on the righthe had been shown as that of his wife's room; he opened one nearer, andlet himself into his dressing-room, where Anastasia had taken care tolight the fire, which no north country-woman would have thought oflighting for a mere man. 

Putting the lamp down in the dressing-room, he pushed open his wife'sdoor, and looked in. She was apparently asleep, and the child beside her. The room struck cold, and, by a candle in a basin, he saw that it waslittered from end to end with the contents of two or three trunks thatwere standing open. The furniture was no less scanty and poor than in thesitting-rooms, and the high panelled walls closing in upon the bed gave adungeonlike aspect to the room. 

A momentary pity for his wife, brought to this harsh Cumbrian spot, fromthe flowers and sun, the Bacchic laughter and colour of a Tuscan vintage, shot through Melrose. But his will silenced it. "She will get used toit, " he said to himself again, with dry determination. Then he turned onhis heel. The untidiness of his wife's room, her lack of method andcharm, and the memory of her peevishness on the journey disgusted him. There was a bed in his dressing-room; and he was soon soundly asleepthere. 

But his wife was not asleep, and she had been well aware of his presenceon her threshold. While he stood there, she had held her breath, "willing" him to go away again; possessed by a silent passion of rage andrepulsion. When he closed the door behind him, she lay wide awake, trembling at all the night sounds in the house, lost in a thousandterrors and wild regrets. 

Suddenly, with a crash the casement window at the farther end of the roomburst open under an onset of wind, Netta only just stifled the scream onher lips. She sat up, her teeth chattering. It was _awful_; but she mustget up and shut it. Shivering, she crept out of bed, threw a shawl roundher, and made one flight across the floor, possessed with a mad alarmlest the candle, which was flickering in the draught, should go out, andleave her in darkness. 

But now that the window was open she saw, as she approached, that thenight was not dark. There was a strong moonlight outside, and when shereached the window she drew in her breath. For there, close upon her, asit seemed, like one of her own Apennines risen and stalking through thenight, towered a great mountain, cloud-wreathed, and gashed with vastravines. The moon was shining on it between two chasing clouds, and thelight and shade of the great spectacle, its illumined slopes, andimpenetrable abysses, were at once magnificent and terrible. 

Netta shut the window with groping, desperate hands, and rushed back tobed. Never had she felt so desolate, so cut off from all that once madeher poor little life worth living. Yet, though she cried for a fewminutes in sheer self-pity, it was not long before she too was asleep. 

II

The day after the Melroses' arrival at the Tower was once more a day ofrain--not now the tempestuous storm rain which had lashed the millstream to fury, and blustered round the house as they stepped into it, but one of those steady, gray, and featureless downpours thatWestmoreland and Cumbria know so well. The nearer mountains which werewholly blotted out, and of the far Helvellyn range and the Derwentwaterhills not a trace emerged. All colour had gone from the grass and theautumn trees; a few sheep and a solitary pony in the fields near thehouse stood forlorn and patient under the deluge; heaven and earth met inone fusion of rain just beyond the neglected garden that filled the frontcourt; while on three sides of the house, and penetrating through everynook and corner of it, there rose, from depths far below, the roar of thestream which circled the sandstone rock whereon the Tower was built. 

Mrs. Melrose came down late. She descended the stairs slowly, rubbing hercold hands together, and looking forlornly about her. She wore a dress ofsome straw-coloured stuff, too thin for the climate of a Cumbria autumn, and round her singularly small and fleshless neck, a wisp of blackvelvet. The top of the head was rather flat, and the heavy dark hair, projecting stiffly on either side of the face, emphasized at once thesharpness of the little bony chin, the general sallowness of complexion, and the remarkable size and blackness of the eyes. There was somethingsnakelike about the flat head, and the thin triangular face; an effectwhich certainly belied the little lady, for there was nothing maliciousor sinister in her personality. 

She had not yet set eyes on her husband, who had risen early, and couldnow be heard giving directions to some one in the library to her right--acarpenter apparently, since there was hammering going on. She supposedshe must find out something about the kitchen and the servants. Anastasiahad brought up her breakfast that morning, with a flushed face, mutteringcomplaint against the woman downstairs. A terror struck through her. IfAnastasia should desert her--should give notice!

Timidly she pushed open the door of the big kitchen, and prepared toplay the mistress. Mrs. Dixon was standing at the kitchen table with apastry-board before her, making a meat pie. She greeted her new mistresscivilly, though guardedly, and went on with what she was doing. 

"Are you going to cook for us?" asked Mrs. Melrose, helplessly. 

"That's what I unnerstood fro' Muster Tyson, ma'am. "

"Then I came to speak to you about dinner. "

"Thank you, ma'am, but Muster Melrose gave me the orders a good whilesen. There was a cart goin' into Pengarth. "

Pengarth was the nearest country town, some eight miles away. 

Mrs. Melrose coloured. 

"I must tell you what the baby requires, " she said, drawing herself up. 

Mrs. Dixon looked at the speaker impassively, over her spectacles. 

Mrs. Melrose hurriedly named a patent food--some specialbiscuits--bananas. 

"Yo' can have the milk yo' want fro' t' farm, " said Mrs. Dixon slowly, inreply; "but there's nowt of aw them things i' t' house as I knows on. "

"Then we must send for them. "

Mrs. Dixon shook her head. 

"There won't be anoother cart goin' in till t' day after to-morrow. "

"I can't have the baby neglected!" exclaimed Mrs. Melrose, with suddenshrillness, looking angrily at the rugged face and figure before her. 

"Mebbe yo'd go an talk to t' master?" suggested Mrs. Dixon, not without, as it seemed to Netta, a touch of slyness in eyes and voice. Of coursethey all knew by now that she was a cipher--that she was not to count. Edmund had been giving all the orders--in his miserly cheese-paring way. No comforts!--no conveniences!--not even bare necessaries, for herselfand the child. Yet she knew very well that her husband was a richman. 

She turned and went in search of him, making her way with difficultythrough the piles of boxes. What could be in them all? Edmund must havebeen buying for years. Every now and then as she stooped to look at thelabels pasted upon them, she caught names well known to her. Orbatelli, Via dei Bardi 13, Firenze; Bianchi, Via Mazzini 12, Lucca; FratelliMasai, Via Manzoni, Pisa. And everywhere the recurrent word--_Antichità_. 

How she hated the word!--how she hated the associations linked with it, and with the names on the boxes. They were bound up with a score ofhumbling memories, the memories of her shabby, struggling youth. Shethought of her father--the needy English artist, Robert Smeath, with justa streak, and no more than a streak, of talent, who had become rapidly"Italianate" in the Elizabethan sense--had dropped, that is, the Englishvirtues, without ever acquiring the Italian. He had married her mother, aFlorentine girl, the daughter of a small _impiegato_ living in one of thedismal new streets leading out of Florence on the east, and had thenpursued a shifting course between the two worlds, the English and theItalian, ordering his household and bringing up his children in Italianfashion, while he was earning his keep and theirs, not at all by theshowy pictures in his studio which no one would buy, but as jackal in_antichità_, to the richer English and American tourists. He kept agreedy eye on the artistic possessions still remaining in the hands ofimpoverished native owners; he knew the exact moment of debt anddifficulty in which to bring a foreign gold to bear; he was an adept inall the arts by which officials are bribed, and pictures are smuggled. And sometimes these accomplishments of his resulted in large accessionsof cash, so that all the family lived on the fat of the land, boughtgorgeous attire, and went to Livorno, or Viareggio, or the Adriaticcoast, for the summer. And sometimes there was no luck, and thereforeno money. Owners became unkindly patriotic and would not sell. Or somepromising buyer, after nibbling for months, went off finally unhooked. Then the apartment in the Via Giugno showed the stress of hard times. Thegirls wore their old clothes to rags; the mother did all the work of thehouse in a bedgown and slippers; and the door of the apartment was neveropened more than a few inches to any applicant, lest creditors should getin. 

And the golden intervals got fewer, and the poverty more persistent, asthe years went on. Till at last, by the providence--or malice--of thegods, a rich and apparently prodigal Englishman, Edmund Melrose, hungryfor _antichità_ of all sorts, arrived on the scene. Smeath became rapidlythe bond-slave of Melrose, in the matter of works of art. The two madeendless expeditions together to small provincial towns, to remote villasin the Apuan or Pisan Alps, to _palazzi_ in Verona, or Lucca, or Siena. Melrose indeed had not been long in finding out that the little artistwas both a poor judge and a bad agent. Netta's cheek always flamed whenshe thought of her father's boastings and blunderings, and of the wayin which Edmund had come to treat him. And now the Smeath family werejust as poor as ever again. Her little sisters had scarcely a dress totheir backs; and she was certain her mother was both half-starved andover-worked. Edmund had not been at all kind to them since hermarriage--not at all!

How had he come to marry her? She was well aware that it was anextraordinary proceeding on his part. He was well born on both sides, and, by common report among the English residents in Florence, enormouslyrich, though his miserly habits had been very evident even in the firstdays of their acquaintance. He might no doubt have married anybody hepleased; if he would only have taken the trouble. But nothing wouldinduce him to take any trouble--socially. He resented the demands andstandards of his equals; turned his back entirely on normal Englishsociety at home and abroad; and preferred, it seemed, to live with hisinferiors, where his manners might be as casual, and his dress ascareless as he pleased. The queer evenings and the queer people in theirhorrid little flat had really amused him. Then he had been ill, and mamahad nursed him; and she, Netta, had taken him a pot of carnations whilehe was still laid up; and so on. She had been really pretty in thosedays; much prettier than she had ever been since the baby's birth. Shehad been attractive too, simply because she was young, healthy, talkative, and forthcoming; goaded always by the hope of marriage, andmoney, and escape from home. His wooing had been of the most despoticaland patronizing kind; not the kind that a proud girl would have put upwith. Still there had been wooing; a few presents; a frugal cheque forthe trousseau; and a honeymoon fortnight at Sorrento. 

Why had he done it?--just for a whim?--or to spite his English family, some member of which would occasionally turn up in Florence and try toput in claims upon him--claims which infuriated him? He was the mostwilful and incalculable of men; caring nothing, apparently, one day forposition and conventionality, and boasting extravagantly of his familyand ancestors the next. 

"He was rather fond of me--for a little, " she thought to herself wearily, as she stood at the hall window, looking out into the rain. At the pointwhich things had now reached she knew very well that she meant nothing atall to him. He would not beat her, or starve her, or even, perhaps, desert her. Such behaviour would disturb his existence as much as hers;and he did not mean to be disturbed. She might go her own way--she andthe child; he would give her food and lodging and clothes, of a sort, solong as she did not interfere with his tastes, or spend his money. 

Then, suddenly, while she stood wrathfully pondering, a gust of angerrose--childish anger, such as she had shown the night before, when shehad tried to get out of the carriage. She turned, ran down the corridorto the door which she understood was the door of his study--and enteredwith a burst. 

"Edmund!--I want to speak to you!"

Melrose, who was hanging, frowning and absorbed, over a carpenter who wasfreeing what seemed to be an old clock from the elaborate swathings ofpaper and straw in which it had been packed, looked up with annoyance. 

"Can't you see, Netta, that I'm very busy?"

"I can't help it!--it's about baby. "

With a muttered "D--n!" Melrose came toward her. 

"What on earth do you want?"

Netta looked at him defiantly. 

"I want to be told whenever the cart goes into Pengarth--there were lotsof things to get for baby. And I must have something here that I candrive myself. We can't be cut off from everything. "

"Give your orders to Mrs. Dixon then about the cart, " said Melroseangrily. "What has it to do with me? As for a carriage, I have no moneyto spend on any nonsense of the kind. We can do perfectly well withoutit. "

"I only want a little pony-cart--you could get it second-hand for ten ortwelve pounds--and the farmer has got a pony. "

She looked at him--sallow, and frowning. 

Melrose pushed her into the passage and drew the door to, behind him, sothat the carpenter might not hear. 

"Ten or twelve pounds! Do you expect I get money off the hedges? Can'tyou be content here like a reasonable woman, without getting me intodebt?"

Netta laughed and tossed her head. 

"You shouldn't leave your business letters about!"

"What do you mean?"

"There was a cheque among your papers one day last week!--I saw it beforeyou could hide it away. It was for £3, 000--a dividend from something--acoal mine, I think. And the week before you had another--"

Her husband's eyes shed lightnings. 

"I'll not have you prying into my affairs!" he said violently. "All Ihave is wanted--and more. "

"And nothing of course--to give _me_--your wife!--for any comforts orpleasures! That never enters into your head!"

Her voice came thickly already. Her chest began to heave. 

"There now--crying again!" said Melrose, turning on his heel. "Can't yousometimes thank your stars you're not starving in Florence, and just putup with things a little?"

Netta restrained herself. 

"So I would"--she said, choking--"if--"

"If what--"

For all answer, she turned and hurried away toward the hall. Melroselooked after her with what appeared like exasperation, then suddenlyrecaptured himself, smoothed his brow, and, returning to the study, gavehimself with unruffled zest and composure to the task of unpacking theBoule clock. 

Netta repaired to the drawing-room, and threw herself on to theuncomfortable sofa, struggling with her tears. For about a fortnightafter her marriage she had imagined herself in love with Melrose; thenwhen the personal illusion was gone, the illusion of position and wealthpersisted. He might be queer, and behave queerly in Italy. But when theyreturned to England she would find herself the wife of a rich Englishgentleman, and the gingerbread would once more be gilt. Alack! a fewweeks in a poor London Lodging with no money to spend on the shops whichtempted her woman's cupidity at every step; Edmund's final refusal, firstlaughing, then stubborn, to present her to "my devilish relations"; thecomplete indifference shown to her wishes as to the furnishings of theTower; these various happenings had at last brought her to an unwelcomecommerce with the bare truth. She had married a selfish eccentric, whohad chosen her for a caprice and was now tired of her. She had not afarthing, nor any art or skill by which to earn one. Her family was aspenniless as herself. There was nothing for it but to submit. But hertemper and spirits had begun steadily to give way. 

_Firenze!_ As she sat in her cheerless drawing-room, hating its uglyshabbiness, and penetrated with the damp chill of the house, there sweptthrough her a vision of the Piazza del Duomo, as she had last seen it ona hot September evening. A blaze of light--delicious all-prevailingwarmth--the moist bronzed faces of the men--the girls with the look ofphysical content that comes in hot countries with the evening--the sunflooding with its last gold, now the new marbles of the _facciata_, now the alabaster and bronze of the Baptistery, and now the movingcrowds--the flowers-baskets--the pigeons--

She lifted her eyes with a sobbing breath, and saw the graycloud-curtain--the neglected garden--the solitary pony in thefield--with the shafts of rain striking across it. Despair stirred inher--the physical nostalgia of the south. A happy heart might havesilenced the craving nerves; but hers was far from happy. 

The door opened. A head was thrust in--the head of a fair-haired girl. There was a pause. 

"What do you want?" said Mrs. Melrose, haughtily, determined to assertherself. 

Thyrza came in slowly. She held a bunch of dripping Michaelmas daisies. 

"Shall I get a glass for them? I thowt mebbe you'd like 'em in here. "

Netta thanked her ungraciously. She remembered having seen the girl thenight before, and Anastasia had mentioned her as the daughter of the_Contadino_. 

Thyrza put the flowers in water, Netta watching her in silence; thengoing into the hall, she returned with a pair of white lace curtains. 

"Shall I put 'em up? It 'ud mebbe be more cheerful. "

Netta looked at them languidly. 

"Where do they come from?"

"Mr. Tyson brought 'em from Pengarth. He thowt you might like 'em for thedrawing-room. "

Mrs. Melrose nodded, and Thyrza mounted a chair, and proceeded to put upthe curtains, turning an observant eye now and then on the thin-facedlady sitting on the sofa, her long fingers clasped round her knees, andher eyes--so large and staring as to be rather ugly than beautiful inThyrza's opinion--wandering absently round the room. 

"It's a clashy day, " Thyrza ventured at last. 

"It's a dreadful day, " said Mrs. Melrose sharply. "Does it always rainlike this?"

"Well, it _do_ rain, " was Thyrza's cautious reply. "But there that'sbetter than snowin'--for t' shepherds. "

Mrs. Melrose found the girl's voice pleasant, and could not deny that shewas pretty, in her rustic way. 

"Has your father many sheep?"

"Aye, but they're all gone up to t' fells for t' winter. We had a grandtime here in September--at t' dippin'. Yo'd never ha' thowt there was somony folk about"--the girl went on, civilly, making talk. 

"I never saw a single house, or a single light, on the drive from thestation last night, " said Mrs. Melrose, in her fretful voice. "Where areall the people?"

"Well, there ain't many!" laughed Thyrza. "It's a lonesome place this is. But when it's a shearin', or a dippin', yo' unnerstand, farmin' folk'llcoom a long way to help yan anuther. "

"Are they all farmers about here?"

"Mostly. Well, there's Duddon Castle!" Thyrza's voice, a little muffledby the tin-tacks in the mouth, came from somewhere near the top of a tallwindow--"Oh--an' I forgot!--"

In a great hurry the speaker jumped down from her perch, and to Netta'sastonishment ran out of the room. 

"What is she about?" thought Mrs. Melrose irritably. But the question washardly framed before Thyrza reappeared, holding out her hand, in whichlay some visiting-cards. 

"I should ha' given them yo' before. "

Mrs. Melrose took them with surprise, and read the name. 

"Countess Tatham--who is she?"

"Why it's she that lives at Duddon Castle. " Then the girl lookeduncertainly at her companion--"Mr. Tyson did tell me she was a relationof Mr. Melrose. "

"A relation? I don't know anything about her, " said Netta decidedly. "Didshe come to call upon me?"

The girl nodded--"She come over--it was last Tuesday--from Duddon, wi'two lovely horses--my, they were beauties! She said she'd come again. "

Netta asked questions. Lady Tatham, it seemed, was the great lady of theneighbourhood, and Duddon Castle was a splendid old place, that all thevisitors went to see. And there were her cards. Netta's thoughts began tohurry thither and thither, and possibilities began to rise. A relation ofEdmund's? She made Thyrza tell her all she knew about Duddon and theTathams. Visions of being received there, of meeting rich andaristocratic people, of taking her place at last in society, the placethat belonged to her as Edmund's wife, in spite of his queer miserlyways, ran again lightly through a mind that often harboured such dreamsbefore--in vain. Her brow cleared. She made Thyrza leave the curtains, and sit down to gossip with her. And Thyrza, though perfectly conscious, as the daughter of a hard-working race, that to sit gossiping at middaywas a sinful thing, was none the less willing to sin; and she chatteredon in a Westmoreland dialect that grew steadily broader as she feltherself more at ease, till Mrs. Melrose could scarcely follow her. 

But she managed to seize on the facts that concerned her. Lady Tatham, itseemed, was a widow, with an only boy, a lad of seven, who was the heirto Duddon Castle, and its great estates. The Castle was ten miles fromthe Tower. 

"How shall I ever get there?" thought Mrs. Melrose, despairingly. 

As to other neighbours, they seemed to consist entirely of an oldbachelor doctor, about three miles away, and the clergyman of GimmersWick and his wife. _She_ was sure to come. But most people were "glad tosee the back on her. " She had such a poor spirit, and was alwayscomplaining. 

In the midst of this conversation, the door of the room, which was ajar, slowly opened. Thyrza looked round and saw in the aperture a tiny whitefigure. It was the Melrose baby, standing silent, wide-eyed, with itsfingers in its mouth, and Anastasia behind it. Anastasia, whose look wasstill thunderous, explained that she was unpacking and could not do withit. The child toddled in to its mother, and Thyrza exclaimed inadmiration:

"Oh, you _are_ a little beauty!"

And she caught up one of the brass curtain rings lying on the table, andtried to attract the baby with it. But the little thing took not thesmallest notice of the lure. She went straight to her mother, and, leaning against Netta's knee, she turned to stare at Thyrza with anintensity of expression, rare in a child so young. Thyrza, kneeling onthe floor, stared back--fascinated. She thought she had never seenanything so lovely. The child had her father's features, etherealized;and great eyes, like her mother, but far more subtly beautiful. Her skinwas pale, but of such a texture that Thyrza's roses-and-milk looked roughand common beside it. Every inch of the proud little head was coveredwith close short curls leaving the white neck free, and the hand liftedto her mouth was of a waxen delicacy. 

Netta opened a picture-book that Anastasia had brought down with her. Felicia pushed it away. Netta opened it again. Then the child, snatchingit from her, sat down on the floor, and, before Netta could prevent her, tore one of the pages across with a quick, vindictive movement--hereyes sparkling. 

"Naughty--! naughty!" said Netta in a scolding voice. 

But Thyrza dropped her hand hastily into a gray calico pocket tied roundher waist, and again held out something. 

"It is only a pear-drop, " she said apologetically to Netta. "It won'thurt her. "

Felicia snatched at it at once, and sucked it, still flushed withpassion. Her mother smiled faintly. 

"You like sweets?" she said, childishly, to her companion; "give me one?"

Thyrza eagerly brought out a paper bag from her pocket and Netta put outa pair of thin fingers. She and her sisters had been great consumers ofsweet stuff in the small dark Florentine shops. The shared greedinesspromoted friendship; and by the time Mrs. Dixon put in a reproachful facewith a loud--"Thyrza, what _be_ you a doin'?"--Mrs. Melrose knew as muchof the Tower, the estate, the farm, and the persons connected with them, as Thyrza's chattering tongue could tell her in the time. 

There was nothing, however, very consoling in the information. WhenThyrza departed, Mrs. Melrose was left to fret and sigh much as before. The place was odious; she could never endure it. But yet the possibleadvent of "Countess Tatham" cast a faint ray on the future. 

A few days later Lady Tatham appeared. Melrose had been particularlyperverse and uncommunicative on the subject. "Like her audacity!"--soNetta had understood his muttered comment, when she took him the cards. He admitted that the lady and he were cousins--the children of firstcousins; and that he had once seen a good deal of her. He called her "anaudacious woman"; but Mrs. Melrose noticed that he did not forbid her thehouse; nay, rather that he listened with some attention to Thyrza'sreport that the lady had promised to call again. 

On the afternoon of the call, the skies were clear of rain, though not ofcloud. The great gashed mountain to the north which Dixon calledSaddleback, while a little Cumbria "guide, " produced by Tyson, called itBlencathra, showed sombrely in a gray light; and a November wind was busystripping what leaves still remained from the woods by the stream and inthe hollows of the mountain. Landscape and heavens were of an ironbracingness and bareness; and the beauty in them was not for eyes likeNetta's. She had wandered out forlornly on the dank paths descending tothe stream. Edmund as usual was interminably busy fitting up one of thelower rooms for some of his minor bric-à-brac--ironwork, small bronzes, watches, and clocks. Anastasia and the baby were out. 

Would Anastasia stay? Already she looked ill; she complained of herchest. She had made up her mind to come with the Melroses for the sake ofher mother and sister in Rome, who were so miserably poor. Netta feltthat she--the mistress--had some security against losing her, in the merelength and cost of the journey. To go home now, before the end of herthree months, would swallow up all the nurse had earned; for Edmund wouldnever contribute a farthing. Poor Anastasia! And yet Netta felt angrilytoward her for wishing to desert them. 

"For of course I shall take her home--in March. We shall all be goingthen, " she said to herself with an emphasis, almost a passion, which yetwas full of misgiving. 

Suddenly, just as she had returned by a steep path to the dilapidatedterrace on the north side of the house--a sound of horses' feet andwheels. Evidently a carriage--a caller. Netta's pulse fluttered. She raninto the house by a side door, and up to her room, where she smoothedher hair anxiously, and lightly powdered her face. There was no time tochange her dress, but she took out a feather boa which she kept for greatoccasions, and prepared to descend with dignity. Oh the stairs she metMrs. Dixon, who announced "Lady Tatham. "

"Find Mr. Melrose, please. "

"Oh, he's there, Ma'am, awready. "

Netta entered the drawing-room to see her husband pacing up and-downbefore a strange lady, who sat in one of the crimson armchairs, entirelyat her ease. 

"So this is your wife, Edmund, " said Lady Tatham, as she rose. 

"It is. You'll make mock of her no doubt--as you do of me. "

"Nonsense! I never make mock of anybody, " said a musical voice, richhowever through all its music in a rather formidable significance. Theowner of it turned toward Netta. 

"I hope, Mrs. Melrose, that you will like Cumbria?"

Netta, accustomed to Edmund's "queerness, " and determined to hold herown, settled herself deliberately opposite her visitor, and was sooncomplaining in her shrill voice of the loneliness of the place and thedamp of the climate. Melrose never once looked at his wife. He waspaler than usual, with an eager combative aspect, quite new to Netta. Heseemed for once to be unsure of his ground--both to expect attack, evento provoke it--and to shrink from it. His eyes were fixed upon LadyTatham, and followed her every movement. 

Attention was certainly that lady's due; and it failed her rarely. Shehad beauty--great beauty; and a personality that refused to beoverlooked. Her dress showed in equal measure contempt for mere fashion, and a close study of effect. The lines of her long cloak of dull bluecloth, with its garnishings of sable, matched her stately slendernesswell; and the close-fitting cap over the coiled hair conveyed the sameimpression of something perfectly contrived and wholly successful. Netta thought at first that she was "made up, " so dazzling was thewhite and pink, and then doubted. The beauty of the face reminded one, perhaps, of the beauty of a boy--of some clear-eyed, long-chinnedathlete--masterfully simple--a careless conqueror. 

How well she and Edmund seemed to know each other! That was the strange, strange thing in Netta's eyes. Presently she sat altogether silent whilethey talked. Melrose still walking up and down--casting quick glancesat his guest. Lady Tatham gave what seemed to be family news--how "John"had been sent to Teheran--and "George" was to be military secretary inDublin--and "Barbara" to the astonishment of everybody had consented tobe made a Woman of the Bedchamber--"poor Queen!"--how Reginald Pratt hadbeen handsomely turned out of the Middleswick seat, and was probablygoing to "rat" to an Opposition that promised more than theGovernment--that Cecilia's eldest girl--"a pretty little minx"--had beenalready presented, and was likely to prove as skilful a campaigner for ahusband as her mother before her--that "Gerald" had lost heavily atNewmarket, and was now a financial nuisance, borrowing from everybody inthe family--and so on, and so on. 

Melrose received these various items of information half scornfully, halfgreedily; it might have been guessed that his interest in the teller wasa good deal keener than his interest in the things told. The conversationrevealed to Netta phases in her husband's existence wholly unknown toher. So Edmund had been in Rome--for two or three years--in the Embassy!That she had never known. He seemed also to have been an English memberof Parliament for a time. In any case he had lived, apparently for years, like other men of his kind--shooting, racing, visiting, travelling, fighting, elections. She could not fit the facts to which both alludedwith her own recollections of the misanthrope who had first madeacquaintance with her and her family in Florence three years before thisdate; and her bewilderment grew. 

As for the others, they had soon, it seemed, completely forgotten thethin sallow-faced wife, who sat with her back to the window, restlesslytwisting her rings. 

Presently Melrose stopped abruptly--in front of Lady Tatham. 

"Where is Edith?" He bent forward peremptorily, his hand on the table, his eyes on the lady's face. 

"At the Cape with her husband. "

"Has she found him out yet?"

"There's nothing to find out. He's an excellent fellow. "

"A stupid prig, " said Melrose passionately. "Well, you did it!--You didit!"

"Yes, I did it. " Lady Tatham rose quietly. She had paled, and after aminute's hesitation she held out her hand to Melrose. "Suppose, Edmund, we bury the hatchet. I should like to be friends with you and your wife, if you would allow it?"

The change of manner was striking. Up to this moment Lady Tatham hadbeen, so to speak, the aggressor, venturing audaciously on ground whichshe knew to be hostile--from bravado?--or for some hidden reason? But shespoke now with seriousness--even with a touch of womanly kindness. 

Melrose looked at her furiously. 

"Lady Tatham, I advise you to leave us alone!"

She sighed, met his eyes a moment, gravely, then turned to Netta. 

"Mrs. Melrose, your husband and I have an old quarrel. He wanted to marrymy sister. I prevented it. She is married now--and he is married. Whyshouldn't we make friends?"

"Quarrels are very foolish!" said Netta, sententiously, straightening hersmall shoulders. But she dared not look at Melrose. 

"Well, tell him so, " laughed Lady Tatham. "And come and see me at DuddonCastle. "

"Thank you! I should like to!" cried Netta. 

"My wife has no carriage, Lady Tatham. "

"Oh, Edmund--we might hire something, " said his wife imploringly. 

"I do not permit it, " he said resolutely. "Good-bye, Lady Tatham. You arelike all women--you think the cracked vase will hold water. It won't. "

"What are you going to do here, Edmund?"

"I am a collector--and works of art amuse me. "

"And I can do nothing--for you--or your wife?"

"Nothing. I am sorry if you feel us on your mind. Don't. I would havegone farther from you, if I could. But seven miles--are seven miles. "

Lady Tatham coloured. She shook hands with Netta. 

Melrose held the door open for her. She swept through the hall, andhurried into her carriage. She and Melrose touched hands ceremoniously, and the brougham with its fine roan horses was soon out of sight. 

A miserable quarrel followed between the husband and wife. Netta, dissolved in hysterical weeping, protested that she was a prisoner and anexile, that Edmund had brought her from Italy to this dreary place tokill her, that she couldn't and wouldn't endure it, and that return toItaly she must and would, if she had to beg her way. It was cruel to shuther up in that awful house, to deny her the means of getting about, totreat people who wished to be kind to her as Edmund had treated LadyTatham. She was not a mere caterpillar to be trodden on. She would appealto the neighbours--she would go home to her parents, etcetera--etcetera. 

Melrose at first tried to check her by sarcasm--a banter that stung whereit lit. But when she would not be checked, when she followed him into hisstudy, wailing and accusing, a whirlwind of rage developed in the man, and he denounced her with a violence and a brutality which presentlycowed her. She ran shivering upstairs to Anastasia and the baby, boltedher door, and never reappeared till, twenty-four hours later, she creptdown white and silent, to find a certain comfort in Thyrza's roughministrations. Melrose seemed to be, perhaps, a trifle ashamed of hisbehaviour; and they patched up a peace over the arrangements for theheating of the house on which for once he had the grace to consult her. 

The winter deepened, and Christmas came. On the mountain-tops the snowlay deep, and when Netta--who on many days never left the house--afterwalking a while up and down the long corridor for the sake of exercise, would sink languidly on the seat below its large western window, shelooked out upon a confusion of hills near and far, drawn in hardwhite upon an inky sky. To the south the Helvellyn range stretched inbold-flung curves and bosses; in the far distance rose the sharper peaksof Derwentwater; while close at hand Blencathra with its ravines, and allthe harsh splendour of its white slopes and black precipices, alternatelyfascinated and repelled the little Southerner, starved morally andphysically for lack of sun. 

Even for Cumbria it was a chill and sunless winter. No bracing frosts, and persistent northwesterly winds. Day after day the rain, which wassnow on the heights, poured down. Derwentwater and Bassenthwaite rosetill they mingled in one vast lake. The streams thundered from the fells;every road was a water-course. 

Netta lost flesh and appetite. She was a discontented and ailing woman, and the Dixons could not but notice her fragile state. Mrs. Dixon thoughther "nobbut a silly sort of body, " but would sometimes try to cook whatpleased her, or let Anastasia use the kitchen fire for "gnocchi" or"risotto" or other queer messes; which, however, when they appeared, weregenerally more relished by the master than the mistress. 

Dixon, perceiving no signs of any desire on Netta's part to attend the"papish" chapel ten miles away, began to plot for her soul. His own lifewas in the little Methodist chapel to which he walked four miles everySunday, wet or fine. In the summer he had accompanied the minister andone or two class leaders in a drive through the hayfields, shouting tothe haymakers--"We're going to heaven!--won't you come with us!"--and hehad been known to spend five hours at a stretch on his knees wrestlingfor the salvation of a drunken friend, in the village of Threlkeld. ButNetta baffled him. Sometimes he would come home from chapel, radiant, and would take her a bunch of holly for the table by way of gettinginto conversation with her. "It was _fine_ to-day, Missis! There wasthree found peace. And the congregation was grand! There was fourattorneys--two of 'em from as far as Pengarth. " And he would lend hertracts--and even offer, good man, to borrow a "shandrey" from aneighbour, and drive her himself to the chapel service. But Netta onlysmiled or yawned at him; and as for the tracts, she hid them under thefew sofa cushions the house possessed. 

Mr. Tyson, the agent, came to the house as seldom as he could, that hemight not quarrel with his employer before it was to his own interest todo so. Netta discovered that he pitied her; and once or twice, drawing onthe arts of flirtation, with which the Florentine woman is always wellacquainted, she complained to him of her loneliness and her husband'sunkindness. But his north-country caution protected him from anysentimentalizing, however innocent. And before the end of the winterNetta detested him. Meanwhile she and Anastasia lived for one hope only. From many indications it was plain that Melrose was going south in March. The women were determined not to stay behind him. But, instinctively, they never raised the subject, so as not to risk a struggle prematurely. 

Meanwhile Melrose passed a winter wholly satisfactory to himself. Thepartial unpacking of his collections was an endless source of amusementand pleasure. But his curious egotism showed itself very plainly in thebusiness. He made no attempt at artistic arrangement, though there wassome classification. As fast as one room was filled--the vacantpacking-cases turned on their sides, serving to exhibit what they hadonce contained--he would begin upon another. And woe to Mrs. Dixon orThyrza if they attempted any cleaning in one of his rooms! Thecollections were for himself only, and for the few dealers or experts towhom he chose to show them. And the more hugger-mugger they were, theless he should be pestered to let people in to see them. Occasionally hewould rush up to London to attend what he called a "high puff sale"--orto an auction in one of the northern towns, and as he always boughtlargely, purchases kept arriving, and the house at the end of the winterwas in a scarcely less encumbered and disorderly condition than it hadbeen at the beginning. The few experts from the Continent or America, whom he did admit, were never allowed a word of criticism of thecollections. If they ventured to differ from Melrose as to thegenuineness or the age of a bronze or a marble, an explosion of temperand a speedy dismissal awaited them. 

One great stroke of luck befel him in February which for a time put himin high good-humour. He bought at York--very cheaply--a small bronzeHermes, which some fifteenth-century documents in his own possession, purchased from a Florentine family the year before, enabled him toidentify with great probability as the work of one of the rarest and mostfamous of the Renaissance sculptors. He told no one outside the house, lest he should be plagued to exhibit it, but he could not help boastingof it to Netta and Anastasia. 

"That's what comes of having _an eye_! It's worth a thousand guineas ofit's worth a penny. And those stupid idiots let me have it for twenty-twopounds!"

"A thousand guineas!" Gradually the little bronze became to Netta thesymbol of all that money could have bought for her--and all she wasdenied; Italy, freedom, the small pleasures she understood, and thesalvation of her family, now in the direst poverty. There were momentswhen she could have flung it passionately out of the window into thestream a hundred feet below. But she was to find another use for it. 

March arrived. And one day Anastasia came to tell her mistress that shehad received orders to pack Mr. Melrose's portmanteaus for departure. 

Netta brooded all day, sitting silent and pale in the window-seat, withsome embroidery which she never touched on her knee. Outside, not a signof spring! A bitter north wind was blowing which had blanched all colourfrom the hills, and there was ice on the edges of the streams. Thyrza wasaway in Carlisle, helping an aunt. There was no one in the house but Mrs. Dixon, and a deaf old woman from one of the labourer's cottages; attachedto the farm, who had come in to help her. The poor babe had a cold, andcould be heard fretfully crying and coughing in her nursery. 

And before Netta's inward eye there stretched the interminable days andweeks ahead, no less than the interminable weeks and months she hadalready lived through, in this discomfort of body, and this loneliness ofspirit. 

After supper she walked resolutely into her husband's littered study anddemanded that she and Anastasia and the baby should go with him to theContinent. He, she understood, would stop in Paris. She and the childwould push on to Florence, where she could stay the summer with herpeople, at no greater cost than at the Tower. The change was necessaryboth for her and Felicia, and go she would. 

Melrose flatly and violently refused. What did she want better than theTower? She had as much service, and as much luxury as her antecedentsentitled her to; and he neither could nor would provide her with anythingmore. He was heavily in debt, and had no money to spend on railwaytickets. And he entirely disapproved of her relations, especially of herfather, who might any day find himself "run in" by the Italianauthorities for illicit smuggling of pictures out of the country. Hedeclined to allow his child to become familiar with such a circle. 

Netta listened to him with tight lips, her pale face strangely flushed. When she saw that her appeal was quite fruitless she went away, and sheand Anastasia sat up whispering together far into the night. 

Early next morning Melrose departed, leaving a letter for his wife, inwhich he informed her that he had left money with Mr. Tyson for thehousehold expenses, and for the few shillings he supposed she would wantas pocket money. He advised her to be out a great deal, and assured herthat the Cumbria summer, when it came, was delightful. And he signedhimself "your affectionate husband, Edmund Melrose. "

Mrs. Dixon went into Pengarth for shopping on the fly which conveyedMelrose to the station, and was to come out by carrier. After theirdeparture there was no one left in the house but the deaf old woman. Netta and her maid preceeded to carry out a plan they had been longmaturing. Anastasia had a few pounds left of her Christmas wages; enoughto carry them to London; and for the rest, they had imagined an excellentdevice. 

The bronze Hermes had been left by Melrose in a cupboard in a locked roomon the first floor. When Mrs. Dixon came back that night, she discoveredthat Mrs. Melrose, with her child and maid had quitted the house. Theyhad apparently harnessed the cart and horse themselves, and had driveninto Pengarth, taking a labourer with them to bring the cart home. Theyhad carried all their personal belongings away with them; and, after awhile, Mrs. Dixon, poking about, discovered that the door of one of thelocked rooms had been forced. 

She also noticed, in one of the open drawers of Mrs. Melrose's bedroom, aphotograph, evidently forgotten, lying face downward. Examining it, shesaw that it was a picture of Netta, with the baby, taken apparently inItaly during the preceding summer. The Cumbrian woman, shrewdly observantlike all her race, was struck by the tragic differences between the womanof the picture and the little blighted creature who had just made aflitting from the Tower. 

She showed the photograph to her husband, returned it to the drawer, andthought no more about it. 

News was of course sent to Mr. Melrose in Paris, and within three days hehad come rushing back to the Tower, beside himself with rage and grief, not at all, as George Tyson soon assured himself, for the loss of hiswife and child, but entirely for the theft of the priceless Florentinebronze, a loss which he had suspected on the first receipt of the news ofthe forced door, and verified at once on his arrival. 

He stood positively aghast at Netta's perfidy and wickedness, and hewrote at once to the apartment in the Via Giugno, to denounce her in themost emphatic terms. As she had chosen to steal one of his most preciouspossessions, which she had of course converted into money, she had nofurther claim on him whatever, and he broke off all relations with her. Eighty pounds a year would be paid by his lawyers to a Florentine lawyer, whom he named, for his daughter's maintenance, so long as Netta left himunmolested. But he desired to hear and see no more of persons whoreminded him of the most tragical event of his history as a collector, aswell as of the utter failure of his married life. Henceforth they werestrangers to each other, and she might arrange her future as shepleased. 

The letter was answered by Mrs. Robert Smeath in the third person, andall communications ceased. As a matter of fact the Smeath family wereinfinitely relieved by Melrose's letter, which showed that he did notintend to take any police steps to recover the bronze or its value. Profiting by the paternal traditions, Netta had managed the sale of theHermes in London, where, owing to Melrose's miserly hiding of it, it wasquite unknown, with considerable skill. It had realized a small fortune, and she had returned, weary, ill, but triumphant, to the apartment in theVia Giugno. 

Twelve months later, Melrose had practically forgotten that he had everknown her. He returned for the winter, to Threlfall, and entered upon acourse of life which gradually made him the talk and wonder of thecountryside. The rooms occupied by Netta and her child were left just ashe had found them when he returned after her flight. He had turned thekey on them then, and nobody had since entered them. Tyson wonderedwhether it was sentiment, or temper; and gave it for the latter. 

The years passed away. Melrose's hair turned from black to gray; Thyrzamarried a tradesman in Carlisle and presented him with a large family;the Dixons, as cook and manservant, gradually fitted themselves more andmore closely to the queer conditions of life in the Tower, and grew oldin the service of a master whose eccentricities became to them, inprocess of time, things to be endured without comment, like disagreeablefacts of climate. In Dixon, his Methodist books, his Bible, and hisweekly chapel maintained those forces of his character which were--andalways continued to be--independent of Melrose; and Melrose knew his owninterests well enough not to interfere with an obstinate man's religion. While Tyson, after five years, passed on triumphantly to a lucrativeagency in the Dukeries, having won a reputation for tact and patience inthe impossible service of a mad master, which would carry him throughlife. Melrose, being Melrose, found it hopeless to replace himsatisfactorily; and, as he continued to buy land greedily year afteryear, the neglected condition of his immense estate became anever-increasing scandal to the county. 

Meanwhile, for some years after the departure of Netta, Lady Tatham wasobliged for reason of health to spend the winters on the Riviera, and sheand her boy were only at Duddon for the summer months. Intercoursebetween her and her cousin Edmund Melrose was never renewed, and her songrew up in practical ignorance of the relationship. When, however, thelad was nearing the end of his Eton school days Duddon became once morethe permanent home, summer and winter, of mother and son, and young LordTatham, curly-haired, good-humoured, and good-hearted, becamethenceforward the favourite and princeling of the countryside. On theeast and north, the Duddon estates marched with Melrose's property. Occasions of friction constantly arose, but the determination on eachside to have no more communication with the other than was absolutelynecessary generally composed any nascent dispute; so long at least asLady Tatham and a very diplomatic agent were in charge. 

But at the age of twenty-four, Harry Tatham succeeded to the solemanagement of his estates, and his mother soon realized that her son wasnot likely to treat their miserly neighbour with the same patience asherself. 

And with the changes in human life, went changes even more subtle andenduring in the Cumbria county itself. Those were times of crisis forEnglish agriculture. Wheat-lands went back to pasture; and a surpluspopulation, that has found its way for generations to the factory towns, began now to turn toward the great Canadian spaces beyond the westernsea. Only the mountains still rose changeless and eternal, at least tohuman sense; "ambitious for the hallowing" of moon and sun; keeping theirold secrets, and their perpetual youth. 

And after twenty years Threlfall Tower became the scene of another drama, whereof what has been told so far is but the prologue. 

III

It was a May evening, and Lydia Penfold, spinster, aged twenty-four, wassketching in St. John's Vale, that winding valley which, diverging fromthe Ambleside-Keswick road in an easterly direction, divides the northernslopes of the Helvellyn range from the splendid mass of Blencathra. 

So beautiful was the evening, so ravishing under its sway were heaven andearth, that Lydia's work went but slowly. She was a professional artist, to whom guineas were just as welcome as to other people; and she had veryindustrious and methodical views of her business. But she was, beforeeverything, one of those persons who thrill under the appeal of beauty toa degree that often threatens or suspends practical energy. Save for theconscience in her, she could have lived from day to day just for themoments of delight, the changes in light and shade, in colour and form, that this beautiful world continually presents to senses as keen as hers. Lydia's conscience, however, was strong; though on this particularevening it did little or nothing to check the sheer sensuous dreamingthat had crept over her. 

The hand that held her palette had dropped upon her knee, her eyes werelifted to the spectacle before her, and her lips, slightly parted, breathed in pleasure. 

She looked on a pair of mountains of which one, torn and seamed from topto toe as though some vast Fafnir of the prime had wreaked his dragonrage upon it, fronted her sheer, rimmed with gold where some of itsthrusting edges still caught the sunset, but otherwise steeped in purpleshades already prophesying night; while the other, separated from thefirst by a gap, yet grouping with it, ran slanting away to the northwest, offering to the eyes only a series of lovely foreshortened planes, risingfrom the valley, one behind the other, sweeping upward and backward tothe central peak of Skiddaw, and ablaze with light from base to summit. 

The evenings in the north are long. It was past seven on this May day;yet Lydia knew that the best of the show was still to come; she waitedfor the last act, and refused to think of supper. That golden fusion ofall the upper air; that "intermingling of Heaven's pomp, " spread on thegreat slopes of Skiddaw--red and bronze and purple, shot through eachother, and glorified by excess of light; that sharpness of the larchgreen on the lower slopes; that richness of the river fields; thatshining pageantry of cloud, rising or sinking with the mountain line:pondering these things, absorbing them, she looked at her drawing fromtime to time in a smiling despair; the happy despair of the artist, whoamid the failure of to-day looks forward with passion to the effort ofto-morrow. 

Youth and natural joy possessed her. 

What scents from the river-bank, under the softly breathing wind whichhad sprung up with the sunset! The girl brought her eyes down, and saw abank of primroses, and beyond, in the little copse on the farther side ofthe stream, a gleam of blue, where the wild hyacinth spread among thebirches. While close to her, at her very feet, ran the stream, with itsslipping, murmuring water, its stones splashed with white, purple, andorange, its still reaches paved with evening gold. 

"What a mercy I wrote that letter!" she said to herself, with a sigh ofcontent. She was thinking of a proposal that had come to her a few daysbefore this date, to take a post as drawing mistress in a Brightonschool. The salary was tempting; and, at the moment, money was more thanusually scarce in the family purse. Her mother's eyes had looked at herwistfully. 

Yet she had refused; with a laughing bravado that had concealed someinward qualms. 

Whereupon the gods had immediately and scandalously rewarded her. She hadsold four of her drawings at a Liverpool exhibition for twenty pounds;and there were lying beside her on the grass some agreeable pressnotices just arrived, most of which she already knew by heart. 

Twenty pounds! That would pay the half year's rent. And there werethree other drawings in a London show that might very well sell too. Whynot--now the others had sold? Meanwhile she--thank the Lord!--had savedherself, as a fish from the hook. She was still free; free to draw, freeto dream. She had not bartered her mountains for a salary. Instead ofcrocodile walks, two and two, with a score of stupid schoolgirls, hereshe was, still roaming the fells, the same happy vagabond as before. Shehugged her liberty. And at the same time she promised herself that hermother should have a new shawl and a new cap for Whitsuntide. 

Those at present in use came near in Lydia's opinion to being a familydisgrace. 

The last act of the great spectacle rushed on; and again the artist heldher breath enthralled. The gold on Skiddaw was passing into rose; andover the greenish blue of the lower sky, webs of crimson cirrhus spunthemselves. The stream ran fire; and far away the windows of a white farmblazed. Lydia seized a spare sketching-block lying on the grass, andbegan to note down a few "passages" in the sky before her. 

Suddenly a gust came straying down the valley. It blew the press-cuttingswhich had dropped from her lap toward the stream. One of them fell in, the others, long flapping things, hung caught in a tuft of grass. Lydiasprang up, with an exclamation of annoyance, and went to the rescue. Dear, dear!--the longest and best notice, which spoke of her work as"agreeable and scholarly, showing, at tunes, more than a touch of hightalent"--was quietly floating away. She must get it back. Her mother hadnot yet read it--not yet purred over it. And it was most desirable sheshould read it, so as to get rid thereby of any lingering doubt about thehorrid school and its horrid proposal. 

But alack! the slip of newspaper was already out of reach, speeded by atiny eddy toward a miniature rapid in the middle of the beck. Lydia, clinging with one hand to a stump of willow, caught up a stick lying onthe bank with the other, and, hanging over the stream, tried to head backthe truant. All that happened was that her foot slipping on a pebble wentflop into the shallow water, and part of her dress followed it. 

It was not open to Lydia to swear, and she had no time for the usualfeminine exclamations before she heard a voice behind her. 

"Allow me--can I be of any use?"

She turned in astonishment, extricating her wet foot, and clambered backon to the bank. A young man stood there, civilly deferential. His bicyclelay on the grass at the edge of the road, which was only a few stepsaway. 

"I saw you slip in, and thought perhaps I might help. You were trying toreach something, weren't you?"

"It doesn't matter, thank you, " said Lydia, whose cheeks had gone pink. 

The young man looked at her, and became still more civil. 

"What was it? That piece of paper? Oh, I'll get it in a moment. "

And splashing from stone to stone in the river-bed, he had soon reached apoint where, with the aid of Lydia's stick, the bedraggled cutting wassoon fished out and returned to its owner. Lydia thanked him. 

"But you've wet both your feet!" She looked at them, with concern. "Won'tit be very uncomfortable, bicycling?"

"I haven't far to go. Oh, by the way, I was just looking out for somebodyto ask--about this road--and I couldn't see a soul, till just as I cameout of the little wood there"--he pointed--"I saw you--slipping in. "

They both laughed. Lydia returned to her camp stool, and began to put upher sketching things. 

"What is it you want to know?"

"Is this the road for Whitebeck?"

"Yes, certainly. You come to a bridge and the village is on the otherside. "

"Thank you. I don't know these parts. But what an awfully jolly valley!"He waved a hand toward it. "And what do you think I saw about a milehigher up?" He had picked up his bicycle from the grass, and stoodleaning easily upon it. She could not but observe that he was tall andslim and handsome. A tourist, no doubt; she could not place him as aninhabitant. 

"I know!" she said smiling. "You saw the otter hounds. They passed me anhour ago. Have they caught him?"

"Who? the otter? Lord, no! He got right away from them--up a tributarystream. "

"Good!" said Lydia, as she shut her painting-box. 

The young man hesitated. He had clearly no right to linger any longer, but, as the girl before him seemed to him one of the most deliciouscreatures he had ever seen, he did linger. 

"I wonder if I might ask you another question? Can you tell me whetherthat fine old house over there is Duddon Castle?"

"Duddon Castle!" Lydia lifted her eyebrows. "Duddon Castle is seven milesaway. That place is called Threlfall Tower. Were you going to Duddon?"

"No. But"--he hesitated--"I know young Tatham a little. I should like tohave seen his house. But, that's a fine old place, isn't it?" He lookedwith curiosity at the pile of building rising beyond a silver streak ofriver, amid the fresh of the May woods. 

"Well--yes--in some ways, " said Lydia, dubiously. "Don't you know wholives there?"

"Not the least. I am a complete stranger here. I say, do let me do thatup for you?" And, letting his bicycle fall, the young man seized theeasel which had still to be taken to pieces and put into its case. 

Lydia shot a wavering look at him. He ought certainly to have departed bynow, and she ought to be snubbing him. But the expression on his sunburntface as he knelt on the grass, unscrewing her easel, seemed so little tocall for snubbing that instead she gave him further information;interspersed with directions to him as to what to do and what not to dowith her gear. 

"It belongs to a Mr. Melrose. Did you never hear of him?"

"Never. Why should I?"

"Not from the Tathams?"

"No. You see I only knew Tatham at college--in my last year. Hewas a good deal junior to me. And I have never stayed with them atDuddon--though they kindly asked me--years ago. "

The girl beside him took not the smallest notice of his information. Shewas busy packing up brushes and paints, and her next remark showed himsubtly that she did not mean to treat him as an acquaintance of theTathams, whom she probably knew, but was determined to keep him to hisrôle of stranger and tourist. 

"You had better look at Threlfall as you pass. It has a splendidsituation. "

"I will. But why ought I to have heard of the gentleman? I forget hisname. "

"Mr. Melrose? Oh, well--he's a legend about here. We all talk about him. "

"What's wrong with him? Is he a nuisance?--or a lunatic?"

"It depends what you have to do with him. About here he goes by the nameof the 'Ogre. '"

"How, does he eat people up?" asked the stranger, smiling. 

The girl hesitated. 

"Ask one of his tenants!" she said at last. 

"Oh, he's a landlord, and a bad one?"

She nodded, a sudden sharpness in her gray eyes. 

"But that's not the common reason for the name. It's because he shutshimself up--in a house full of treasures. He's a great collector. "

"Of works of art? You--don't need to be mad to do that! It seems to beone of the things that pays best nowadays--with all these Americansabout. It's a way of investing your money. Doesn't he show them toanybody?"

"Nobody is allowed to go near him, or his house. He has built a high wallround his park, and dogs are let loose at night that tear you to pieces. "

"Nice man! If it weren't for the dogs, I should brave him. In a smallway, I'm a collector myself. "

He smiled, and Lydia understood that the personal reference was thrownout as a feeler, in case she might be willing to push the conversationfurther. But she did not respond, although as he spoke she happened tonotice that he wore a remarkable ring on his left hand, which seemedto illustrate his remark. An engraved gem?--Greek? Her eyes were quickfor such things. 

However, she was seized with shyness, and as she had now finished thepacking of her brushes and paints, and the young man had elaboratelyfastened all the straps of the portable easel and its case, there wasnothing for him to do but to stoop unwillingly for his soft hat which waslying on the grass. Then an idea struck him. 

"I say, what are you going to do with all these things?"

"Carry them home. " She smiled. "I am not a cripple. "

"Mightn't I--mightn't I carry them for you?"

"Thank you. My way lies in quite another direction. Good-night. "

She held out a shapely hand. He took it, lifted his hat, and departed. 

As soon as he was safely past a jutting corner of the road Lydia, insteadof going home, lazily sat down again on a rock to think about what hadhappened. She was perfectly aware that--considering the whole interviewhad only taken ten minutes--she had made an impression upon the youngman. And as young men of such distinguished appearance were not common inthe Whitebeck neighbourhood, the recollection of all those little signsin look and manner which had borne witness to the stranger's discreetadmiration of her was not at all disagreeable. 

He was not a native--that she was sure of. She guessed him a Londoner. "Awfully good clothes!--London clothes. About thirty, I should think? Iwonder what he does. He can't be rich, or he wouldn't be bicycling. Hedid up those straps as though he were used to them; but he can't be anartist, or he'd have said something. It was a face with lots of power init. Not very good-tempered, I should say? But there's something abouthim--yes, distinctly, _something_! I liked his thin cheeks, and his darkcurls. His head, too, was uncommonly well set on. I'm sure that there's agood deal to him, as the Americans say; he's not stuffed with sawdust. Ican imagine--just imagine--being in love with him. "

She laughed to herself. 

Then a sudden thought occurred to her, which reddened her cheeks. Supposewhen the young man came to think over it, he believed that she had letthe papers fall into the river--deliberately--on purpose--just to attracthis attention? At the very precise moment that he comes upon the scene, she slips into the water. Of course!--an arranged affair!

She sat on, meditating in some discomfort. 

"It is no use deceiving ourselves, " she thought. "We're not in the goodold Tennysonian days. There's precious little chivalry now! Men don'tidealize women as they used. They're grown far more suspicious--and_harder_. Perhaps because women have grown so critical of them! Anywaysomething's gone--what is it? Poetry? Illusion? And yet!--why is it thatmen still put us off our balance?--even now--that they matter so muchless, now that we live our own lives, and can do without them? Ishouldn't be sitting here, bothering my head, if it had been another girlwho had come to help. "

Slowly she gathered up her things and took her way home, while theevening of blue and pearl fell around her, while the glow died on thefells, and Venus came out in a sky that was still too full of light tolet any lesser stars appear. 

She crossed the stepping stones, and in a river field on the farther sideshe came across an old shepherd, carrying a wounded ewe across hisshoulders, and with his dog beside him. At sight of him she paused inastonishment. He was an old friend of hers, but he belonged to avillage--the village of Mainstairs--some three miles away in the lowlandtoward Pengarth. She had first come across him when sketching among somedistant fells where he had been a shepherd for more than forty years. 

The old man's russet face, sharp-lined and strong, lit up as he saw herapproaching. 

"Why I thowt I med coom across yer!" he said smiling. And he explainedthat he had been paying a visit to a married daughter under Naddle Fell, and had volunteered to carry an injured sheep down to a valley farm, whence it had strayed on his way home. 

They stopped to talk while he rested a few minutes, under his burden, propped against a rock. Lydia asked him after a sick grand-daughter. Herquestion showed knowledge--no perfunctory kindness. 

He shook his head sadly, and her grave, soft look, as she fell silent alittle, beside him, said more than words. 

"Anything been done to your cottage?" she asked him presently. 

"Noa--nowt. "

"Nor to the other houses?"

"Naethin'. "

Her brows frowned. 

"Horrible!" she said under her breath. But they did not pursue thesubject. Instead the old man broke out in praise of the "won'erful 'cute"sheep dog beside him, and in the story of the accident which had slightlylamed the ewe he was carrying. Lydia's vivacious listening, her laugh, her comments, expressed--unconsciously--with just a touch of Cumbriadialect, showed them natural comrades. Some deeply human gift, somespontaneity in the girl, answered to the racy simplicity of the old man. 

"Tell me once more"--she said, as she rose from her seat upon a fallentree, and prepared to go on her way--"those counting words you told melast week. I tried to tell them to my mother--but I couldn't rememberthem all. They made us laugh so. "

"Aye, they're the owd words, " said the shepherd complacently. "We doan'tuse 'em now. But my feyther minds how his feyther used allus to count by'em. "

And he began the catalogue of those ancient numerals by which thenorthern dalesman of a hundred years ago were still accustomed to reckontheir sheep, words that go back to the very infancy of man. 

"Yan--tyan--tethera--methera--pimp;sethera--lethera--hovera--dovera--dick. "

Lydia's face dissolved in laughter--and when the old man delighting inher amusement went on to the compounds of ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, and the rest:

"Yan-a-dick--tyan-a-dick--tethera-a-dick--methera-a-dick--bumfit. "

At "bumfit" (fifteen) they both rocked with merriment, the old mancarried away by the infection of hers. 

"Go on, " said Lydia--the tears of laughter in her eyes--"up to twenty, and then hear me say them. "

"Yan-a-bumfit--tyan-a-bumfit--tethera-a-bumfit--methera-a-bumfit--giggot"(twenty). 

"Giggot" set them both off again--and then Lydia--stumbling, laughing, and often corrected, said her lesson. 

By the time she was fairly perfect, and the old man had straightenedhimself again under his load--a veritable "good shepherd, " glorified bythe evening light--they parted with a friendly nod, glad to have met andsure to meet again. 

"I'll come and see Bessie soon, " she said gently, as she moved on. 

"Aye. Yo'll be varra welcome. "

She stepped forward briskly, gained the high road, and presently saw infront of her a small white house, recently built, and already emboweredin a blossoming garden. Lilacs sent their fragrance to greet her;rhododendrons glowed through the twilight, and a wild-cherry laden withbloom reared its white miracle against the walls of the house. 

Lydia stood at the gate devouring the tree with her eyes. The blossomhad already begun to drop. "Two days more"--she said to herself, sighing--"and it'll be gone--till next year. And it's been out such alittle, little while! I seem hardly to have looked at it. It's horriblehow short-lived all the beautiful things are. "

"Lydia!" A voice called from an open window. 

"Yes, mother. "

"You're dreadfully late, Lydia! Susan and I have finished supper longago. "

Lydia walked into the house, and put her head into the drawing-room. 

"Sorry, mother! It was so lovely, I couldn't come in. And I met a dearold shepherd I know. Don't bother about me. I'll get some milk and cake. "

She closed the door again, before her mother could protest. 

"Girls will never think of their meals!" said Mrs. Penfold to herself inirritation. "And then all of a sudden they get nerves--or consumption--orsomething. "

As she spoke, she withdrew from the window, and curled herself up on asofa, where a knitted coverlet lay, ready to draw over her feet. Mrs. Penfold was a slight, pretty woman of fifty with invalidish Sybariticways, and a character which was an odd mixture of humility andconceit--diffidence and audacity. She was quite aware that she was not asclever as her daughters. She could not write poetry like Susan, or paintlike Lydia. But then, in her own opinion, she had so many merits theywere without; merits which more than maintained her self-respect, andenabled her to hold her ground with them. For instance: by the time shewas four and twenty, Lydia's age, she had received at least a dozenproposals. Lydia's scalps, so far as her mother knew, were onlytwo--fellow-students at South Kensington, absurd people, not to becounted. Then, pretty as Lydia was, her nose could not be compared fordelicacy with her mother's. "My nose was always famous"--Mrs. Penfoldwould say complacently to her daughters--"it was that which firstattracted your dear father. 'It was, ' he said--you know he alwaysexpressed himself so remarkably--'such a sure sign of "race. "' His ownpeople--oh! they were quite nice people--but quite middle-class. " Again, her hands and feet were smaller and more aristocratic than either Lydia'sor Susan's. She liked to remind herself constantly how everybody hadadmired them and talked about them when she was a girl. 

Drawing her work-box toward her, while she waited for Lydia's return, Mrs. Penfold fell to knitting, while the inner chatter of the mind wentas fast as her needles--concerned chiefly with two matters of absorbinginterest: Lydia's twenty pounds, and a piece of news about Lydia, recently learnt from the rector's wife. 

As to the twenty pounds, it was the greatest blessing! Of course theschool salary would have been a certainty--and Lydia had hardlyconsidered it with proper seriousness. But there--all was well! The extratwenty pounds would carry them on, and now that Lydia had begun to earn, thought the maternal optimist, she would of course go on earning--athigher and higher prices--and the family income of some three hundred ayear would obtain the increment it so desperately needed. And as Mrs. Penfold looked upon a girls' school as something not far removed from anunnery, a place at any rate painfully devoid of the masculine element;and as her whole mind was set--sometimes romantically, sometimesfinancially--on the marriage of her daughters, she felt that both she andLydia had escaped what might have been an unfortunate necessity. 

Yes, indeed!--what a _providential_ escape, if--

Mrs. Penfold let fall her knitting; her face sparkled. Why had Lydianever communicated the fact, the thrilling fact that she had been meetingat the rectory--more than once apparently--not merely _a_ young man, but_the_ young man of the neighbourhood. And with results--favourableresults--quite evident to the Rector and the Rector's wife, if Lydiaherself chose to ignore and secrete them. It was really unkind.... 

The door opened. A white figure slipped into the room through its mingledlights, and found a stool beside Mrs. Penfold. 

"Dear--are you all right?"

Mrs. Penfold stroked the speaker's head. 

"Well, I thought I was going to have a headache this morning, darling--but I didn't--it went away. Lydia! the Rector and Mrs. Deaconhave been here. _Why_ didn't you tell me you have been meeting LordTatham at the rectory?"

Lydia laughed. 

"Didn't I? Well, he's quite decent. "

"Mrs. Deacon says he admired you. She's sure he did!" Mrs. Penfoldstooped eagerly toward her daughter, trying to see her face in thetwilight. 

"Mrs. Deacon's a goose! You know she is, mother, --you often say so. I methim first, of course, at the Hunt Ball. And you saw him there too. Yousaw me dancing with him. "

"But that was only once, " said Mrs. Penfold, candidly. "I didn't thinkanything of that. When I was a girl, if a young man liked me at a dance, we went on till we made everybody talk. Or else, there was nothing init. "

"Well, there was nothing in it, dear--in this case. And I wouldn't adviseyou to give me to Lord Tatham--just yet!"

Mrs. Penfold sighed. 

"Of course one knows that that kind of young man has his marriage madefor him--just like royalty. But sometimes--they break out. There _are_dukes that have married plain Misses--no better than you, Lydia--andnot American either. But--Lydia--you _did_ like him?"

"Who? Lord Tatham? Certainly. "

"I expect most girls do! He's the great _parti_ about here. "

"Mother, _really_!" cried Lydia. "He's just a pleasant youth--not at allclever. And oh, how badly he plays bridge!"

"That doesn't matter. Mrs. Deacon says you got on with him, splendidly. "

"I chaffed him a good deal. He really plays worse than I do--if you canbelieve it. "

"They like being chaffed"--said Mrs. Penfold pensively--"if a girl doesit well. "

"I don't care, darling, whether they like it or not. It amuses me, and soI do it. "

"But you mustn't let them think they're being laughed at. If you do that, Lydia, you'll be an old maid. Oh, Lydia!"--the speaker sighed like afurnace--"I _do_ wish you saw more young men!"

"Well, I saw another one--much handsomer than Lord Tatham--thisafternoon, " laughed Lydia. 

Mrs. Penfold eagerly inquired. The story was told, and Mrs. Penfold, aseasily lured by a new subject as a child by a new doll, fell into manyspeculations as to who the youth could have been, and where he was going. Lydia soon ceased to listen. But when the coverlet slipped away she didnot fail to replace it tenderly over her mother's feet, and every now andthen her fingers gave a caressing touch to the delicate hand of whichMrs. Penfold was so proud. It was not difficult to see that of the twothe girl was really the mother, in spirit; the maturer, protecting soul. 

Presently she roused herself to ask:

"Where is Susan?"

"She went up to write directly after supper, and we mustn't disturb her. She hopes to finish her tragedy to-night. She said she had aninspiration. "

"Inspiration or no, I shall hunt her to bed, if I don't hear her doorshut by twelve, " said Lydia with sisterly determination. 

"Do you think, darling, that Susy--will ever make a great deal of moneyby her writings?" The tone was wistful. 

"Well, no, mother, candidly, I don't. There's no money in tragedies--soI'm told. "

Mrs. Penfold sighed. But Lydia, changed the subject, entered upon adiscussion, so inventively artistic, of the new bonnet, and the new dressin which her mother was to appear on Whitsunday, that when bedtime cameMrs. Penfold had seldom passed a pleasanter evening. 

After her mother had gone to bed, Lydia wandered into the moonlit garden, and strolled about its paths, lost in the beauty of its dim flowers andthe sweetness of its scents. The spring was in her veins, and she feltstrangely shaken and restless. She tried to think of her painting, andthe prospect she had of getting into an artistic club, a club of younglandscapists, which exhibited every May, and was beginning to make amark. But her thoughts strayed perpetually. 

So her mother imagined that Lord Tatham had only danced once with her atthe Hunt Ball? As a matter of fact, he had danced with her once, andthen, as dancing was by no means the youth's strong point, they had satout in a corner of the hotel garden, by the river, through four supperdances. And if the fact had escaped the notice both of Mrs. Penfold andSusy, greatly to Lydia's satisfaction, she was well aware that it had notaltogether escaped the notice of the neighbourhood, which kept an eagerwatch on the doings of its local princeling in matters matrimonial. 

And as to the various meetings at the rectory, Lydia could easily havemade much of them, if she had wished. She had come to see that they weredeliberately sought by Lord Tatham, and encouraged by Mrs. Deacon. Andbecause she had come to see it, she meant to refuse another invitationfrom Mrs. Deacon, which was in her pocket--without consulting her mother. Besides--said youthful pride--if Lord Tatham really wished to know them, Lady Tatham must call. And Lady Tatham had not called. 

Her mother was quite right. The marriage of young earls are, generallyspeaking, "arranged, " and there are hovering relations, and unwrittenlaws in the background, which only the foolish forget. "And as I am not acandidate for the place, " thought Lydia, "I won't be misunderstood!"

She did not intend indeed to be troubled--for the present--with suchmatters at all. 

"Marrying is not in the bill!" She declaimed it to a lilac-bush, standingwith her hands behind her, and face uplifted. "I have no money, and noposition--therefore the vast majority of men won't want to marry me. And as to scheming to make them want it--why!--good heavens!--when thereare such amusing things to do in the world!"

She paced the garden paths, thinking passionately, defiantly of her art, yet indignant with herself for these vague yearnings and languors thathad to be so often met and put down. 

"Men!--_men!_--what do they matter to me, except for talk--and fun!Yet there one goes thinking about them--like any fool. It's sex ofcourse--and youth. I can no more escape them than anybody else. But ICan be mistress of them. I will. That's where this generation differs. We needn't drift--we see clear. Oh! those clouds--that blue!--thosestars! Dear world! Isn't beauty enough?"

She lifted her arms above her head in a wild aspiration. And all in amoment it surprised her to feel her eyes wet with tears. 

 * * * * *

Meanwhile the young man who had rescued her press cuttings had fallen, barely an hour after his parting from her, upon evil fortunes. 

His bicycle had carried him swiftly down the valley toward the Whitebeckbridge. Just above the bridge, a steep pitch of hill, one of thosespecimens of primitive road-making that abound in Cumbria, descendedrapidly into a dark hollow, with a high wall on one side, overhung bytrees, and on the other a bank, broken three parts of tie way down by theentrance of a side road. At the top of the hill, Faversham, to give theyouth his name, stopped to look at the wall, which was remarkable forheight and strength. The thick wood on his right hid any building theremight be on the farther side of the stream. But clearly this was theOgre's wall--ogreish indeed! A man might well keep a cupboard full ofFatimas, alive or dead, on the other side of it, or a coiner's press, ora banknote factory, or any other romantic and literary villainy. Faversham found himself speculating with amusement on the old curmudgeonbehind the wall; always with the vision, drawn by recollection on theleafy background, of a girl's charming face--clear pale skin, beautifuleyes, more blue surely than gray--the whitest neck, with coils of brownhair upon it--the mouth with its laughing freedom--yet reticent--no meresilly sweetness!

Then putting on his brake, he began to coast down the hill, which openedgently only to turn without notice into something scandalouslyprecipitous. The bicycle had been hired in Keswick, and had had a hardseason's use. The brake gave way at the worst moment of the hill, andFaversham, unable to save himself, rushed to perdition. And by way ofdoubling his misfortune, as in the course of his mad descent he reachedthe side road on the left, there came the loud clatter of a cart, and ayoung horse emerged almost at a gallop, with a man tugging vainly at itsrein. 

Ten minutes later a group of men stood consulting by the side of the roadover Faversham's prostrate form. He was unconscious; his head and facewere covered with blood, and his left ankle was apparently broken. Asmall open motor stood at the bottom of the hill, and an angry disputewas going on between an old man in mire-stained working-clothes, and theyoung doctor from Pengarth to whom the motor belonged. 

"I say, Mr. Dixon, that you've got to take this man into Mr. Melrose'shouse and look after him, till he is fit to be moved farther, or you'llbe guilty of his death, and I shall give evidence accordingly!" said thedoctor, with energy, as he raised himself from the injured man. 

"Theer's noa place for him i' t' Tower, Mr. Undershaw, an' I'll take noasich liberty!"

"Then I will. Where's Mr. Melrose?"

"I' London--till to-morrow. Yo'll do nowt o' t' soart, doctor. "

"We shall see. To carry him half a mile to the farm, when you might carryhim just across that bridge to the house, would be sheer murder. I won'tsee it done. And if you do it, you'll be indicted for manslaughter. Nowthen--why doesn't that hurdle come along?" The speaker looked impatientlyup the road; and, as he spoke, a couple of labourers appeared at the topof the hill, carrying a hurdle between them. 

Dixon threw looks of mingled wrath and perplexity at the doctor, and themen. 

"I tell yo', doctor, it conno' be done! Muster Melrose's orders mun beobeyed. I have noa power to admit onybody to his house withoot his leave. Yo' knaw yoursel', " he added in the doctor's ear, "what Muster Melroseis. "

Undershaw muttered something--expressing either wrath or scorn--behindhis moustache; then said aloud:

"Never you mind, Dixon; I shall take the responsibility. You let mealone. Now, my boys, lend a hand with the hurdle, and give me somecoats. "

Faversham's leg had been already placed in a rough splint and his headbandaged. They lifted him, quite unconscious, upon the hurdle, and madehim as comfortable as they could. The doctor anxiously felt his pulse, and directed the men to carry him, as carefully as possible, through anarrow gate in the high wall opposite which was standing open, across theprivate foot-bridge over the stream, and so to the Terrace whereon stoodThrelfall Tower. Impenetrably hidden as it was behind the wall and thetrees, the old house was yet, in truth, barely sixty yards away. Dixonfollowed, lamenting and protesting, but in vain. 

"Hold your tongue, man!" said Undershaw at last, losing his temper. "Youdisgrace your master. It would be a public scandal to refuse to help aman in this plight! If we get him alive through to-night, it will be amercy. I believe the cart's been over him somewhere!" he added, with afrowning brow. 

Dixon silenced, but by no means persuaded, followed the littleprocession, till it reached a side door of the Tower, opening on theterrace just beyond the bridge. The door was shut, and it was not tillthe doctor had made several thunderous attacks upon it, beside sendingmen round to the other doors of the house, that Mrs. Dixon at lastcautiously opened it. 

Fresh remonstrance and refusal followed on the part both of husband andwife. Fresh determination also on the part of the doctor, seconded by thethreatening looks and words of Faversham's bearers, stout Cumbrialabourers, to whom the storming of the Tower was clearly a businessthey enjoyed. At last the old couple, bitterly protesting, gave way, andthe procession entered. 

They found themselves in a long corridor, littered with a strangemultitude of objects, scarcely distinguishable in the dim light shed byone unshuttered window through which some of the evening glow stillpenetrated. Dixon and his wife whispered excitedly together; after whichDixon led the way through the corridor into the entrance hall--which wasequally encumbered--and so to a door on the right. 

"Yo' can bring him in there, " he said sulkily to Undershaw. "There'smebbe a bed upstairs we can bring doon. "

He threw open the drawing-room--a dreary, disused room, with its carpetsrolled up in one corner, and its scanty furniture piled in another. Thecandle held by Mrs. Dixon lit up the richly decorated ceiling. 

"Can't you do anything better?" asked Undershaw, turning upon hervehemently. "Don't you keep a spare bedroom in this place?"

"Noa, we doan't!" said Mrs. Dixon, with answering temper. "There isn't aroom upstairs but what's full o' Muster Melrose's things. Yo' mun do wi'this, or naethin'. "

Undershaw submitted, and Faversham's bearers gently laid him down, spreading their coats on the bare floor to receive him, till a bed couldbe found. Dixon and his wife, in a state of pitiable disturbance, wentoff to look for one, while Undershaw called after them:

"And I warn you that to-morrow you'll have to find quarters for twonurses!"

Thus, without any conscious action on his own part, and in the absence ofits formidable master, was Claude Faversham brought under the roof ofThrelfall Tower. 

IV

On the evening of the following day, Mr. Edmund Melrose arrived inPengarth by train from London, hired a one-horse wagonette, and drove outto the Tower. 

His manners were at no time amiable, but the man who had the honour ofdriving him on this occasion, and had driven him occasionally before, hadnever yet seen him in quite so odious a temper. This was already evidentat the time of the start from Pengarth, and thenceforward the cautiousCumbrian preserved an absolute and watchful silence, to the greatannoyance of Melrose, who would have welcomed any excuse for ill-humour. But as nothing beyond the curtest monosyllables were to be got out of hiscompanion, and as the rich beauty of the May landscape was entirely lostupon himself, Melrose was reduced at last in the course of his ten miles'drive to scanning once more the copy of the _Times_ which he had broughtwith him from the south. The news of various strikes and industrialarbitrations which it contained had already enraged him; and enraged himagain as he looked through it. The proletariat, in his opinion, must beput down and kept down; that his own class began to show a lamentablewant of power to do either was the only public matter that ever reallytroubled him. So far as his life was affected by the outside world atall, except as a place where auctions took place, and dealers' shopsabounded, it was through this consciousness of impending social disaster, this terror as of a rapidly approaching darkness bearing the doom of themodern world in its bosom, which intermittently oppressed him, as it hasoppressed and still overshadows innumerable better men of our day. 

At this moment, in the month of May, 190--, Edmund Melrose had justpassed his seventieth birthday. But the extraordinary energy and vivacityof his good looks had scarcely abated since the time when, twenty-threeyears before this date, Netta Smeath had first seen him in Florence;although his hair had whitened, and the bronzed skin of the face haddeveloped a multitude of fine wrinkles that did but add to its character. His aspect, even on the threshold of old age, had still something of themagnificence of an Italian captain of the Renaissance, something also ofthe pouncing, peering air that belongs to the type. He seemed indeed tobe always on the point of seizing or appropriating some booty or other. His wandering eyes, his long acquisitive fingers, his rapid movementsshowed him still the hunter on the trail, to whom everything else was intruth indifferent but the satisfaction of an instinct which had grown andflourished on the ruins of a man. 

As they drove along, through various portions of the Tower estates, theeyes of the taciturn driver beside him took note of the dilapidated farmbuildings and the broken gates which a miserly landlord could not beinduced to repair, until an exasperated tenant actually gave notice. Melrose meanwhile was absorbed in trying to recover a paragraph in the_Times_ he had caught sight of on a first reading, and had then lost inthe excitement of studying the prices of a sale at Christie's, held theday before, wherein his own ill luck had led to the bad temper from whichhe was suffering. He tracked the passage at last. It ran as follows:

"The late Professor William Mackworth has left the majority of his costlycollections to the nation. To the British Museum will go the marbles andbronzes, to the South Kensington, the china and the tapestries. ProfessorMackworth made no stipulations, and the authorities of both museums arefree to deal with his bequests as they think best. "

Melrose folded the newspaper and put it back into his pocket with a shortsudden laugh, which startled the man beside him. "Stipulations! I shouldrather think not! What museum in its senses would accept such pifflingstuff with any _stipulations_ attached? As it is, the greater part willgo into the lumber-rooms; they'll never show them! There's only onecollection that Mackworth ever had that was worth having. Not a wordabout _that_. People don't give their best things to the country--notthey. Hypocrites! What on earth has he done with them? There are severalthings _I want_. "

And he fell into a long and greedy meditation, in which, as usual, hisfancy pursued a quarry and brought it down. He took no notice meanwhileof the objects passed as they approached the Tower, although among themwere many that might well have roused the attention of a landlord; as, for instance, the condition of the long drive leading up to the house, with its deep ruts and grass-grown sides; a tree blown down, notapparently by any very recent storm, and now lying half across theroadway, so that the horse and carriage picked their way with difficultyround its withered branches; one of the pillars of the fine gateway, which gave access to the walled enclosure round the house, broken away;and the enclosure within, which had been designed originally as a formalgarden in the Italian style, and was now a mere tangled wilderness ofweeds and coarse grass, backed by dense thickets of laurel and yew whichhad grown up in a close jungle round the house, so that many of the lowerwindows were impenetrably overgrown. 

As they drew up at the gate, the Pengarth driver looked with furtivecuriosity at the house-front. Melrose, in the words of Lydia to youngFaversham, had "become a legend" to his neighbourhood, and many strangethings were believed about him. It was said that the house contained anumber of locked and shuttered rooms which were never entered; thatMelrose slept by day, and worked or prowled by night; that his onlyservants were the two Dixons, no one else being able to endure hiscompany; that he and the house were protected by savage dogs, and thathis sole visitors were occasional strangers from the south, who arrivedwith black bags, and often departed pursued with objurgations by Melrose, and in terror of the dogs. It was said also that the Tower was full ofprecious and marvellous things, including hordes of gold and silver; thatMelrose, who was detested in the countryside, lived in the constant dreadof burglary or murder; and finally--as a clue to the whole situationwhich the popular mind insisted on supplying--that he had committed somefearful crime, during his years in foreign parts, for which he could notbe brought to justice; but remorse and dread of discovery had affectedhis brain, and turned him into a skulking outcast. 

Possessed by these simple but interesting ideas, the Pengarth man sharplynoticed, first that the gate of the enclosure was padlocked, Melrosehimself supplying a key from his pocket; next that most of the windows ofthe front were shuttered; and lastly--strange and unique fact, accordingto his own recollections of the Tower--that two windows on the groundfloor were standing wide open, giving some view of the large room within, so far as two partially drawn curtains allowed. As Melrose unlocked thegate, the house door opened, and three huge dogs came bounding out, infront of a gray-haired man, whom the driver of the wagonette knew to be"owd Dixon, " Melrose's butler and factotum. The driver was watching thewhole scene with an absorbed curiosity, when Melrose turned, threw him asudden look, paid him, and peremptorily bade him be off. He had thereforeno time to observe the perturbation of Dixon who was coming with slowsteps to meet his master; nor that a woman in white cap and apron hadappeared behind him on the steps. 

 * * * * *

Melrose on opening the gate found himself surrounded by his dogs, a finemastiff and two young collies. He was trying to drive them off, after agruff word to Dixon, when he was suddenly brought to a standstill by thesight of the woman on the steps. 

"D----n it!--whom have you got here?" he said, fiercely perceiving at thesame moment the open windows on the ground floor. 

"Muster Melrose--it's noan o' my doin', " was Dixon's trembling reply, ashe pointed a shaky finger at the windows. "It was t' yoong doctor fromPengarth--yo' ken him--"

A woman's voice interrupted. 

"Please, sir, would you stop those dogs barking? They disturb thepatient. "

Melrose looked at the speaker in stupefaction. 

"What the deuce have you been doing with my house?"--he turned furiouslyto Dixon--"who are these people?"

"Theer's a yoong man lyin' sick i' the drawin'-room, " said Dixondesperately. "They do say 'at he's in a varra parlish condition; an' theytell me there's to be no barkin' nor noise whativer. "

"Well, upon my word!" Melrose was by this time pale with rage. "A youngman--sick--in my drawing-room!--and a young woman giving orders in myhouse!--you're a precious lot--you are!" He strode on toward the youngwoman, who, as he now saw, was in the dress of a nurse. She had descendedthe steps, and was vainly trying to quiet the dogs. 

"I'll uphold yer!" muttered Dixon, following slowly after; "it's thequeerest do-ment that iver I knew!"

"Madam! I should like to know what your business is here. I never invitedyou that I know of, and I am entirely at a loss to understand yourappearance in my house!"

The girl whom Melrose addressed with this fierce mock courtesy turned onhim a perplexed face. 

"I know nothing about it, sir, except that I was summoned from Manchesterlast night to an urgent case, and arrived early this morning. Can't you, sir, quiet your dogs? Mr. Faversham is very ill. "

"In _my_ house!" cried Melrose, furiously. "I won't have it. He shan'tremain here. I will have him removed. "

The girl looked at him with amazement. 

"That, sir, would be quite impossible. It would kill him to move him. _Please_, Mr. Dixon, help me with the dogs. "

She turned imploringly to Dixon, who obediently administered variouskicks and cuffs to the noisy trio which at last procured silence. 

Her expression lightened, and with the professional alertness of one whohas no time to spend in gossiping, she turned and went quickly back intothe house. 

Dixon approached his master. 

"That's yan o' them, " he said, gloomily. "T'other's inside. "

"T'other who?--what? Tell me, you old fool, at once what the whole cursedbusiness is! Are you mad or am I?"

Dixon eyed him calmly. He had by this time summoned to his aid thesemi-mystical courage given him occasionally by his evangelical faith. Ifit was the Lord's will that such a thing should happen, why it was theLord's will; and it was no use whatever for Mr. Melrose or any one elseto kick against the pricks. So with much teasing deliberation, andconstantly interrupted by his angry master, he told the story of theaccident on the evening before, of Doctor Undershaw's appearance on thescene, and of the storming of the Tower. 

"Well, of all the presuming rascals!" said Melrose with slow fury, underhis breath, when the tale was done. "But we'll be even with him! Send aman from the farm, at once, to the cottage hospital at Whitebeck. They'vegot an ambulance--I commission it. It's a hospital case. They shall seeto it. Be quick! March!--do you hear?--I intended to quit of them--bagand baggage!"

Dixon did not move. 

"Doctor said if we were to move un now, it 'ud be manslaughter, " he saidstolidly, "an' he'd have us 'op. "

"Oh, he would, would he!" roared Melrose, "I'll see to that. Go along, and do what you're told. D----n it! am I not to be obeyed, sir?"

Wherewith he hurried toward the house. Dixon looked after him, shook hishead, and instead of going toward the farm, quietly retreated round thefarther corner of the house to the kitchen. He was the only person at theTower who had ever dared to cross Melrose. He attempted it but rarely;but when he did, Melrose was each time freshly amazed to discover that, in becoming his factotum, Dixon had not altogether ceased to be a man. 

Melrose entered the house by the front door. As he walked into the hall, making not the slightest effort to moderate the noise of his approach, another woman--also in white cap and apron--ran toward him, with quicknoiseless steps from the corridor, her finger on her lip. 

"Please, sir!--it is most important for the patient that the house shouldbe absolutely quiet. "

"I tell you the house is mine!" said Melrose, positively stamping. "Whatbusiness have you--or the other one--to give orders in it? I'll turn youall out!--you shall march, I tell you!"

The nurse--an older woman than the first who had spoken to himoutside--drew back with dignity. 

"I am sorry if I offended you, sir. I was summoned from Carlisle thismorning as night nurse to an urgent case. I have been helping the othernurse all day, for Mr. Faversham has wanted a great deal of attention. Iam now just going on duty, while the day nurse takes some rest. "

"Show me where he is, " said Melrose peremptorily. "I wish to see him. "

The nurse hesitated. But if this was really the master of the house, itwas difficult to ignore him entirely. She looked at his feet. 

"You'll come in quietly, sir? I am afraid--your boots--"

"Oh, go on! Order me about! What's wrong with my boots?" The pale grinwas meant for sarcasm. 

"They're rather heavy, sir, for a sick-room. Would you--would youmind--taking them off?"

"Upon my word, you're a cool one!"

But there was something in the quiet self-possession of the woman whichcoerced, while it exasperated him. He perceived plainly that she took himfor a madman to be managed. Yet, after glaring at her for a moment, hesat down fuming, and removed his boots. She smiled. 

"That'll do nicely, sir. Now if you don't mind coming _very_ quietly--"

She glided to the door of the drawing-room, opened it noiselessly andbeckoned to Melrose. He went in, and, against his will, he went ontiptoe, and holding his breath. 

Inside, he looked round the darkened room in angry amazement. It had beenwholly transformed. The open windows had been cleaned and curtained; theoak floor shone as though it had been recently washed; there was a tableon which were medicine bottles and glasses, with a chair or two; while inthe centre of the room, carefully screened from light, was a white bed. Upon it, a motionless form. 

"Poor young fellow!" whispered the nurse, standing beside Melrose, herkind face softening. "He has been conscious a little to-day--the doctoris hopeful. But he has been very badly hurt. "

Melrose surveyed him--the interloper!--who represented to him at thatmoment one of those unexpected checks and annoyances in life, whichselfish men with strong wills cannot and do not attempt to bear. Hisprivacy, his habits, his freedom--all at the mercy of this white-facedboy, these two intolerable women, and the still more intolerable doctor, on whom he intended to inflect a stinging lesson! No doubt the wholething had been done by the wretched pill-man with a view to his own fees. It was a plant!--an infamous conspiracy. 

He came closer. Not a boy, after all. A young man of thirty--perhapsmore. The brow and head were covered with bandages; the eyes were closed;the bloodless mouth hung slightly open, with a look of pain. Thecomeliness of the dark, slightly bearded face was not entirely disguisedby the dressings in which the head was swathed; and the chest and arms, from which the bedclothes had been folded back, were finely, thoughsparely, moulded. Melrose, whose life was spent among artistic objectswas not insensible to the young man's good looks, as they were visibleeven under his bandages and in the dim light, and for the first time hefelt a slight stir of pity. 

He left the room, beckoning to the night nurse. 

"What's his name?"

"We took some cards from his pocket. I think, sir, the doctor put themhere for you to see. "

The nurse went to the hall table and brought one. 

"Claude Faversham, 5 Temple Buildings, E. C. "

"Some young loafer, pretending to be a barrister, " said Melrosecontemptuously. "What's he doing here--in May? This is not the touristseason. What business had he to be here at all? I have no doubt whateverthat he was drunk, otherwise why should he have had an accident? Nobodyelse ever had an accident on that hill. Why should he, eh? Why should he?And how the deuce are we to get at his relations?"

The nurse could only reply that she had no ideas on the subject, and hadhardly spoken when the sound of wheels outside brought a look of reliefto her face. 

"That's the ice, " she said, rejoicingly. "We sent for it to Pengarth thisafternoon. "

And she fled on light steps to the front door. 

"Sent whom? _My_ man--_My_ cart!" growled Melrose, following her, toverify the outrage with his own eyes. And there indeed at the steps stoodthe light cart, the only vehicle which the master of the Tower possessed, driven by his only outdoor servant, Joe Backhouse, who had succeededDixon as gardener. It was full of packages, which the nurse was eagerlytaking out, comparing them with a list she held in her hand. 

"And of course I'm to pay for them!" thought Melrose furiously. No doubthis credit has been pledged up to the hilt already for this intruder, this beggar at his gates by these impertinent women. He stood therewatching every packet and bundle with which the nurse was loading herstrong arms, feeling himself the while an utterly persecuted and injuredbeing, the sport of gods and men; when the sight of a motor turning thecorner of the grass-grown drive, diverted his thoughts. 

The doctor--the arch-villain of the plot!

Melrose bethought himself a moment. Then he went along the corridor tohis library, half expecting to see some other invader ensconced in hisown chair. He rang the bell and Dixon hurriedly appeared. 

"Show Doctor Undershaw in here. "

And standing on the rug, every muscle in his tall and still vigorousframe tightening in expectation of the foe, he looked frowning round thechaos of his room. Pictures, with or without frames, and frames withoutpictures; books in packing-cases with hinged sides, standing piled oneupon another, some closed and some with the sides open and showing thebooks within; portfolios of engravings and drawings; inlaid or ivoryboxes, containing a medley of objects--miniatures, snuff-boxes, buttons, combs, seals; vases and plates of blue and white Nankin; an Italianstucco or two; a Renaissance bust in painted wood; fragments of stuff, cabinets, chairs, and tables of various dates and styles--all weregathered together in one vast and ugly confusion. It might have been a_salone_ in one of the big curiosity shops of Rome or Venice, where thewrecks and sports of centuries are heaped into the _piano nobile_ ofsome great building, once a palazzo, now a chain of lumber rooms. Forhere also, the large and stately library, with its nobly designedbookcases--still empty of books--its classical panelling, and embossedceiling, made a setting of which the miscellaneous plunder within it wasnot worthy. A man of taste would have conceived the beautiful room itselfas suffering from the disorderly uses to which it was put. 

Only, in the centre, the great French table, the masterpiece of Riesener, still stood respected and unencumbered. It held nothing but a Sèvresinkstand and pair of candle-sticks that had once belonged to MadameElisabeth. Mrs. Dixon dusted it every morning, with a feather brush, generally under the eyes of Melrose. He himself regarded it with afanatical veneration; and one of the chief pleasures of his life was tobeguile some passing dealer into making an offer for it, and thencontemptuously show him the door. 

"Doctor Undershaw, Muster Melrose. "

Melrose stood to arms. 

A young man entered, his step quick and decided. He was squarely built, with spectacled gray eyes, and a slight brown moustache on an otherwisesmooth face. He looked what he was--competent, sincere, and unafraid. 

Melrose did not move from his position as the doctor approached, andbarely acknowledged his bow. Behind the sarcasm of his voice the innerfury could be felt. 

"I presume, sir, you have come to offer me your apologies?"

Undershaw looked up. 

"I am very sorry, Mr. Melrose, to have inconvenienced you and yourhousehold. But really after such an accident there was nothing else to bedone. I am certain you would have done the same yourself. When I firstsaw him, the poor fellow was in a dreadful state. The only thing to dowas to carry him into the nearest shelter and look after him. It was--Iassure you--a case of life and death. "

Melrose made an effort to control himself, but the situation was too muchfor him. 

He burst out, storming:

"I wonder, sir, that you have the audacity to present yourself to me atall. Who or what authorized you, I should like to know, to takepossession of my house, and install this young man here? What have I todo with him? He has no claim on me--not the hundredth part of a farthing!My servant tells me he offered to help you carry him to the farm, whichis only a quarter of a mile distant. That of course would have been thereasonable, the gentlemanly thing to do, but just in order to insult me, to break into the privacy of a man who, you know, has always endeavouredto protect himself and his life from vulgar tongues and eyes, you mustneeds browbeat my servants, and break open my house. I tell you, sir, this is a matter for the lawyers! It shan't end here. I've sent for anambulance, and I'll thank you to make arrangements at once to remove thisyoung man to some neighbouring hospital, where, I understand, he willhave every attention. "

Melrose, even at seventy, was over six feet, and as he stood toweringabove the little doctor, his fine gray hair flowing back from strongaquiline features, inflamed with a passion of wrath, he made asufficiently magnificent appearance. Undershaw grew a little pale, but hefronted his accuser quietly. 

"If you wish him removed, Mr. Melrose, you must take the responsibilityyourself, I shall have nothing to do with it--nor will the nurses. "

"What do you mean, sir? You get yourself and me into this d----d hobble, and then you refuse to take the only decent way out of it! I requestyou--I command you--as soon as the Whitebeck ambulance comes, to removeyour patient _at once_, and the two women who are looking after him. "

Undershaw slipped his hands into his pockets. The coolness of the gesturewas not lost on Melrose. 

"I regret that for a few days to come I cannot sanction anything of thekind. My business, Mr. Melrose, as a doctor, is not to kill people, but, if I can, to cure them. "

"Don't talk such nonsense to me, sir! Every one knows that any seriouscase can be safely removed in a proper ambulance. The whole thing ismonstrous! By G--d, sir, what law obliges me to give up my house to a manI know nothing about, and a whole tribe of hangers-on, besides?"

And, fairly beside himself, Melrose struck a carved chest, standingwithin reach, a blow which made the china and glass objects huddled uponit ring again. 

"Well, " said Undershaw slowly, "there is such a thing as--a law ofhumanity. But I imagine if you turn out that man against my advice, andhe dies on the road to hospital, that some other kind of law might havesomething to say to it. "

"You refuse!"

The shout made the little doctor, always mindful of his patient, lookbehind him, to see that the door was closed. 

"He cannot be moved for three or four days, " was the firm reply. "Thechances are that he would collapse on the road. But as soon as ever thething is possible you shall be relieved of him. I can easily findaccommodation for him at Pengarth. At present he is suffering from verysevere concussion. I hope there is not actual brain lesion--but there maybe. And, if so, to move him now would be simply to destroy his chance ofrecovery. "

The two men confronted each other, the unreasonable fury of the one metby the scientific conscience of the other. Melrose was dumfounded by themingled steadiness and audacity of the little doctor. His mad self-will, his pride of class and wealth, surviving through all his eccentricities, found it unbearable that Undershaw should show no real compunctionwhatever for what he had done, nay, rather, a quiet conviction that, rageas he might, the owner of Threlfall Tower would have to submit. It wasindeed the suggestion in the doctor's manner, of an unexplainedcompulsion behind--ethical or humanitarian--not to be explained, butsimply to be taken for granted, which perhaps infuriated Melrose morethan anything else. 

Nevertheless, as he still glared at his enemy, Melrose suddenly realizedthat the man was right. He would have to submit. For many reasons, hecould not--at this moment in particular--excite any fresh hue and crywhich might bring the whole countryside on his back. Unless the doctorwere lying, and he could get another of the craft to certify it, he wouldhave to put up--for the very minimum of time--with the intolerable plagueof this invasion. 

He turned away abruptly, took a turn up and down the only free space theroom contained, and returned. 

"Perhaps you will kindly inform me, sir--since you have been goodenough to take this philanthropic business on yourself--or rather toshovel it on to me"--each sarcastic word was flung like a javelin atthe doctor--"whether you know anything whatever of this youth you arethrusting upon me? I don't imagine that he has dropped from the skies! Ifyou don't know, and haven't troubled yourself to find out, I shall setthe police on at once, track his friends, and hand him over!"

Undershaw was at once all civility and alacrity. 

"I have already made some inquiries at Keswick, Mr. Melrose, where I wasthis morning. He was staying, it appears, with some friends at theVictoria Hotel--a Mr. And Mrs. Ransom, Americans. The hotel peoplethought that he had been to meet them at Liverpool, had taken themthrough the Lakes, and had then seen them off for the south. He himselfwas on his way to Scotland to fish. He had sent his luggage to Pengarthby rail, and chose to bicycle, himself, through the Vale of St. John, because the weather was so fine. He intended to catch a night train onthe main line. "

"Just as I supposed! Idle scapegrace!--with nothing in the world to dobut to get himself and other people into trouble!"

"You saw the card that I left for you on the hall table? But there issomething else that we found upon him in undressing him which I shouldgreatly prefer, if I might, to hand over to your care. You, I have nodoubt, understand such things. They seem to be valuable, and neitherthe nurses nor I at all wish to have charge of them. There is aring"--Undershaw searched his pockets--"and this case. "

He held out two small objects. Melrose--still breathing quick withanger--took them unwillingly. With the instinctive gesture of thecollector, however, he put up his eyeglass to look at the ring. Undershawsaw him start. 

"Good heavens!"

The voice was that of another man. He looked frowning at Undershaw. 

"Where did you get this?"

"He wore it on his left hand. It is sharp as you see, and rather large, and the nurse was afraid, while he is still restless and sometimesdelirious, he might do himself some hurt with it. "

Melrose opened the case--a small flat case of worn green leather some sixinches long; and looked at its contents in a speechless amazement. Thering was a Greek gem of the best period--an Artemis with the toweredcrown, cut in amethyst. The case contained six pieces, --two cameos, andfour engraved gems--amethyst, cornelian, sardonyx, and rock crystal;which Melrose recognized at once as among the most precious things ofthis kind in the world! He turned abruptly, walked to his writing-table, took out the gems, weighed them in his hand, examined them with amagnifying glass, or held them to the light, muttering to himself, andapparently no longer conscious of the presence of Undershaw. Recollections ran about his brain: "Mackworth showed me that Medusahimself last year in London. He bought that Mars at the Castellani sale. And that's the Muse which that stupid brute Vincent had my commissionfor, and let slip through his fingers at the Arconati sale!"

Undershaw observed him, with an amusement carefully concealed. He hadsuspected from the beginning that in these possessions of the poorstricken youth means might be found for taming the formidable master ofthe Tower. For himself he scorned "la curiosité, " and its devotees, asmere triflers and shell-gatherers on shores bathed by the great ocean ofscience. But like all natural rulers of men he was quick to seize on anyweakness that suited his own ends; and he said to himself that Favershamwas safe. 

"They are valuable?" he asked, as Melrose still sat absorbed. 

"They are, " was the curt reply. 

"I am glad they have fallen into such good hands. They show I think"--thespeaker smiled amicably--"that we have not to do with any mere pennilessadventurer. His friends are probably at this moment extremely anxiousabout him. I hope we may soon get some clue to them. Now"--the voicesharpened to the practical note--"may I appeal to you, Mr. Melrose, tomake arrangements for the nurses as soon as is convenient to you. Theirwants are very simple--two beds--plain food--small amount ofattendance--and some means of communicating without too much delay withmyself, or the chemist. I promise they shall give as little trouble aspossible!"

Melrose rose slowly without replying. He took a bunch of keys from ispocket, and opened one of the drawers in the Riesener table. As he didso, the drawer, under a stream of sunset light from the window beyond it, seemed to give out a many-coloured flash--a rapid Irislike effect, lostin a moment. The impression made on Undershaw was that the drawer alreadycontained gems like those in the case--or jewels--or both. 

Melrose seemed to have opened the drawer in a fit of abstraction duringwhich he had forgotten Undershaw's presence. But, if so, the act rousedhim, and he looked round half angrily, half furtively at his visitor, ashe hastily relocked the drawer. 

Then speaking with renewed arrogance, he said:

"Well, sir, I will see to these things. For to-night, I consent--forto-night only, mind you--reserving entirely my liberty of action forto-morrow. "

Undershaw nodded, and they left the room together. 

Dixon and Mrs. Dixon were both waiting in the passage outside, watchingfor Melrose, and hanging on his aspect. To their amazement they were toldthat a room was to be got ready for the nurses, a girl was to be fetchedto wait on them from the farm, and food was to be cooked. 

The faces of both the old servants showed instant relief. Dixon wentoff to the farm, and Mrs. Dixon flew to her kitchen. She was gettingold, and the thought of the extra work to be done oppressed her. Nevertheless after these years of solitude, passed as it were in abesieged camp--Threlfall and its inmates against the world--this new andtardy contact with humanity, this momentary return to neighbourly, kindlyways brought with it a strange sweetness. And when night fell, and asubdued, scarcely perceptible murmur of life began to creep about thepassages of the old house, in general so dead and silent, Mrs. Dixonmight have been heard hoarsely crooning an old song to herself as shewent to and fro in the kitchen. All the evening she and Dixon wererestless, inventing work, when work was finished, running from yard tohouse and house to yard, calling to each other without reason, andlooking at each other with bewildered eyes. They were like beetles undera stone, when the stone is suddenly lifted. 

Gradually the house sank to rest. Dixon creeping past the door of thesick-room, on his stockinged feet, could hear the moaning, the hoarseindeterminate sounds, now loud, now plaintive, made by the sufferer. Theday nurse came out with an anxious face, on her way to bed. Mr. Favershamshe said was very ill--what could be done if it did become necessary tosummon the doctor? Dixon assured her the gardener who was also the groomwas sleeping in the house, and the horse was in the stable. She had onlyto wake Mrs. Dixon--he showed her where and how. In the dark corridor, amid all its obstructive lumber, these two people who had never seen eachother before, man and woman, took anxious counsel for the help of anunconscious third, a complete stranger to both of them. 

The night nurse gave a dose of morphia according to directions, and satdown on a low chair at the foot of the bed watching her patient. 

About two o'clock in the morning, just as the darkness was beginning tothin, she was startled by a sound outside. She half rose, and saw thedoor open to admit a tall and gaunt figure, whom she recognized as themaster of the house. 

She held up an anxious finger, but Melrose advanced in spite of it. Hisold flowered dressing-gown and gray head came within the range of thenight-light, and the nurse saw his shadow projected, grotesque andthreatening, on the white traceries of the ceiling. But he made no sound, and never looked at the nurse. He stood surveying young Faversham forsome time, as he lay hot and haggard with fever, yet sleeping under thepower of morphia. And at last, without a word, the nurse saw herformidable visitor depart. 

Melrose returned to his own quarters. The window of his room was open, and outside the great mountains, in a dewy dawn, were beginning to showpurple through dim veils of silvery cloud. He stood still, looking out. His mind was churning like a yeasty sea. Old facts came to the surface;faces once familiar; the form and countenance of a brother drowned attwenty in Sandford lasher on the Oxford Thames; friends of his earlymanhood, riding beside him to hounds, or over the rolling green of theCampagna. Old instincts long suppressed, yet earlier and more primitivein him than those of the huckster and the curio-hunter, stirred uneasily. It was true that he was getting old, and had been too long alone. Hethought with vindictive bitterness of Netta, who had robbed and desertedhim. And then, again, of his involuntary guest. 

The strangest medley of ideas ran through his mind. Self-pity;recollections connected with habits on which he had deliberately turnedhis back some thirty years before--the normal pleasures, friendships, occupations of English society; fanatical hatred and resentment--againsttwo women in particular, the first of whom had, in his opinion, deliberately spoilt his life by a double cruelty, while the second--hiswife--whom he had plucked up out of poverty, and the dust-heap of herdisreputable relations, had ungratefully and wickedly rebelled againstand deserted him. 

Also--creeping through all his thoughts, like a wandering breeze in thedark, stole again and again the chilling consciousness of old age--and ofthe end, waiting. He was fiercely tenacious of life, and his seventiethbirthday had rung a knell in his ears that still sounded. So defiantwas he of death, that he had never yet brought himself to make a will. Hewould not admit to himself that he was mortal; or make arrangements thatseemed to admit the grim fact--weakly accepted--into the citadel of astill warm life. 

Yet the physical warnings of old age had not been absent. Some day hewould feel, perhaps suddenly--the thought of it sent through him a shiverof impotent revolt against the human destiny--the clutch of the masterwhom none escapes. 

Vague feelings, and shapeless terrors!--only subterraneously connectedwith the wounded man lying in his house. 

And yet they were connected. The advent of the unconscious youth belowhad acted on the ugly stagnation of the Threlfall life with a touch ofcrystallizing force. Melrose felt it in his own way no less than theDixons. Something seemed to have ended; and the mere change suggestedthat something might begin. 

The sudden shock, indeed, of the new event, the mere interruption ofhabit, were serious matters in the psychology of a man, with whom neitherbrain nor nerves were normally attuned. Melrose moved restlessly abouthis room for a great part of the night. He could not get the haggardimage of Faversham out of his mind; and he was actually, in the end, tormented by the thought that, in spite of nurses and doctors, he mightdie. 

Nonsense! One could get a specialist from Edinburgh--from London ifnecessary. 

And always, by whatever road, his thoughts came back--as it wereleaping--to the gems. Amethyst, sardonyx, crystal--they twinkled andflashed through all the byways of the brain. So long as the house heldtheir owner, it held them also. Two of them he had coveted for years. They must not--they should not--be lost to him again. By what ridiculouschance had this lad got hold of them?

With the morning came a letter from a crony of Melrose's in London, anold Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, with whom he had had not a fewdealings in the past. 

"Have you heard that that queer fish Mackworth has left his whole cabinetof gems to a young nephew--his sister's son, to whom they say he has beenmuch attached? Everything else goes to the British Museum and SouthKensington, and it is a queer business to have left the most preciousthing of all to a youth who in all probability has neither knowledge nortaste, and may be trusted to turn them into cash as soon as possible. Doyou remember the amethyst Medusa? I could shout with joy when I think ofit! You will be wanting to run the nephew to earth. Make haste!--orGermany or America will grab them. "

But the amethyst Medusa lay safe in her green case in the drawer of theRiesener table. 

V

Duddon Castle in May was an agreeable place. Its park, lying on theeastern slopes of the mountain mass which includes Skiddaw andBlencathra, had none of the usual monotony of parks, but was a genuine"chase, " running up on the western side into the heather and rock of themountain where the deer were at home, while on the east and south itssplendid oaks stood thick in bracken beside sparkling becks, overlookingdells and valleys of succulent grass where the sheep ranged at will. Thehouse consisted of an early Tudor keep, married to a Jacobean house ofrose-coloured brick, which Lady Tatham had since her widowhood succeededin freeing from the ugly stucco which had once disguised and defaced it. It could not claim the classical charm, the learned elegance of ThrelfallTower. Duddon was romantic--a medley of beautiful things, full ofhistory, colour, and time, fused by the trees and fern, the luxuriantcreepers and mosses, and of a mild and rainy climate into a lovelyirregular whole; with no outline to speak of, yet with nothing that onecould seriously wish away. The size was great, yet no one but anauctioneer could have called it "superb"; it seemed indeed to take apleasure in concealing the whole extent of its clustered building; and bythe time you were aware of it, you had fallen in love with Duddon, andnothing mattered. 

But if without, in its broad external features, Duddon betrayed aromantic freedom in the minds of those who had planned it, nothing couldhave been more orderly or exquisite than its detail, when detail had tobe considered. The Italian garden round the house with its formal massesof contrasting colour, its pleached alleys, and pergolas, its steps, vases, and fountains, was as good in its way as the glorious wildness ofthe Chase. One might have applied to it the Sophoclean thought--"Howclever is man who can make all these things!"--so diverse, and sopleasant. And indoors, Duddon was oppressive by the very ingenuity of itsrefinement, the rightness of every touch. No overcrowding; noostentation. Beautiful spaces, giving room and dignity to a few beautifulobjects; famous pictures, yet not too many; and, in general, thingsrather suggestive than perfect; sketches--fragments--from the great artsof the world; as it were, a lovely wreckage from a vast ocean settenderly in a perfect order, breathing at once the greatness and theeternal defeat of men. 

The interior beauty of Duddon was entirely due to Victoria, Lady Tatham, mother of the young man who now owned the Tatham estates. She had createdit through many years; she had been terribly "advised, " in the process, by a number of clever folk, English and foreign; and the resultalternately pleased and tormented her. To be fastidious to such a pointis to grow more so. And Victoria Tatham was nothing if not fastidious. She had money, taste, patience, yet ennui confronted her in many paths;and except for the son she adored she was scarcely a happy woman. She waspersonally generous and soft-hearted, but all "causes" found in herrather a critic than a supporter. The follies of her own class wereparticularly plain to her; her relations, with their great names, andgreat "places, " seemed to her often the most ridiculous persons in theworld--a world no longer made for them. But one must hasten to add thatshe was no less aware of her own absurdities; so that the ironic mind inher robbed her both of conceit for herself and enthusiasm for others. 

Two or three days after the storming of Threlfall Tower, Lady Tatham camein from a mountain ramble at tea-time, expecting her son, who had beenaway on a short visit. She entered the drawing-room by a garden door, laden with branches of hawthorn and wild cherry. In her linen dress andshady hat she still looked youthful, and there were many who could not begot to admit that she was any less beautiful than she had ever been. These flatterers of course belonged to her own generation; young eyeswere not so kind. 

Tea had been brought in, and she was busy with the arrangement of abranch of wild cherry in a corner of the room where its pearl and silverblossoms shone out against a background of dull purple, when the door washastily opened, and a curly-haired youth stood on the threshold whosmiled at sight of her. 

"You are here, mother! That's jolly! I thought I might find you gone. "

"I put off London till next week. Mind my hat, you wretch. "

For the young fellow had put his arms round her, kissing her heartily. She disengaged herself and her hat, affecting to scold; but her eyesbetrayed her. She put up her hand and smoothed back the thick andtumbling hair from his forehead. 

"What a ruffian you look! Where have you been all this time?"

"I stopped in Keswick to do various things--and then--I say, shan't wehave some tea? I've got lots to tell you. Well, in the first place, mother, I'd better warn you, you may have some visitors directly!"

Lady Tatham opened her eyes, struck by the elation of the tone. 

"Strangers?"

"Well, nearly--but I think you've seen them. You know that lady and herdaughters who came to White Cottage about two years ago?"

"A Mrs. Penfold?"

"Just so. I told you I met them--in April, when you were abroad--at theHunt Ball. But--well, really, I've met them several times since. TheDeacons know them. " The slight consciousness in the voice did not escapehis mother. "You know you've never called on them. Mother, you aredisgraceful about calling! Well, I met them again this afternoon, justthe other side of Whitebeck. They were in a pony-carriage, and I was inthe motor. It's a jolly afternoon, and they didn't seem to have anythingparticular to do, so I just asked them to come on here, and have tea, andwe'd show them the place. "

"All right, dear. I'll bear up. Do you think they'll come?"

"Well, I don't know, " said her son dubiously. "You see--I think MissPenfold thought you ought to have called on them before they came here!But Mrs. Penfold's a nice old thing--she _said_ they'd come. "

"Well, there's plenty of tea, and I'll go and call if you want me to. "

"How many years?" laughed Tatham. "I remember somebody you took eightyears to call on, and when you got there you'd forgotten their names. "

"Pure invention. Never mind, sit down and have your tea. How manydaughters?"

"How many Miss Penfolds? Well, there are two, and I danced with themboth. But"--the young man shook his head slowly--"I haven't got any usefor the elder one. "

"Plain?"

"Not at all--rather pretty. But she talks philosophy and stuff. Not mysort. "

"And the younger one doesn't talk philosophy?"

"Not she. She's a deal too clever. But she paints--like a bird. I've seensome of her things. "

"Oh!--so _you_'ve been to call?"

Lady Tatham lifted her beautiful eyes upon her son. Harry Tatham fidgetedwith his cup and spoon. 

"No. I was shy, because you hadn't been. But--"

"Harry, " interrupted his mother, her look all vivacity, "did she paintthose two water-colours in your sitting-room?"

The boyish, bluntly cut face beside her broke into a charming laugh. 

"I bought 'em out of the Edinburgh exhibition. Wasn't it 'cute of me? Shetold me she had sent them there. So I just wrote to the secretary andbought them. "

There was silence a moment. Lady Tatham continued to look at her son. Theeyebrows on her brow, as they slowly arched themselves, expressed thehalf-amused, half-startled inquiry she did not put into words. He flushedscarlet, still smiling, and suddenly he laid his hand on hers. 

"I say, mummie, don't tease me, and don't talk to me about it. There maybe nothing in it--nothing at all. "

His mother's face deepened into gravity. 

"You take my breath away. Remember--there's only me, Harry, to look afteryou. "

"I know. But you're not like other mothers, " said the youth impatiently. "You want me to be happy and please myself. At least if you'd wanted theusual thing, you should have brought me up differently!" He smiled uponher again, patting her hand. 

"What do you mean by the 'usual thing'?"

"Well, family and money, I suppose. As if we hadn't got enough for ten!"

Lady Tatham hesitated. 

"One talks in the air, " she said, frowning a little. "I can't promiseyou, Harry, exactly how I should behave, if--"

"If what?"

"If you put me to the _test_. "

"Oh, yes, you can, " he said, affectionately. Then he got up restlesslyfrom the table. "But don't let's talk about it. Somehow I can't standit--yet. I just wanted you to know that I liked them--and I'd be glad ifyou'd be civil to them--that's all. Hullo--here they are!" For as hemoved across the room he caught sight, through a side window commandingthe park, of a pony-carriage just driving into the wide gravel spacebefore the house. 

"Already? Their pony must have seven-leagued boots, to have caught you upin this time. "

"Oh! I was overtaken by Undershaw, and he kept me talking. He told me themost extraordinary thing! You've no idea what's been happening at theTower. That old brute Melrose! But I say--!" He made a dash across theroom. 

"What's the matter?"

"I must go and put those pictures away, in case--"

A far door opened and shut noisily behind him. He was gone. 

"In case he asks her to go and see his sitting-room? This is all verysurprising. "

Lady Tatham sat on at the tea-table, her chin in her hands. It was quitetrue that she had brought up her son with unconventional ideas; that shehad unconventional ideas herself on family and marriage. All the same, her mind at this moment was in a most conventional state of shock. Sheknew it, perceiving quite clearly the irony of the situation. Who werethe Penfolds? A little artist girl?--earning her living--with humble, perhaps hardly presentable relations--to mate with her glorious, goldenHarry?--Harry whom half the ambitious mothers of England courted andflattered?

The thought of defeating the mothers of England was however so pleasantto her sense of humour that she hurriedly abandoned this line ofreflection. What had she been about? to be so blind to Harry'sproceedings? She had been lately absorbed, with that intensity she couldstill, at fifty, throw into the most diverse things, in a piece of newembroidery, reproducing a gorgeous Italian design; and in a religiousnovel of Fogazzaro's. Also she had been watching birds, for hours, with aspy-glass in the park. She said to herself that she had better have beenwatching her son. 

Meanwhile she was quite aware of the slight sounds from the hall whichheralded the approaching visitors. The footman threw the door open; andshe rose. 

There came in, with hurrying steps, a little lady in widow's dress, herwidow's veil thrown back from her soft brown hair and childish face. Behind her, a tall girl in white, wearing a shady hat. 

The little lady held out a hand--eager but tremulous. 

"I _hope_, Lady Tatham, we are not intruding? We know it isn'tcorrect--indeed we are quite aware of it--that we should call upon youfirst. But then we know your son--he is such a charming young man!--andhe asked us to come. I don't think Lydia wanted to come--she always wantsto do things properly. No, indeed, she didn't want to come. It's all mydoing. I persuaded her. "

"That was very kind of you, " said Lady Tatham as she shook hands firstwith the mother, and then with the silent daughter. "Oh, I'm a dreadfulneighbour. I confess it in sackcloth and ashes. I ought to have calledupon you long ago. I don't know what to say. I'm incorrigible! Pleasewill you sit down, and will you have some tea? My son will be heredirectly. "

But instead of sitting down Mrs. Penfold ran to the window, exclaiming onthe beauty of the view, the garden, the trees, and the bold profile ofthe old keep, thrown forward among the flowers. There was nothing theleast distinguished in her ecstasy. But it flowed and bubbled withperfect sincerity; and Lady Tatham did not dislike it at all. 

"A lady"--she thought--"quite a lady, though rather a goose. The daughteris uncomfortable. "

And she glanced at the slightly flushed face of Lydia, who followed intheir wake, every now and then replying, as politeness demanded, to someappeal from her mother. It was indeed clear that the visit had been noneof her doing. 

Grace?--personality?--Lady Tatham divined them, from the way the girlmoved, from the look in her gray-blue eyes, from the carriage of herhead. She was certainly pretty, with that proud virginal beauty whichoften bears itself on the defensive, in our modern world where a certainsuperfluity of women has not tended to chivalry. But how littleprettiness matters, beside the other thing!--the indefinable, irresistible something--which gives the sceptre and the crown! All thetime she was listening to Mrs. Penfold's chatter, and the daughter'soccasional words, Victoria Tatham was on the watch for this something;and not without jealousy and a critical mind. She had been taken bysurprise; and she resented it. 

Harry was very long in coming back!--in order she supposed to give hertime to make acquaintance. 

But at last she had them at the tea-table, and Mrs. Penfold's adjectiveswere a little quenched. Each side considered the other. Lady Tatham'sdress, her old hat, and country shoes attracted Lydia, no less than theboyish, open-air look, which still survived through all the signs of acomplex life and a cosmopolitan experience. Mrs. Penfold, on her part, thought the old hat, and the square-toed shoes "unsuitable. " In her youngdays great ladies "dressed" in the afternoons. 

"Do you like your cottage?" Lady Tatham inquired. 

Mrs. Penfold replied that nothing could be more to their taste--exceptfor the motors and the dust. 

"Ah! that's my fault, " said a voice behind her. "All motorists arebrutes. I say, it was jolly of you to come!"

So saying, Tatham found a place between his mother and Mrs. Penfold, looking across at Lydia. Youth, happiness, manly strength came in withhim. He had no features to speak of--round cheeks, a mouth generallyslightly open, and given to smiling, a clear brow, a red and whitecomplexion, a babyish chin, thick fair hair, and a countenance neitherreserved nor foolishly indiscreet. Tatham's physical eminence--and it wasundisputed--lay not in his plain, good-tempered face, but in the youngperfection of his athlete's form. Among spectacles, his mother, at least, asked nothing better than to see him on horseback or swinging agolf-club. 

"How did you come?--through the Glendarra woods?" he asked of Lydia. Thedelight in his eyes as he turned them upon her was already evident to hismother. 

Lydia assented. 

"Then you saw the rhododendrons? Jolly, aren't they?"

Lydia replied with ardour. There is a place in the Glendarra woods, wherethe oaks and firs fall away to let a great sheet of rhododendrons sweepup from the lowland into a mountain boundary of gray crag and tumblingfern. Rose-pink, white and crimson, the waves of colour roll among therocks, till Cumbria might seem Kashmir. Lydia's looks sparkled, as shespoke of it. The artist in her had feasted. 

"Won't you come and paint it?" said Tatham bending forward eagerly. "You'd make a glorious thing of it. Mother could send a motor for you soeasily. Couldn't you, mother?"

"Delighted, " said Lady Tatham, rather perfunctorily. "They are just intheir glory--they ought to be painted. "

"Thank you so much!"--Lydia's tone was a little hurried--"but I have somany subjects on hand just now. "

"Oh, but nothing half so beautiful as that, Lydia!" cried her mother, "orso uncommon. And they'll be over directly. If Lady Tatham would _really_send the motor for you--"

Lydia murmured renewed thanks. Tatham, observing her, retreated, with alaugh and a flush. 

"I say, we mustn't bother you to paint what _we_ like. That would be toobad. "

Lydia smiled upon him. 

"I'm so busy with a big view of the river and Threlfall. "

"Threlfall? Oh, do you know--mother! do you know what's been happening atThrelfall. Undershaw told me. The most marvellous thing!" He turned toMrs. Penfold. "You've heard the stories they tell about here of oldMelrose?"

Lydia laughed softly. 

"Mother collects them!"

Mrs. Penfold confessed that, being a timid person, she went in fear, sometimes of Mr. Melrose, sometimes of his bloodhounds. She did not likepassing the gate of Threlfall, and the high wall round the estate madeher shudder. Of course the person that put up that wall _must_ be mad. 

"A queer sort of madman!" said Tatham, with a shrug. "They say he getsricher every year in spite of the state of the property. And meanwhile nohuman being, except himself or the Dixons, has ever slept in that house, or taken bite or sup in it for at least twenty years. And as for hisbehaviour to everybody round about--well, I can tell you all about thatwhenever you want to know! However, now they've stormed him--they'vesmoked him out like a wasp's nest. My goodness--he did buzz! Undershawfound a man badly hurt, lying on the road by the bridge--bicycleaccident--run over too, I believe--and carried him into the Tower, willy-nilly!" The speaker chuckled. "Melrose was away. Old Dixon saidthey should only come in over his body--but was removed. Undershaw gotfour labourers to help him, and, by George, they carried the man in! Theyfound the drawing-room downstairs empty, no furniture in it, or next tonone--turned it into a bedroom in no time. Undershaw telegraphed for acouple of nurses--and when Melrose came home next day--_tableau_! Therewas a jolly row! Undershaw enjoyed it. I'd have given anything in theworld to be there. And Melrose'll have to stick it out they say for weeksand weeks--the fellow's so badly hurt--and--"

Lydia interrupted him. 

"What did Doctor Undershaw say of him to-day?"

She bent forward across the tea-table, speaking earnestly. 

Tatham looked at her in surprise. 

"The report is better. Had you heard about it?"

"I must have seen him just before the accident--"

"Lydia! I never understood, " said Mrs. Penfold rather bewildered. 

Lydia explained that she too had seen Doctor Undershaw that morning, onhis way to the Tower, in Whitebeck village, and he had told her thestory. She was particularly interested, because of the little meeting bythe river, which she described in a few words. Twenty minutes or so afterher conversation with the stranger the accident must have happened. 

Mrs. Penfold meanwhile was thinking, "Why didn't Lydia tell me all thison the drive?" Then she remembered one of Lydia's characteristics--a kindof passionate reticence about things that moved her. Had the fate then ofthe young man--whom she could only have seen for a few minutes--touchedher so much?

Lady Tatham had listened attentively to Lydia's story--the inner mind ofher all the time closely and critically observant of the story-teller, her beauty, the manner and quality of it, her movements, her voice. Hervoice particularly. When the girl's little speech came to an end, Victoria still had the charm of it in her ears. 

"Does any one know the man's name?" she inquired. 

"I forgot to ask Undershaw, " said Tatham. 

Lydia supplied the information. The name of the young man was ClaudeFaversham. He seemed to have no relations whatever who could come andnurse him. 

"Claude Faversham!" Tatham turned upon her with astonishment. "I say! Iknow a Claude Faversham. I was a term with him at Oxford--at least ifit's the same man. Tall?--dark?--good-looking?"

Lydia thought the adjectives fitted. 

"He had the most beautiful ring!" she added. "I noticed it when he wastying up my easel. "

"A ring!" cried Tatham, wrinkling up his forehead. "By George, that isodd! I remember Faversham's ring perfectly. An uncle gave it him--an oldProfessor at Oxford, who used to collect things. My tutor sent me to alecture once, when I was in for schools. Mackworth--that was the oldboy's name--was lecturing, and Faversham came down to help him show hiscases. Faversham's own ring was supposed to be something special, andMackworth talked no end about it. Goodness!--so that's the man. Of courseI must go and see him!--ask after him anyway. "

But the tone had grown suddenly dubious. Lady Tatham's eyebrows roseslightly. 

"Go to Threlfall, Harry?"

"Well, not to call on Melrose, mother! I should have to make sure he wasout of the way. But I feel as if I ought to do something about Faversham. The fact is he did me a great kindness my first term at Oxford--he got meinto a little club I wanted to belong to. "

"Oh, but _you_ could belong to any club you wished!" cried Mrs. Penfold. 

Tatham laughed and coloured. Lady Tatham slipped the slightest look atLydia. 

"Not at all. Faversham was awfully useful. I must see what can be done. He can't stay on at that place. "

"You never go to Threlfall?" Mrs. Penfold addressed her hostess. 

"Never, " said Lady Tatham quietly. "Mr. Melrose is impossible. "

"I should jolly well think he is!" said Tatham; "the most graspingand tyrannical old villain! He's got a business on now of the mostabominable kind. I have been hearing the whole story this week. A manwho dared to county court him for some perfectly just claim. And Melrosein revenge has simply ruined him. Then there's a right of way disputegoing on--scandalous!--nothing to do with me!--but I'm helping otherpeople to fight him. And his _cottages_!--you never saw such pigsties!He's defied every sort of inspector. I believe everybody's afraid of him. And you can't get a yard of land out of him for any public purposewhatever. Well, now that I'm on the County Council, I mean to _go forhim!"_

The young man sprang up, apparently to fetch cigarettes, really thathe might once more obtain a full view of Lydia, who had moved from thetea-table to a more distant seat. 

Mrs. Penfold waved the silver box aside. "I never learnt"--she said, adding with soft, upturned eyes--confidingly--"sometimes I wish I did. Oh, Lydia will!"

And Lydia, following Lady Tatham's lead, quietly lit up. Tatham whocherished some rather strict and old-fashioned notions about women, veryimperfectly revealed even to his mother, was momentarily displeased; thenlost himself in the pleasure of watching a white hand and arm--for theday was hot and sleeves short--in new positions. 

Lady Tatham looked round in answer to her son's last words. 

"I wish, Harry, you'd leave him alone. "

"Who? Melrose? _Mother!_ Oh, I forgot--he's a sort of cousin, isn't he?"

"My second cousin. "

"Worse luck! But that's nothing, unless one chooses it shall be. Ibelieve, mother, you know a heap of things about Melrose you've nevertold me!"

Lady Tatham smiled faintly, but did not reply. Whereat Mrs. Penfold whosecuriosity was insatiable, within lady-like bounds, tried to ask questionsof her hostess. A wife? Surely there had been a wife?

"Certainly--twenty years ago. I saw her. " The answer came readily. 

"She ran away?"

"Not in the usual sense. There was no one, I understand, to run with. But she could not stand Threlfall--nor--I suppose--her husband. So oneday--when he had gone to Italy, and she was left behind--she just--"

"'Elopes--down a ladder of ropes'" laughed Tatham; "and took the child?"

"Yes--and a bronze, worth a thousand pounds. "

"Sensible woman! And where are they now?"

Lady Tatham shrugged her shoulders. 

"Oh, they can't be alive, surely, " said Lydia. "Mr. Melrose told DoctorUndershaw that he had no relations in the world, and didn't wish to betroubled with any. "

Contempt sat on Tatham's ruddy countenance. 

"Well, as far as we're concerned, he may take it easy. His familyaffections don't matter to anybody! But the way he behaves as a landownerdoes really matter to all of us. He brings disgrace on the whole show. "

He rose, straightening his young shoulders as he spoke. Lydia noted themodest involuntary consciousness of power and responsibility which for amoment dignified the boyish countenance; and as her eyes met his Tathamwas startled by the passionate approval expressed in the girl's look. 

She asked if there was no agent on the Melrose estates to temper thetyrannies of their master. 

Tatham came to her side--explaining--looking down upon her with aneagerness which had but a superficial connection with the thing said. 

"You see no decent man would ever stay with him. He'd never do the thingsMelrose does. He'd cut his hand off first. And if he didn't, the oldvillain would kick him out in no time. But that's enough about him, isn'tit? I get him on the brain! Won't you come and see the pictures?"

 * * * * *

The quartet inspecting the house had passed through the principal rooms, and had returned to the drawing-room. There Tatham said something toLydia, and they moved away together. His mother looked after them. Tathamwas leading the way toward the door in the farther wall which led to hisown sitting-room. Their young faces were turned toward each other. Thegirl's shyness seemed to have broken up. She was now talking fast, withsmiles. Ah, no doubt they would have plenty to say to each other, as soonas they were together. 

It was one of the bitter-sweet moments of life. Lady Tatham steadiedherself. 

"That is a sketch, " she said mechanically, "by Burne-Jones, for one ofthe Pygmalion and Galatea series. We have one or two others on the samesubject. "

Mrs. Penfold clasped her small hands in rapture. 

"Oh! but _how_ interesting! Do you know I was once Galatea? When I was agirl I used to act a great deal. Well, not act exactly--for I didn't haveto speak. I never could remember my lines. But I had two great parts. There was Hermione, in 'The Winter's Tale'; and Galatea. I made hundredsof pounds for hospitals--hundreds. It's not vain now, is it, to say onewas pretty in one's youth?"

"You like remembering it? Some people don't. "

"Ah, no, that's wrong! I'd liked to have been beautiful once, if I'm oldand ugly now, " cried Mrs. Penfold with fervour. "Of course"--she lookedshyly at the sketch--"I had beautiful draperies on. My Galatea was notlike that. "

"Draperies?" Lady Tatham laughed. "Pygmalion had only just madeher--there had been no time to dress her. "

"_We_ dressed her, " said Mrs. Penfold decidedly, "from top to toe. Someday I must show you the drawings of it--it's not like that at all. Thegirls think I'm silly to talk of it--oh! they don't say it--they're verygood to me. But I can see they do. Only--they've so many things to beproud of. Susy's so clever--she knows Greek and all that kind of thing. And Lydia's drawing is so wonderful. Do you know she has made twentypounds out of her sketches this week!"

"Capital!" said Lady Tatham smiling. 

"Ah, it means a great deal to us! You see"--Mrs. Penfold looked roundher--"when you're very rich, and have everything you want, you can'tunderstand--at least I don't think you can--how it feels to have twentypounds you don't expect. Lydia just danced about the room. And I'm tohave a new best dress--she insists on it. Well, you see"--the little pinkand white face of the speaker broke into smiles--"that's all so_amusing_. It puts one in good spirits. It's just as though one wererich, and made a thousand pounds. I daresay"--she looked, awestruck, atthe Burne-Jones sketch--"that's worth our whole income. But we're veryhappy. We never fret. Lydia and Susy both help in the housework. And Imake their blouses. "

"How clever of you! That's a Fra Angelico"--said Lady Tatham pointing, and not knowing what to do with these confidences--"an Annunciation. "

Mrs. Penfold thought it quite lovely. Lydia, when she was studyingin London, had copied one like it in the National Gallery. And herpoor father had liked it so. As they wandered on through the pictures, indeed, Lady Tatham soon came to know a great deal about Lydia's "poorfather"--that he had been a naval officer, a Captain Penfold, who hadhad to retire early on half-pay because of ill-health, and had diedjust as the girls had grown up. "He felt it so--he was so proud ofthem--but he always said, 'If one of us is to go, why, it had better beme, Rosina--because you have such spirits--you're so cheerful. ' And I am. I can't help it. "

It was all sincere. There was neither snobbishness nor affectation in thelittle widow, even when she prattled most embarrassingly about her ownaffairs, or stood frankly wondering at the Tatham wealth. But no onecould deny it was untutored. Lady Tatham thought of all the HonourableJohns, and Geralds, and Barbaras on the Tatham side--Harry's uncles andcousins--and the various magnificent people, ranging up to royalty, onher own; and envisaged the moment when Mrs. Penfold should look them allin the face, with her pretty, foolish eyes, and her chatter about Lydia'searnings and Lydia's blouses. And not all the inward laughter which thenotion provoked in one to whom life was largely comedy, in theMeredithian sense, could blind her to the fact that the shock would besevere. 

Had she really injured the prospects of her boy by the way--the romantic, idealist way--in which she had brought him up. Her Harry!--with whom shehad read poetry, and talked of heroes, into whose ears she had pouredRuskin and Carlyle from his youth up; who was the friend and comrade ofall the country folk, because of a certain irrepressible interest in hiskind, a certain selflessness that were his cradle gifts; who shared inhis boyish way, her own amused contempt for shams and shows--had she, after all, been training him for a mistake in the most serious step oflife?

For, like it or despise it, English society was there, and he must fillhis place in it. And things are seemly and unseemly, fitting andunfitting--as well as good and bad. This inexperienced girl, with herprettiness, and her art, and her small world--was it fair to her? Isthere not something in the unconscious training of birth and position, when, _bon gré, mal gré_, there is a big part in the world's socialbusiness to be played?

And meanwhile, with a fraction of her mind, she went on talking"Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff. " She did the honours of half theirpossessions. Then it suddenly seemed to her that the time was long, andshe led the way back once more to the drawing-room, in a ratherformidable silence, of which even her cheerful companion became aware. 

But as they entered the room, the door at the farther end opened again, and Tatham and Lydia emerged. 

Good heavens!--had he been proposing already? But a glance dispelledthe notion. Lydia was laughing as they came in, and a little flushed, as though with argument. It seemed to his mother that Harry's look, onthe other hand, was overcast. Had the girl been trampling on him?Impossible! In any case, there was no denying the quiet ease, thecomplete self-possession, with which the "inexperienced" one movedthrough Harry's domain, and took leave of Harry's mother. Your moderngirl?--of the intellectual sort--quite unmoved by gewgaws! Minx!

Harry saw the two ladies into their pony-carriage. When he returned tohis mother, it was with an absent brow. He went to the window and stoodsoftly whistling, with his hands in his pockets. Lady Tatham waited alittle, then went up to him, and took him by the arms--her eyes smilinginto his, without a word. 

He disengaged himself, almost roughly. 

"I wish I knew something about art!" he said discontentedly. "And whyshould anybody want to be independent all their lives--economicallyindependent?"

He slowly repeated the words, evidently from another mouth, in a land ofwonder. 

"That's the young woman of to-day, Harry. "

"Isn't it better to be happy?" he broke out, and then was silent. 

"Harry!--you didn't propose to her?"

He laughed out. 

"Propose to her! As if I dare! I haven't even made friends with heryet--though I thought I had. She talks of things I don't understand. "

"Not philosophy and stuff?"

"Lord, no!" he said, shrugging his shoulders. "It's much worse. It's asthough she despised--" He paused again. 

"Courting?" said his mother at last, her head against his shoulder. 

"Well, anything of that sort, in comparison with art--and making acareer--and earning money--and things of that kind. Oh, I daresay I'm astupid ass!--"

Lady Tatham laughed softly. 

"You can buy all her pictures, Harry. "

"I don't believe she'd like it a bit, if she knew!" he said, gloomily. 

The young man's chagrin and bewilderment were evident. His mother couldonly guess at the causes. 

"How long have you known her, Harry?"

"Just two months. "

Lady Tatham took him again by the shoulders, and looked into his face. 

"Why didn't you tell me before? Do you want her?" she asked slowly. 

"Yes--but I shall never get her, " was the half desperate reply. 

"Pooh!" she said, releasing him, after she had kissed him. "We shallsee. "

And straightway, with a wave of the hand as it were, she dismissed allthought of the Honourable Johns and Geralds. Mrs. Penfold and her chattersank out of sight and hearing. She was her son's champion--against theworld. 

VI

It was the tenth day since the evening when Claude Faversham had beencarried unconscious into Threlfall Tower, and the first one whichanything like clearness of mind had returned to him. Before that therehad been passing gleams and perceptions, soon lost again in the delusionsof fever, or narcotic sleep. A big room--strange faces--pain--a doctorcoming and going--intervals of misery following intervals ofnothingness--helplessness--intolerable oppression--horrible struggleswith food--horrible fear of being touched--gradually, little by little, these ideas had emerged in consciousness. 

Then had followed the first moments of relief--incredibly sweet--butfugitive, soon swallowed up in returning discomfort; yet lengthening, deepening, passing by degrees into a new and tremulous sense of securityof a point gained and passed. And at last on this tenth morning--a stilland cloudy morning of early June, he found himself suddenly fully awake, and as it seemed to him once more in possession of himself. A dull, dumbanguish lay behind him, already half effaced; and the words of a psalmfamiliar at school and college ran idly through his mind: "My soul hathescaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowler. "

"Where am I?" Not in a hospital. Hospital ceilings are not adorned withwreaths and festoons in raised stucco, or with medallion groups of wingedchildren playing with torches, or bows and arrows. 

"I have a gem like that one, " he thought, sleepily. 

"A genius with a torch. "

Then for a long time he was only vaguely conscious of more light thanusual in the room--of an open window somewhere--of rustling leavesoutside--and of a chaffinch singing.... 

Another couple of days passed, and he began to question the kind womanwhom he had come to regard as a sort of strong, protective force betweenhim and anguish, without any desire to give it a name, or realize anindividual. But now he saw that he had been nursed by hands as refined asthey were skilful, and he dimly perceived that he owed his life mainly tothe wholly impersonal yet absorbed devotion of two women--gentle, firm-faced, women--who had fought death for him and won. Just aprofessional service for a professional fee; yet his debt wasmeasureless. These are the things, he feebly understood, that women dofor men; and what had been mere hearsay to his strong manhood had becomeexperience. 

Actually a ray of sunshine had been allowed to penetrate the shaded room. He watched it enchanted. Flowers were on the table near him. There was adelicious sense of warmth and summer scents. 

"Where am I?" He turned his bandaged head stiffly toward the nurse besidehim. 

"In Threlfall Tower--the house of Mr. Edmund Melrose, " she said, bendingover him. 

The nurse saw him smile. 

"That's queer. What happened?"

His companion gave him a short account of the accident and of Undershaw'shandling of it. Then she refused to let her patient talk any more, andleft him with instructions not to tire his head with trying to remember. He lay disconnectedly dreaming. A stream of clear water, running shallowover greenish pebbles and among stones, large and small--and some whitethings floating on it. The recollection teased him, and a slight headachewarned him to put it aside. He tried to go to sleep. 

Suddenly, there floated into view a face vaguely seen, a girl's figure, in a blue dress, against a background of mountain. Who was it?--where hadhe come across her?

A few days later, when, for the first time, he was sitting up raised onpillows, and had been allowed to lift a shaking hand to help the nurse'shand as it guided a cup of soup to his lips, she said to him in her low, pleasant voice:

"Several people have been to inquire for you to-day. I'll bring you thecards. "

She fetched them from a table near and read the names. "Lord Tatham, andhis mother, Lady Tatham. They've sent you flowers every day. These areDuddon roses. " She held up a glass vase before him. "Mrs. Penfold andMiss Penfold. "

He shook his head feebly. 

"Don't know any of them. "

Nurse Aston laughed at him. 

"Oh, yes, you do. Lord Tatham was at college with you. He's coming to seeyou one day soon. And Miss Penfold saw you just before the accident. Shewas sketching in St. John's Vale, and you helped her fish somethingout of the water. "

"By Jove!--so I did, " he said, slowly. "Tatham?" He pondered. "Tell LadyTatham I'm much obliged to her. "

And he went to sleep again. 

The next time he woke, he saw an unfamiliar figure sitting beside him. His hold upon himself seemed to have grown much stronger. It was evening, and though the windows were still wide open a lamp had been lit. 

"Are you Mr. Melrose?" he asked, amazed at the clearness of his ownvoice. 

A gray-haired man moved his chair nearer. 

"That's all right. You'll soon be well now. Do you feel much better?"

"I--I feel nearly well. How long have I been here?"

"About three weeks. "

"I say--that's a nuisance! I'm very sorry to put you to inconvenience. "

"Wasn't your fault. It was the doctor who brought you here. " The tone ofthe words was round and masterful. "Are you comfortable? Have you all youwant?"

"Everything. The nurses are A1. I say--has some one written to my uncle?"

"Undershaw wrote to a Mr. George Faversham last week. He was ill withrheumatic gout, couldn't come. Is that the uncle you mean?"

The young man nodded. 

"He's the only relation I've got. The other one died. Hullo!"

He made a sudden movement. His hand slipped into his breast and foundnothing. He raised himself in bed, with a frowning brow. 

"I say!"--he looked urgently at Melrose. "Where are my gems?--and myring?"

"Don't trouble yourself. They were brought to me. I have them locked up. "

Faversham's expression relaxed. He let himself slide down upon hispillows. 

"By George!--if I'd lost them. "

Melrose studied him closely. 

"They're all right. What do you know about gems?"

"Only what Uncle Mackworth taught me. We were great pals. He was myguardian. I lived with him in the holidays after my parents died. I knewall his gems. And now he's left them to me. "

"Where are the rest?"

"I left the cabinet in charge of a man I know at the British Museum. Hepromised to lock it up in one of their strong rooms. But those six Ialways carry with me. "

Melrose laughed. 

"But those are just the six that should have been locked up. They areworth all the rest. "

The young man slowly turned his head. 

"Did you know my Uncle Mackworth?"

"Certainly. And I too knew all his gems. I could tell you the historiesof those six, anyway, for generations. If it hadn't been for a fool of anagent of mine, your uncle would never have had the Arconati Bacchus. "

Faversham was silent--evidently trying to feel his way through someinduction of thought. But he gave it up as too much for him, and merelysaid--nervously--with the sudden flush of weakness:

"I'm afraid you've been put to great expense, sir. But it's all right. Assoon as they'll let me sign a check, I'll pay my debts. "

"Good gracious, don't trouble your head about that!" said Melrose rising. "This house is at your disposal. Undershaw I daresay will tell you talesof me. Take 'em with a grain of salt. He'll tell you I'm mad, and Idaresay I am. I'm a hermit anyway, and I like my own society. But you'rewelcome here, as long as you've any reason to stay. I should like you toknow that I do not regard Mackworth's nephew as a stranger. "

The studied amiability of these remarks struck Faversham as surprising, he hardly knew why. Suddenly, a phrase emerged in memory. 

"Every one about here calls him the Ogre. "

The girl by the river--was it? He could not remember. Why!--the Ogre wastame enough. But the conversation--the longest he had yet held--hadexhausted him. He turned on his side, and shut his eyes. 

 * * * * *

Then gradually, day by day, he came to understand the externals, at anyrate, of the situation. Undershaw gave him a guarded, though stillgraphic, account of how, as unconscious as the dead Cid strapped on hiswarhorse, he and his bodyguard had stormed the Tower. The jests of thenurse, as to the practical difficulties of living in such a house, enlightened him further. Melrose, it appeared, lived like a peasant, andspent like a peasant. They brought him tales of the locked rooms, of thepassages huddled and obstructed with bric-à-brac, of the standing feudsbetween Melrose and his tenants. None of the ordinary comforts of lifeexisted in the Tower, except indeed a vast warming apparatus which keptit like an oven in winter; the only personal expenditure, beyond barenecessaries, that Melrose allowed himself. Yet it was commonly believedthat he was enormously rich, and that he still spent enormously on hiscollections. Undershaw had attended a London stockbroker staying in oneof the Keswick hotels, who had told him, for instance, that Melrose waswell known to the "House" as one of the largest holders of Argentinestock in the world, and as having made also immense sums out of Canadianland and railways. "The sharpest old fox going, " said the Londoner, himself, according to Undershaw, no feeble specimen of the money-makingtribe. "_His_ death duties will be worth raking in!"

Occasional gossip of this, or a more damaging kind, enlivenedconvalescence. Undershaw and the nurses had no motives for reticence. Melrose treated them uncivilly throughout; and Undershaw knew very wellthat he should never be forgiven the forcing of the house. And as he, thenurses, and the Dixons were firmly convinced that for every farthing ofthe accommodation supplied him Faversham would ultimately have to payhandsomely, there seemed to be no particular call for gratitude, or fora forbearance based upon it. 

Meanwhile Faversham himself did not find the character and intentions ofhis host so easy to understand. Although very weak, and with certainserious symptoms still persisting to worry the minds of doctor and nurse, he was now regularly dressed of an afternoon, and would sit in a largearmchair--which had had to be hired from Keswick--by one of the windowslooking out on the courtyard. Punctually at tea-time Melrose appeared. And there was no denying that in general he proved himself an agreeablecompanion--a surprisingly agreeable companion. He would come slouchingin, wearing the shabbiest clothes, and a black skullcap on his flowinggray hair; looking one moment like the traditional doctor of the Italianpuppet-play, gaunt, long-fingered, long-featured, his thin, pallid face astudy in gray amid its black surroundings; and the next, playing the manof family and cosmopolitan travel, that he actually was. Faversham indeedbegan before long to find a curious attraction in his society. There wasflattery, moreover, in the fact that nobody else in living memory hadMelrose ever been known to pay anything like the attention he was nowdaily devoting to his invalid guest. The few inmates and visitors of theTower, permanent and temporary, became gradually aware of it. They wereastonished, but none the less certain that Melrose had only modified hisattitude for some selfish reason of his own which would appear in duetime. 

The curious fact, however, emerged, after a while, that between the twomen, so diverse in age, history, and circumstance, there was a surprisingamount in common. Faversham, in spite of his look of youth, much impairedfor the present by the results of his accident, was not so very young; hehad just passed his thirtieth birthday, and Melrose soon discovered thathe had seen a good deal both of the natural and the human worlds. He wasthe son, it seemed, of an Indian Civil Servant, and had inherited fromhis parents, who were both dead, an income--so Melrose shrewdly gatheredfrom various indications--just sufficient to keep him; whereby a will, ambitious rather than strong, had been able to have its way. He haddabbled in many things, journalism, law, politics; had travelled a gooddeal; and was now apparently tired of miscellaneous living, and lookingout discontentedly for an opening in life--not of the common sort--thatwas somewhat long in presenting itself. He seemed to have a good manyfriends and acquaintances, but not any of overmastering importance tohim; his intellectual powers were evidently considerable, but not workingto any great advantage either for himself or society. 

Altogether an attractive, handsome, restless fellow; persuaded that hewas destined to high things, hungry for them, yet not seeing how toachieve them; hungry for money also--probably as the only possible meansof achieving them--and determined, meanwhile, not to accept any secondbest he could help. It was so, at least--from the cynical point of viewof an observer who never wasted time on any other--that Melrose read him. 

Incidentally he discovered that Faversham was well acquainted with thegeneral lines and procedure of modern financial speculation, was in factbetter versed in the jargon and gossip of the Stock Exchange than Melrosehimself; and had made use now and then of the large amount of informationand the considerable number of useful acquaintances he possessed tospeculate cautiously on his own account--without much result, but withoutdisaster. Also it was very soon clear that, independently of his specialreasons for knowing something about engraved gems and their value, he hadbeen, through his Oxford uncle, much brought across collectors andcollecting. He could, more or less, talk the language of the tribe, andindeed his mere possession of the famous gems had made him, willy-nilly, a member of it. 

So that, for the first time in twenty years, Melrose found himselfprovided with a listener, and a spectator who neither wanted to buy fromhim nor sell to him. When a couple of vases and a statuette, captured inParis from some remains of the Spitzer sale, arrived at the Tower, it wasto Faversham's room that Melrose first conveyed them; and it was fromFaversham's mouth that he also, for the first time, accepted any remarkson his purchases that were not wholly rapturous. Faversham, with thearrogance of the amateur, thought the vases superb, and the statuettedear at the price. Melrose allowed it to be said; and next morning thestatuette started on a return journey to Paris, and the Tower knew it nomore. 

Meanwhile the old collector would appear at odd moments with a lacqueredbox, or a drawer from a cabinet, and Faversham would find a languidamusement in turning over the contents, while Melrose strolled smoking upand down the room, telling endless stories of "finds" and bargains. Ofthe store, indeed, of precious or curious objects lying heaped togetherin the confusion of Melrose's den, the only treasures of a portable kindthat Faversham found any difficulty in handling were his own gems. Melrose would bring them sometimes, when the young man specially askedfor them, would keep a jealous eye on them the whole time they were intheir owner's hands, and hurry them back to their drawer in the Riesenertable as soon as Faversham could be induced to give them up. 

One night the invalid made a show of slipping them back into thebreast-pocket from which they had been taken while he lay unconscious. 

"I'm well enough now to look after them, " he had said, smiling, to hishost. "Nurse and I will mount guard. "

Whereupon Melrose protested so vehemently that the young man, in hisweakness, did not resist. Rather sulkily, he handed the case back to thegreedy hand held out for it. 

Then Melrose smiled; if so pleasant a word may be applied to the queerglitter that for a moment passed over the cavernous lines of his face. 

"Let me make you an offer for them, " he said abruptly. 

"Thank you--I don't wish to sell them. "

"I mean a good offer--an offer you are not likely to getelsewhere--simply because they happen to fit into my own collection. "

"It is very kind of you. But I have a sentiment about them. I have hadmany offers. But I don't intend to sell them. "

Melrose was silent a moment, looking down on the patient, in whose palecheeks two spots of feverish red had appeared. Then he turned away. 

"All right. Don't excite yourself, pray. "

"I thought he'd try and get them out of me, " thought Faversham irritably, when he was left alone. "But I shan't sell them--whatever he offers. "

And vaguely there ran through his mind the phrases of a letter handed tohim by his old uncle's solicitor, together with the will: "Keep them formy sake, my dear boy; enjoy them, as I have done. You will be tempted tosell them; but don't, if you can help it. The money would be soon spent;whereas the beauty of these things, the associations connected with them, the thoughts they arouse--would give you pleasure for a lifetime. I haveloved you like a father, and I have left you all the little cash Ipossess. Use that as you will. But that you should keep and treasure thegems which have been so much to me, for my sake--and beauty's--would giveme pleasure in the shades--'quo dives Tullus et Ancus'--you know therest. You are ambitious, Claude. That's well. But keep you heart green. "

What precisely the old fellow might have meant by those last words, Faversham had often rather sorely wondered, though not without guesses atthe answer. But anyway he had loved his adopted father; he protested it;and he would not sell the gems. They might represent his "luck"--such asthere was of it--who knew?

 * * * * *

The question of removing his patient to a convalescent home at Keswickwas raised by Undershaw at the end of the third week from the accident. He demanded to see Melrose one morning, and quietly communicated the factthat he had advised Faversham to transfer himself to Keswick as soon aspossible. The one nurse now remaining would accompany him, and he, Undershaw, would personally superintend the removal. 

Melrose looked at him with angry surprise. 

"And pray what is the reason for such an extraordinary and unnecessaryproceeding?"

"I understood, " said Undershaw, smiling, "that you were anxious to haveyour house to yourself again as soon as possible. "

"I defended my house against your attack. But that's done with. And whyyou should hurry this poor fellow now into new quarters, in his presentstate, when he might stay quietly here till he is strong enough for arailway journey, I cannot conceive!"

Undershaw, remembering the first encounter between them, could notprevent his smile becoming a grin. 

"I am delighted Mr. Faversham has made such a good impression on you, sir. But I understand that he himself feels a delicacy in trespassingupon you any longer. I know the house at Keswick to which I propose totake him. It is excellently managed. We can get a hospital motor fromCarlisle, and of course I shall go with him. "

"Do you suggest that he has had any lack of attention here from me or myservants?" said Melrose, hotly. 

"By no means. But--well, sir, I will be open with you. Mr. Faversham inmy opinion wants a change of scene. He has been in that room for threeweeks, and--he understands there is no other to which he can be moved. It would be a great advantage, too, to be able to carry him into agarden. In fact"--the little doctor spoke with the same cool frankness hehad used in his first interview with Melrose--"your house, Mr. Melrose, is a museum; but it is not exactly the best place for an invalid who isbeginning to get about again. "

Melrose frowned upon him. 

"What does he want, eh? More space? Another room? How many rooms do yousuppose there are in this house, eh?" he asked in a voice half hectoring, half scornful. 

"Scores, I daresay, " said Undershaw, quietly. "But when I inquired ofDixon the other day whether it would be impossible to move Mr. Favershaminto another room he told me that every hole and corner in the house wasoccupied by your collections, except two on the ground floor that you hadnever furnished. We can't put Mr. Faversham into an unfurnished room. That which he occupies at present is, if I may speak plainly, ratherbarer of comforts than I like. "

"What on earth do you mean?"

"Well, when an invalid's out of bed a pleasant and comfortable room is ahelp to him--a few things to look at on the walls--a change of chairs--abookcase or two--and so on. Mr. Faversham's present room is--I meanno offence--as bare as a hospital ward, and not so cheerful. Then as tothe garden"--Undershaw moved to a side window and pointed to theovergrown and gloomy wilderness outside--"nurse and I have tried in vainto find a spot to which we could carry him. I am afraid I must say thatan ordinary lodging-house, with a bit of sunny lawn on which he could liein his long chair, would suit him better, at his present stage, than thisfine old house. "

"Luxury!" growled Melrose, "useless luxury and expense! that's what everyone's after nowadays. A man must be as _cossu_ as a pea in a pod! I'll goand speak to him myself!"

And catching up round him the sort of Tennysonian cloak he habituallywore, even in the house and on a summer day, Melrose moved imperiouslytoward the door. 

Undershaw stood in his way. 

"Mr. Faversham is really not fit yet to discuss his own plans, exceptwith his doctor, Mr. Melrose. It would be both wise and kind of you toleave the decision of the matter to myself. "

Melrose stared at him. 

"Come along here!" he said, roughly. Opening the door of the library, heturned down the broad corridor to the right. Undershaw followedunwillingly. He was due at a consultation at Keswick, and had no time towaste with this old madman. 

Melrose, still grumbling to himself, took a bunch of keys out of hispocket, and fitted one to the last door in the passage. It opened withdifficulty. Undershaw saw dimly a large room, into which the light of arainy June day penetrated through a few chinks in the barred shutters. Melrose went to the windows, and with a physical strength which amazedhis companion unshuttered and opened them all, helped by Undershaw. Oneof them was a glass door leading down by steps to the garden outside. Melrose dragged the heavy iron shutter which closed it open, and then, panting, looked round at his companion. 

"Will this do for you?"

"Wonderful!" said Undershaw heartily, staring in amazement at the lovelytracery which incrusted the ceiling, at the carving of the doors, at thestately mantelpiece, with its marble caryatides, and at the Chinesewall-paper which covered the walls, its mandarins and pagodas, and itsbranching trees. "I never saw such a place. But what is my patient to dowith an unfurnished room?"

"Furniture!" snorted Melrose. "Have you any idea, sir, what this housecontains?"

Undershaw shook his head. 

Melrose pondered a moment, and took breath. Then he turned to Undershaw. 

"You are going back to Pengarth? You pass that shop, Barclay's--theupholsterer's. Tell him to send me over four men here to-morrow, to dowhat they're told. Stop also at the nurseryman's--Johnson's. No--I'llwrite. Give me three days--and you'll see. "

He studied the doctor's face with his hawk's eyes. 

Undershaw felt considerable embarrassment. The owner of the Towerappeared to him more of a lunatic than ever. 

"Well, really, Mr. Melrose--I appreciate your kindness--as I am sure mypatient will. But--why should you put yourself out to this extent? Itwould be much simpler for everybody concerned that I should find himthe quarters I propose. "

"You put it to Mr. Faversham that I am quite prepared to move him intoother quarters--and quarters infinitely more comfortable than he can getin any infernal 'home' you talk of--or I shall put it to him myself, "said Melrose, in his most determined voice. 

"Of course, if you persist in asking him to stay, I suppose he mustultimately decide. " Undershaw's tone betrayed his annoyance. "But I warnyou, I reserve my own right of advice. And moreover--supposing you dofurnish this room for him, allow me to point out that he will soon wantsomething else, and something more, even, than a better room. He willwant cheerful society. "

"Well?" The word was challenging. 

"You are most kind and indefatigable in coming to see him. But, after all, a man at his point of convalescence, and inclined to bedepressed--the natural result of such an accident--wants change, intellectual as well as physical, and society of his own age. "

"What's to prevent his getting it?" asked Melrose, shortly. "When theroom is in order, he will use it exactly as he likes. "

Undershaw shrugged his shoulders, anxious to escape to his consultation. 

"Let us discuss it again to-morrow. I have told you what I think best. "He turned to go. 

"Will you give that order to Barclay?"

Undershaw laughed. 

"If I do, I mustn't be taken as aiding and abetting you. But ofcourse--if you wish it. "

"Ten o'clock to-morrow, " said Melrose, accompanying him to the door. "Teno'clock, sharp. " He stood, with raised forefinger, on the threshold ofthe newly opened room, bowing a stiff farewell. 

Undershaw escaped. But as he turned into the pillared hall, Nurse Astonhurriedly emerged from Faversham's room. She reported some fresh troublein one of the wounds on the leg caused by the accident, which had neveryet properly healed. There was some pain, and a rise in temperature. 

 * * * * *

The unfavourable symptoms soon subsided. But as the fear ofblood-poisoning had been in Undershaw's mind from the beginning, they ledhim to postpone, in any case, the arrangements that had been set on footfor Faversham's departure. During three or four days afterward he sawlittle or nothing of Melrose. But he and Nurse Aston were well aware thatunusual things were going on in the house. Owing to the great thicknessof the walls, the distance of Faversham's room from the scene of action, and the vigilance of his nurse, who would allow no traffic whateverthrough the front hall, the patient was protected from the noise ofworkmen in the house, and practically knew nothing of the operationsgoing on. Melrose appeared every evening as usual, and gave no hint. 

On the afternoon of the fourth day, Melrose met Undershaw in the hall, ashe entered the house. 

"How is he?"

"All right again, I think, and doing well. I hope we shall have nofurther drawbacks. "

"Be good enough to give me ten minutes--before you see Mr. Faversham?"

The invitation could not have been more _grand-seigneur_ish. Undershaw, consumed with curiosity, accepted. Melrose led the way. 

But no sooner had they passed a huge lacquer screen, newly placed inposition, and turned into the great corridor, than Undershaw exclaimed inamazement. Melrose was striding along toward the south wing. Behind them, screened off, lay regions no longer visible to any one coming from thehall. In front, stretched a beautiful and stately gallery, terminating ina pillared window, through which streamed a light to which both it andthe gallery had been strangers for nearly a score of years. A mass ofthick shrubbery outside, which had grown up close to the house, and hadbeen allowed for years to block this window, together with many others onthe ground floor, had been cut sheer away. The effect was startling, andthrough the panes, freed from the dust and cobwebs of a generation, theblue distant line of the Pennines could be distinctly seen far away tothe southeast. The floor of the gallery was spread with a fine matting ofa faint golden brown, on which at intervals lay a few old Persian orIndian rugs. The white panelling of the walls was broken here and thereby a mirror, or a girandole, delicate work of the same date as theRiesener table; while halfway down two Rose du Barri tapestries facedeach other, glowing in the June sun. It was all spacious--a littleempty--the whole conception singularly refined--the colour lovely. 

Melrose stalked on, silently, pulling at his beard. He made no reply toUndershaw's admiring comments; and the doctor wondered whether he wasalready ashamed of the impulse which had made him do so strange a thing. 

Presently, he threw open the door he had unlocked the week before, Undershaw stepped into a room no less attractive than the galleryoutside. A carpet of old Persian, of a faded blue--a few cabinets spacedalong the walls--a few bookcases full of books old and new--a pillaredFrench clock on the mantelpiece--a comfortable modern sofa, and somearmchairs--branches of white rhododendron in a great enamelled vase--andtwo oval portraits on the walls, a gentleman in red, and a gentleman inblue, both pastels by Latour--in some such way one might have cataloguedthe contents of the room. But no catalogue could have rendered its effecton Undershaw, who was not without artistic leanings of a mild kindhimself--an effect as of an old debt paid, an injustice remedied, abeautiful creation long abused and desecrated, restored to itself. Theroom was at last what it had been meant to be; and after a hundred andfifty years the thought of its dead architect had found fruition. 

But this was not all. The garden door stood open, and outside, as hewalked up to it, Undershaw saw a stretch of smooth grass, with groups oftrees--the survivors of a ragged army--encircling it; a blaze of flowers;and beyond the low parapet wall of lichened stone, from which also adense thicket of yew and laurel had been removed, the winding course ofthe river, seventy feet below the Tower, showed blue under a clear sky. Adeck chair stood on the grass and a garden table beside it, holding anash-tray and cigarettes. 

Undershaw, after a pause of wonder, warmly expressed his admiration. Melrose received it ungraciously. 

"Why, the things were all in the house. Clumsy brutes!--Barclay's menwould have broken the half of them, if I hadn't been here, " he said, morosely. "Now will you tell Mr. Faversham this room is at his disposal, or shall I?"

 * * * * *

Half an hour later Faversham, assisted by his nurse, had limped along thecorridor, and was sitting beside the glass door in an utter yet notunpleasant bewilderment. What on earth had made the strange old fellowtake such an odd fancy to him? He had had singularly little "spoiling" inhis orphaned life so far, except occasionally from "Uncle Mackworth. " Theexperience was disturbing, yet certainly not disagreeable. 

He must of course stay on for a while, now that such extraordinary painshad been taken for his comfort. It would be nothing less than sheeringratitude were he not to do so. At the same time, his temperament wascautious; he was no green youngster; and he could not but ask himself, given Melrose's character and reputation, what ulterior motive theremight be behind a generosity so eccentric. 

Meanwhile Melrose, in high spirits, and full of complaisance, now thatthe hated Undershaw had departed, walked up and down as usual, talkingand smoking. It was evident that the whole process of unpacking histreasures had put him in a glow of excitement. The sudden interruption ofhabit had acted with stimulating power, his mind, like his home, hadshaken off some of its dust. He talked about the pictures and furniturehe had unearthed; the Latour pastels, the Gobelins in the gallery;rambling through scenes and incidents of the past, in a vivacious, egotistical monologue, which kept Faversham amused. 

In the middle of it, however, he stopped abruptly, eying his guest. 

"Can you write yet?"

"Pretty well. My arm's rather stiff. "

"Make your nurse write some notes for you. That man--Undershaw--says youmust have some society--invite some people. "

Faversham laughed. 

"I don't know a soul, either at Keswick or Pengarth. "

"There have been some people inquiring after you. "

"Oh, young Tatham? Yes, I knew him at Oxford. "

"And the women--who are they?"

Faversham explained. 

"Miss Penfold seems to have recognized me from Undershaw's account. Theyare your nearest neighbours, aren't they?" He looked smiling at his host. 

"I don't know my neighbours!" said Melrose, emphatically. "But as forthat young ass, Tatham--ask him to come and see you. "

"By all means--if you suggest it. "

Melrose chuckled. 

"But he won't come, unless he knows I am safely out of the way. He and Iare not on terms, though his mother and I are cousins. I dare sayUndershaw's told you--he's thick with them. The young man has beeninsolent to me on one or two occasions. I shall have to take him down. He's one of your popularity-hunting fools. However you ask him by allmeans if you want him. He'll come to see you. Ask him Thursday. I shallbe at Carlisle for the day. Tell him so. "

He paused, his dark eyeballs, over which the whites had a trick ofshowing disagreeably, fixing his visitor; then added:

"And ask the women too. I shan't bite 'em. I saw them from the windowthe day they came to inquire. The mother looked perfectly scared. Thedaughter's good looking. "

Manner and tone produced a vague irritation in Faversham. But he merelysaid that he would write to Mrs. Penfold. 

Two notes were accordingly despatched that evening from the Tower; one toDuddon Castle, the other to Green Cottage. Faversham had succeeded inwriting them himself; and in the exhilaration of what seemed to him amuch-quickened convalescence, he made arrangements the following morningto part with his nurse within a few days. "Do as you like, inmoderation, " said Undershaw, "no railway journey for a week or two. "

VII

Melrose had gone to Carlisle. The Cumbria landscape lay in a mistysunshine, the woods and fields steaming after a night of soaking rain. All the shades of early summer were melting into each other; reaches ofthe river gave back a silvery sky, while under the trees the shadowsslept. The mountains were indistinct, drawn in pale blues and purples, ona background of lilac and pearl. And all the vales "were up, " drinkingin the streams that poured from the heights. 

Tatham and his mother were walking through the park together. He was inriding-dress, and his horse awaited him at the Keswick gate. Lady Tathambeside him was attired as usual in the plainest and oldest of clothes. Her new gowns, which she ordered from time to time mechanically, leavingthe whole designing of them to her dress-maker, served her at Duddon, inher own phrase, mainly "for my maid to show the housekeeper. " They lay inscented drawers, daintily folded in tissue paper, and a maid no lessambitious than her fellows for a well-dressed mistress kept mournfulwatch over them. This carelessness of dress had grown upon VictoriaTatham with years. In her youth the indulgence of a taste for beautifuland artistic clothes had taken up a great deal of her time. Then suddenlyit had all become indifferent to her. Devotion to her boy, books, andnatural history absorbed a mind more and more impatient of ordinaryconventions. 

"You are quite sure that Melrose will be out of the way?" she asked herson as they entered on the last stretch of their walk. 

"Well, you saw the letter. "

"No--give it me. "

He handed it. She read it through attentively. 

"Mr. Melrose asks me to say that he will not be here. He is going over tothe neighbourhood of Carlisle on business, and cannot be home till teno'clock at night. "

"He has the decency not to 'regret, '" said Lady Tatham. 

"No. It is awkward of course going at all"--Tatham's brow was a littlefurrowed--"but I somehow think I ought to go. "

"Oh, go, " said his mother. "If he does play a trick you will know howto meet it. It would be very like him to play some trick, " she added, thoughtfully. 

"Mother, " said Tatham impetuously, "was Melrose ever in love with you?"

He coloured boyishly as he spoke. Lady Tatham looked up startled; a faintred appeared in her cheeks also. 

"I believe he supposed himself to be. I knew him very well, and Imight--possibly--have accepted him--but that some information came to myknowledge. Then, later on, largely I think to punish me, he nearlysucceeded in entangling my younger sister--your Aunt Edith. I stood inhis way. He hates me, of course. I think he suffered. In those days hewas very different. But his pride and self-will were always a madness. And gradually they have devoured everything else. " She paused. "I cannottell you anything more, Harry. There were other people concerned. "

"Dearest, as if I should ask! He did my mother no injury?"

Under the shadow of the woods the young man threw his arm round hershoulders, looking down upon her with a proud tenderness. 

"None. I escaped; and I won all along the line. I was neither to bepitied--nor he, " she added slowly, "though I daresay he would put downhis later mode of life to me. "

"As if any woman could ever have put up with him!"

Lady Tatham's expression showed a mind drawn back into the past. 

"When I first saw him, he was a magnificent creature. For several years Iwas dazzled by him. Then when I--and others--broke with him, he turnedhis back on England and went to live abroad. And gradually he quarrelledwith everybody who had ever known him. "

"But you never did care about him, mother?" cried Tatham, outraged by themere notion of any such thing. 

"No--never. " There was a deliberate emphasis on the words. The smile thatfollowed was slight but poignant. "I knew that still more plainly, when, six months after I ceased to see him, your father came along. "

Tatham who had drawn her hand within his arm, laid his own upon it for amoment. He was in the happy position of a son in whom filial affectionrepresented no enforced piety, but the spontaneous instinct of hisnature. His mother had been so far his best friend; and though he rarelyspoke of his father his childish recollections of him, and the impressionleft by his mother's constant and deliberate talk of him, during theboyish years of her son, had entered deep into the bases of character. Itis on such feelings and traditions that all that is best in our stillfeudal English life is reared; Tatham had known them without stint; andin their absence he would have been merely the trivially prosperous youngman that he no doubt appeared to the Radical orators of theneighbourhood. 

The wood thinned. They emerged from it to see the Helvellyn range lyingpurple under a southwest sky, and Tatham's gray mare waiting a hundredyards away. 

"You have no note?"

Tatham tapped his breast pocket. 

"Rather!"

"All right--go along!" Lady Tatham came to a halt. "And Harry--don't calltoo often! Is this the third visit this week?"

"Oh, but the others were such little ones!" he said eagerly. 

"Don't try to go too quick. " The tone was serious. 

"Too quick! I make no way at all, " he protested, his look clouding. 

Tatham rode slowly along the Darra, the little river which skirted hisown land and made its way at last into that which flowed beneath theTower. He was going to Threlfall, but on his way he was to call at GreenCottage and deliver a note from his mother. 

He had seen a good deal of Lydia Penfold during the weeks since her firstappearance at Duddon. The two sisters had been induced to lunch thereonce or twice; there had been a picnic in the Glendarra woods; and forhimself, in spite of his mother's attack, he thought he had been fairlyclever in contriving excuses for calls. On one occasion he had carriedwith him--by his mother's suggestion--a portfolio containing a dozenearly proofs of the "Liber Studiorium, " things about which he knew littleor nothing; but Lydia's eyes had sparkled when he produced them, whichwas all he cared for. On the second, he had called to offer them a keywhich would admit their pony-carriage to some of the private drives ofthe park, wild enchanted ways which led up to the very eastern heart ofBlencathra. That was not quite so successful, because both Lydia and hermother were out, and his call had been made chiefly on Susan, who hadbeen even queerer than usual. After taking the key, she had let it fallabsently into a waste-paper basket, while she talked to him about Ibsen;and he had been forced to rescue it himself, lest Lydia should never knowof his visit. On all other occasions he had found Lydia, and she had beencharming--always charming--but as light and inaccessible as mountainbirds. He had been allowed to see the drawing she was now busy on--theravines of Blencathra, caught sideways through a haze of light, edgebeyond edge, distance behind distance; a brave attempt on the artist'spart at poetic breadth and selection. She had been much worried about the"values, " whatever they might be. "They're quite vilely wrong!" she hadsaid, impatiently. "And I don't know how to get them right. " And all hecould do was to stand like an oaf and ask her to explain. Nor could heignore the fact--so new and strange to a princeling!--that herperplexities were more interesting to her than his visit. 

Yet of course Tatham had his own natural conceit of himself, like anynormal young man, in the first bloom of prosperous life. He wasaccustomed to be smiled on; to find his pleasure consulted, and hiscompany welcome, whether as the young master of Duddon, or as a comradeamong his equals of either sex. The general result indeed of his happyplacing in the world had been to make him indifferent to things that mostmen desire. No merit in that! As he truly said, he had so much of them!But he was proud of his health and strength--his shooting and the steadylowering of his golf handicap. He was proud also of certain practicalaptitudes he possessed, and would soon allow no one to interfere withhim--hardly to advise him--in the management of his estate. He likednothing better than to plan the rebuilding of a farm, or a set of newcottages. He was a fair architect, of a rough and ready sort, and adecent thatcher and bricklayer. All the older workmen on the estate hadtaught him something at one time or another; and of these varioushandicrafts he was boyishly vain. 

None of these qualifications, however, gave him the smallest confidencein himself, with regard to Lydia Penfold. Ever since he had first mether, he had realized in her the existence of standards just as free ashis own, only quite different. Other girls wished to be courted; or theycourted him. Miss Penfold gave no sign that she wished to be courted; andshe certainly had never courted anybody. Many pretty girls assertthemselves by a kind of calculated or rude audacity, as though to saythat gentleness and civility are not for the likes of them. Lydia wasalways gentle--kind, at least--even when she laughed at you. Unless shegot upon her "ideas. " Then--like Susan--she could harangue a little, andgrow vehement--as she had at Duddon that day, talking of the newindependence of women. But neither her gentleness nor her vehemenceseemed to have any relation to what a man--or men--might desire of her. She lived for herself; not indeed in any selfish sense; for it was plainthat she was an affectionate daughter and sister; but simply the worldwas so interesting to her in other ways that she seemed to have no needof men and matrimony. And as to money, luxury, a great _train de vie_--hehad felt from the beginning that those things mattered nothing at all toher. It might be inexperience, it might be something loftier. But, at anyrate, if she were to be bribed, it must be with goods of another kind. 

As to himself, he only knew that from his first sight of her at the HuntBall, she had filled his thoughts. Her delicate, pale beauty, lit bythose vivacious eyes; so quiet, so feminine, yet with its suggestion ofsomething unconquerable, moving in a world apart--he could not defineit in any such words; but there it was, the attraction, the lure. Something difficult; something delightful! A dear woman, a woman to beloved; and yet a thorn hedge surrounding her--how else can one put theeternal challenge, the eternal chase?

But as three parts of love is hope, and hope is really the mother ofinvention, Tatham, though full of anxiety, was also, like General Trochu, full of plans. He had that morning made his mother despatch an invitationto one of the great painters of the day; a man who ruled the beauties ofthe moment _en Sultan_; painted whom he would; when he would; and at whatprice he would. But while those who were dying to be painted by him mustoften wait for years, and put up with manners none too polite, there wereothers who avenged them; women, a few, very few women, whom the greatman, strange to say, sighed to paint, and sighed in vain. Such women weregenerally women of a certain age; none of your soft-cheeked beauties. AndLady Tatham was one of them. The great artist had begged her to letherself be painted by him. And Victoria had negligently replied that, perhaps, at Duddon, some day, there might be time. Several reminders, launched from the Chelsea studio, had not brought her to the point; butnow for her son's sake she had actually named a time; and a jubilanttelegram from London had clenched the bargain. The great man was toarrive in a fortnight from now, for a week's visit; and Tatham had in hispocket a note from Lady Tatham to Mrs. Penfold requesting the pleasure ofher company and that of her two daughters at dinner, to meet Mr. LouisDelorme, the day after his arrival. 

And all this, because, at a mention of the illustrious name, Lydia hadlooked up with a flutter of enthusiasm. "You know him? How lucky for you!He's _wonderful_! I? Oh, no. How should I? I saw him once in thedistance--he was giving away prizes. I didn't get one--alack! That's thenearest I shall ever come to him. "

Tatham chuckled happily as he thought of it. 

"She shall sit next the old boy at dinner, and she shall talk to him justas much as she jolly well pleases. And of course he'll take to her, andoffer to give her lessons--or paint her--or something. Then we can gether over--lots of times!"

Still dallying with these simple plans, Tatham arrived at Green Cottage, and tying up his horse went in to deliver his note. 

He had no sooner entered the little drive than he saw Lydia under alaburnum tree on the lawn. Hat in hand, the smiling youth approached her. She was sewing, apparently mending house-linen, which she quietly putdown to greet him. There was a book before her; a book of poetry, hethought. She slipped it among the folds of the linen. 

He could not flatter himself that his appearance disturbed her composurein the least. She was evidently glad to see him; she was gratefully surethat they would all be delighted to dine with Lady Tatham on the daynamed; she came with him to the gate, and admired his horse. But as toany flutter of hand or eye; any consciousness in her, answering to theeager feeling in him--he knew very well there was nothing of the kind. Never mind! There was an inner voice in him that kept reassuring him allthe time; telling him to be patient; to go at it steadily. There was noother fellow in the way, anyhow! He had a joyous sense of all theopportunities to come, the summer days, the open country, the resourcesof Duddon. 

With his hand on his horse's neck, and loath to ride away, he told herthat he was on his way to the Tower to call on Faversham. 

"Oh, but we're coming too, mother and I!" she said, in surprise. "Mr. Faversham sent us a note. I don't believe he ought to have two sets ofvisitors just yet. "

Tatham too was surprised. "How on earth Faversham is able to entertainanybody, I can't think! Undershaw told me last week he must get him away, as soon as possible, into decent quarters. He doesn't get on very fast. "

"He's been awfully ill!" said Lydia, with a soft concern in her voice, which made the splendid young fellow beside her envious at once of theinvalid. "Well, good-bye! for the moment. We have ordered the pony inhalf an hour. "

"You'll see a queer place; the piggery that old fellow lives in! Youdidn't know Faversham--I think you said--before that day of theaccident?" He looked down on her from the saddle. 

"Not the least. I feel a horrid pang sometimes that I didn't warn him ofthat hill!"

"Any decent bike ought to have managed that hill all right, " said Tathamscornfully. "Scores of tourists go up and down it every day in thesummer. "

Lydia bade him speak more respectfully of his native hills, lest theybring him also to grief. Then she waved good-bye to him; received thelingering bow and eager look, which betrayed the youth; thought of "youngHarry with his beaver on, " as she watched the disappearing horseman, andwent back for a while to her needlework and cogitation. 

That she was flattered and touched, that she liked him--the kind, courteous boy--that was certain. Must she really assume anythingelse on his part--take his advances seriously--check them--put uprestrictions--make herself disagreeable? Why? During her training inLondon, Lydia had drunk of the modern spring like other girls. She hadbeen brought up in a small old-fashioned way, by her foolish littlemother, and by a father--a stupid, honourable, affectionate man--whomshe had loved with a half-tender, half-rebellious affection. There hadbeen no education to speak of, for either her or Susy. But the qualitiesand gifts of remoter ancestors had appeared in them--to the bewildermentof their parents. And when after her father's death Lydia, at nineteen, had insisted on entering the Slade School, she had passed through someyears of rapid development. At bottom her temperament always remained, onthe whole, conservative and critical; the temperament of the humourist, in whose heart the old loyalties still lie warm. But that remarkablechange in the whole position and outlook of women which has marked thelast half century naturally worked upon her as upon others. For suchpersons as Lydia it has added dignity and joy to a woman's life, withoutthe fever and disorganization which attend its extremer forms. WhileSusy, attending lectures at University College, became a Suffragist, Lydia, absorbed in the pleasures and pains of her artistic training, looked upon the suffrage as a mere dusty matter of political machinery. 

But the ideas of her student years--those "ideas" which Tatham felt somuch in his way--were still dominant. Marriage was not necessary. Art andknowledge could very well suffice. On the whole, in her own case, sheaspired to make them suffice. 

But not in any cloistered world. Women who lived merely womanish lives, without knowledge of and comradeship with men, seemed to her limited andparochial creatures. She was impatient of her sex, and the narrownessof her sex's sphere. She dreamed of a broadly human, practical, disinterested relation between men and women, based on the actual work ofthe world; its social, artistic, intellectual work; all that has madecivilization. 

"We women are starved"--she thought, "because men will only marryus--or make playthings of us. But the world is only just--these lastyears--open to us, as it has been open to men for thousands ofgenerations. We want to taste and handle it for ourselves; as men do. Why can't they take us by the hand--a few of us--teach us, confide inus, open the treasure-house to us?--and let us alone! To be treated asgood fellows!--that's all we ask. Some of us would make such fratchywives--and such excellent friends! I vow I should make a good friend! Whyshouldn't Lord Tatham try?"

And letting her work fall upon the grass, she sat smiling and thinking, her pale brown hair blown back by the wind. In her simple gray dress, which showed the rippling beauty of every line, she was like one of theseinnumerable angels or virtues, by artists illustrious or forgotten, whichthrong the golden twilight of an Italian church; drawing back thecurtains of a Doge; hovering in quiet skies; or offering the Annunciationlily, from one side of a great tomb, to the shrinking Madonna on theother. These creations of Italy in her early prime are the mostspontaneous of the children of beauty. There are no great differencesamong them; the common type is lovely; they spring like flowers from oneroot, in which are the forces both of Greece and the Italy of Leonardo. It was their harmony, their cheerfulness, their touch of somethinguniversal, that were somehow reproduced in this English girl, and thatmade the secret of her charm. 

She went on thinking about Tatham. 

Presently she had built a castle high in air; she had worked it out--howshe was to make Lord Tatham clearly understand, before he had any chanceof proposing (if that were really in the wind, and she were not a merelump of conceit), that marrying was not her line; but that, as a friend, he might rely upon her. Anything--in particular--that she could do tohelp him to a wife, short of offering herself, was at his service. Shewould be eyes and ears for him; she would tell him things he did not inthe least suspect about the sex. 

But as to marrying! She rose from her seat, stretching her arms towardthe sky and the blossoming trees, in that half-wild gesture which sotruly expressed her. Marrying Duddon! that vast house, and all thosepossessions; those piles of money; those county relations, and that webof inherited custom which would lay its ghostly compulsion on Tatham'swife the very instant he had married her--it was not to be thought of fora moment! She, the artist with art and the world before her; she, withher soul in her own keeping, and all the beauty of sky and fell andstream to be had for the asking, to make herself the bond slave ofDuddon--of that formidably beautiful, that fond, fastidious mother!--andof all the ceremonial and paraphernalia that must come with Duddon! Shesaw herself spending weeks on the mere ordering of her clothes, callingendlessly on stupid people, opening bazaars, running hospitals, entertaining house parties, with the _clef des champs_ gone forever--alittle drawing at odd times--and all the meaning of life drowned in itstrappings. No--no--_no!_--a thousand times, no! Not though her motherimplored her, and every creature in Cumbria and the universe thought herstark staring mad. No!--for her own sake first; but, above all, for LordTatham's sake. 

Whereat she repentantly reminded herself that after all, if she despisedthe world and the flesh, there was no need to give herself airs; forcertainly Harry Tatham was giving proof--stronger proof indeed, of doingthe same; if it were really his intention to offer his handsome person, and his no less handsome possessions to a girl as insignificant asherself. Custom had not staled _him_. And there was his mother too; who, instead of nipping the silly business in the bud, and carrying thefoolish young man to London, was actually aiding and abetting--sendinggracious invitations to dinner, of the most unnecessary description. 

What indeed could be more detached, more romantic--apparently--thanthe attitude of both Tatham and his mother toward their own immenseadvantages?

Yes. But they were born to them; they had had time to get used to them. "It would take me half a lifetime to find out what they mean, and anotherhalf to discover what to do with them. "

"And, if one takes the place, ought one not to earn the wages? LadyTatham sits loose to all her social duties, scorns frocks, won't call, cuts bazaars, has never been known to take the chair at a meeting. But Ishould call that shirking. Either refuse the game; or play it! And of allthe games in the world, surely, surely the Lady Bountiful game is thedullest! I _won't_ be bored with it!"

She went toward the house, her smiling eyes on the grass. "But, ofcourse, if I could not get on without the young man, I should put up withany conditions. But I can get on without him perfectly! I don't want tomarry him. But I do--I _do_ want to be friends!"

"Lydia! Mother says you'll be late if you don't get ready, " said a voicefrom the porch. 

"Why, I am ready! I have only to put on my hat. "

"Mother thought you'd change. "

"Then mother was quite wrong. My best cotton frock is good enough for anyyoung man!" laughed Lydia. 

Susan descended the garden steps. She was a much thinner and dimmerversion of her sister. One seemed to see her pale cheeks, her dark eyesand hair, her small mouth, through mist, like a Whistler portrait. Shemoved very quietly, and her voice was low, and a little dragging. Theyoung vicar of a neighbouring hamlet in the fells, who admired hergreatly, thought of her as playing "melancholy"--in the contemplativeMiltonic sense--to Lydia's "mirth. " She was a mystery to him; a mysteryhe would have liked to unravel. But she was also a mystery to her family. She shut herself up a good deal with her books; she had written twotragedies in blank verse; and she held feminist views, vague yet fierce. She was apparently indifferent to men, much more so than Lydia, whofrankly preferred their society to that of her own sex; but Lydia noticedthat if the vicar, Mr. Franklin, did not call for a week Susan wouldingeniously invent some device or other for peremptorily inducing him todo so. It was understood in the family, that while Lydia enjoyed life, Susan only endured it. All the same she was a good deal spoilt. Shebreakfasted in bed, which Mrs. Penfold never thought of doing; Lydiamended her stockings, and renewed her strings and buttons; while Mrs. Penfold spent twice the time and money on Susan's wardrobe that she didon Lydia's. There was no reason whatever for any of these indulgences;but when three women live together, one of them has only to sit still, tomake the others her slaves. Mrs. Penfold found her reward in the beliefthat Susan was a genius and would some day astonish the world; Lydia hadno such illusion; and yet it would have given her a shock to see Susanmending her own stockings. 

Susan approached her now languidly, her hand to her brow. Lydia looked ather severely. 

"I suppose you have got a headache?"

"A little. "

"That's because you will go and write poetry directly after lunch. Why itwould even give _me_ a headache!"

"I had an idea, " said Susan plaintively. 

"What does that matter? Ideas'll keep. You have just to make a note ofthem--put salt on their tails--and then go and take a walk. Indigestion, my dear--which is the plain English for your headache--is very bad forideas. What have you been doing to your collar?"

And Lydia took hold of her sister, straightening her collar, pinning upher hair, and generally putting her to rights. When the operation wasover, she gave a little pat to Susan's cheek and kissed her. 

"You can come with us to Threlfall, that would take your headache away;and I don't mind the back seat. "

"I wasn't asked, " said Susan with dignity. "I shall go for a walk bymyself. I want to think. "

Lydia received the intimation respectfully, merely recommending hersister to keep out of the sun; and was hurrying into the house to fetchher hat when Susan detained her. 

"Was that Lord Tatham who came just now?"

"It was. " Lydia faced her sister, holding up the note from Lady Tatham. "We are all to dine with them next week. "

"He has been here nearly every other day for a fortnight, " said Susan, with feminine exaggeration. "It is becoming so marked that everybodytalks. "

"Well, I can't help it, " said Lydia defiantly. "We are not a convent; andwe can hardly padlock the gate. "

"You should discourage him--if you don't mean to marry him. "

"My dear, I like him so!" cried Lydia, her hands behind her, and tossingher fair head. "Marrying!--I hate the word. "

"He cares--and you don't, " said Susan slowly, "that makes it veryunfair--to him. "

Lydia frowned for a moment, but only for a moment. 

"I'm _not_ encouraging him, Susy--not in the way you mean. But why shouldI drive him away, or be rude to him? I want to put things on a properfooting--so that he'll understand. "

"He's going to propose to you, " said Susan bluntly. 

"Well, then, we shall get it over, " said Lydia, reluctantly. "And youdon't imagine that such a golden youth will trouble about such a triflefor long. Think of all the other things he has to amuse him. Why, if Ibroke my heart, you know I should still want to paint, " she added, flippantly. 

"I'd give a good deal to see you break your heart!" said the tragedienne, her dark eyes kindling--"you'd be just splendid!"

"Thanks, awfully! There's the pony. "

Susan held her. 

"You're really going to the Tower?"

"I am. It's mean of me. When you hate a man, you oughtn't to go to hishouse. But I can't help it. I'm so curious. "

"Yes, but not about Mr. Melrose, " said Susan slowly. 

Lydia flushed suddenly from brow to chin. 

"Goose! let me go. "

Susan let her go, and then stood a while, absorbed, looking at themysterious Tower. Her power of visualization was uncannily strong; itamounted almost to second sight. She seemed to be in the Tower--in one ofits locked and shuttered rooms; to be looking at a young man stretchedon a sofa--a wizardlike figure in a black cloak standing near--and in thedoorway, Lydia entering, bringing the light on her fair hair.... 

VIII

Tatham had to open the gate of Threlfall Park for himself. The lodgebeside it, of the same date and architecture as the house, had longceased to be inhabited. The gate was a substantial iron affair, andcarried a placard, peremptorily directing the person entering to close itbehind him. And on either side of it, the great wall stretched away withwhich, some ten years before this date, Melrose, at incredible cost, hadsurrounded the greater part of his property, in consequence of a quarrelwith the local hunt, and to prevent its members from riding over hisland. 

Tatham, having carefully shut the gate, rode slowly through the park, casting a curious and hostile eye over the signs of parsimonious neglectwhich it presented. Sheep and cattle were feeding in part of it; part ofit was standing for hay; and everywhere the fences were ruinous, and theroads grass-grown. It was, Tatham knew, let out to various small farmers, who used it as they pleased. As to the woods which studded it, "the manmust be a simple fool who could let them get into such a state!" Tathamprided himself hugely on the admirable forestry with which the largetracts of woodland in his own property were managed. But then he paid aproper salary to a trained forester, a man of education. Melrose's woods, with their choked and ruined timber, were but another proof that a miseris, scientifically, only a species of idiot. 

Only once before in his life had he been within the park--on one of thehunts of his boyhood, the famous occasion when the fox, started on theother side of the river, had made straight for Threlfall, and, the gateclosing the private foot-bridge having been, by a most unusual chance, left open, had slipped thereby into the park, with the hounds in full cryafter him. The hunt had momentarily paused, and then breaking loose fromall control had dashed through the yard of the Home Farm in joyouspursuit, while the enraged Melrose, who with Dixon and another man hadrushed out with sticks to try and head them back, had to confine himselfand his followers to manning the enclosure round the house--impotentspectators of the splendid run through the park--which had long remainedfamous in Cumbrian annals. Tatham was then a lad of fourteen, mounted onone of the best of ponies, and he well remembered the mad gallop whichhad carried him past the Tower, and the tall figure of its furiousmaster. The glee, the malicious triumph of the moment ran through hispulses again as he thought of it. 

A short-lived triumph indeed, as far as the hunt was concerned; for thebuilding of the ten-foot wall had followed, and Melrose's final breachwith the gentry of his county. Never since had Tatham set foot in theOgre's demesne; and he examined every feature of it with the most livelyinterest. The dilapidated buildings of the Home Farm reminded him of alawsuit brought by a former tenant against his landlord, in which a storyof mean and rapacious dealing on the part of Melrose, toward a decentthough unfortunate man, had excited the disgust of the whole countryside. Melrose had never since been able to find a tenant for the farm, and thebailiff he had put in was a drunken creature whose mismanagement of itwas notorious. Such doings by a man so inhumanly shrewd as Melrose inmany of his affairs could only be accounted for by the combination in himof miserly dislike of spending, with a violent self-will. Instances, however, had been known when to get his own way, or gain a sinisteradvantage over an opponent, Melrose had been willing to spendextravagantly. 

After passing the farm, Tatham pressed on eagerly, expecting the firstsight of the house. The dense growth of shrub and creeper, which had beenallowed to grow up around it, the home according to the popular legend ofuncanny multitudes of owls and bats, tickled imagination; and Tatham hadoften brought a field-glass to bear upon the house from one of theneighbouring hills. But as he turned the last corner of the drive he drewup his horse in amazement. 

The jungle was gone--! and the simple yet stately architecture of thehouse stood revealed in the summer sunshine. In the west wing, indeed, the windows were still shuttered, and many of them overgrown with ivy;but the dingy thickets of laurel and yew were everywhere shorn away; andto the east all the windows stood free and open. Moreover, two men wereat work in the front garden, clearing the flagged paths, traced in theeighteenth century, from encumbrance, and laying down turf in a greencircle round one of the small classical fountains that stood on eitherside of the approach. 

"What on earth is the old villain up to now?" was the natural comment ofthe surprised Tatham. 

Was it simply the advent of a guest--an invalid guest--that had wroughtsuch changes?

One of the gardeners, seeing him as he approached the gate, came runningup to hold his horse. Tatham, who knew everybody and prided himself onit, recognized him as the son of an old Duddon keeper. 

"Well, Backhouse, you're making a fine clearance here!"

"Aye! It's took us days, your lordship. But we're about through wi' thisside, howivver. " He pointed to the east wing. 

"One can see now what a jolly old place it is, " said Tatham, pausing inthe gateway to survey the scene. 

Backhouse grinned responsively. 

"I do believe, my lord, Muster Melrose hissel' is pleased. He stood alang while lookin' at it this morning, afore he started oot. "

"Well, no one can deny it's an improvement!" laughed Tatham, as he walkedtoward the house. 

Dixon had already opened the door. Slave and factotum of Melrose as hewas, he shared the common liking of the neighbourhood for young LordTatham. Two of his brothers were farmers on the Duddon estate; and oneof them owed his recovery from a dangerous and obscure illness to thefact that, at the critical moment, Tatham had brought over a specialistfrom Leeds to see him, paying all expenses. These things--and othersbesides--were reflected in the rather tremulous smile with which Dixonreceived the visitor. 

"Mr. Faversham expects me?"

"Aye, aye, my lord. " The old man quickly led the way through the fronthall, more quickly than Tatham's curiosity liked. He had time to notice, however, the domed and decorated ceiling, the classical mantelpiece, withits medallions and its pillars of Sienese marble, a couple of boldRenaissance cabinets on either side, and a central table, resting oncarved sphinxes, such as one might find in the _sala_ of a Venetianpalace. 

But as they turned into the corridor or gallery Tatham's exclamationbrought Dixon to a halt. He faced round upon the young man, revealing aface that worked with hardly repressed excitement, and explained that thefurnishing and arrangement had been only completed that day. It had takenthem eight days, and Barclay's men were only just gone. 

Tatham frankly expressed his surprise and admiration. The whole galleryand both of its terminal windows had now been cleared. The famous seriesof rose-coloured tapestries, of which Undershaw had seen the firstspecimens, had been hung at intervals throughout its length; and from thestores of the house had been brought out more carpets, more cabinets, mirrors, pictures, fine eighteenth-century chairs, settees, occasionaltables, and what not. Hastily as it had been done, the brilliance of theeffect was great. There was not, there could not be, the beauty thatcomes from old use and habit--from the ordered life of generations movingamong and gradually adapting to itself a number of lovely things. Tathambrought up amid the surroundings of Duddon was scornfully conscious ofthe bric-à-brac element in the show, as he stood contemplating Melrose'slatest performance. Nevertheless a fine taste had presided both at theoriginal selection of the things shown, and at the arrangement of them inthe stately gallery, which both harmonized and displayed them. 

"There's not a thing yo' see, my lord, that hasna been here--i' thishouse--for years and years!" said Dixon, pointing a shaky finger atthe cabinets on either side. "There's soom o' them has been i' theirpacking-cases ever sin' I can remember, an' the carpets rolled up awdeep in dust. And there's not a thing been unpacked now i' the houseitsel', for fear o' t' dust, an' Mr. Faversham. The men carried it aw ooto' that door"--he pointed to the far western end of the gallery--"an'iverything was doon out o' doors, all t' carpets beaten an' aw, where Mr. Faversham couldna hear a sound. An' yesterday Muster Melrose and MusterFaversham--we browt him in his wheeled chair yo' unnerstan'--fixed up alot o' things together. We havna nailed doon th' matting yet, for fearo't' noise. But Muster Faversham says noo he won't mind it. "

"Is Mr. Faversham staying on some time?"

"I canno' say, my lord, I'm sure, " was the cautious reply. "But they dosay 'at he's not to tak' a journey for a while yet. "

Tatham's curiosity was hot within him, but his very dislike of Melroserestrained him from indulging it. He followed Dixon through the galleryin silence. 

There was no one in the new sitting-room. But outside on some newly laidgrass, Tatham perceived the invalid on a deck chair, with a table holdingbooks and cigarettes beside him. 

Dixon had departed. Faversham offered cigarettes. 

"Thank you, " said Tatham, "I have my own. "

And he produced his case with a smile, handing it to Faversham. 

"A drink?"

Tatham declined again. As he sat there smoking, his hat on the back ofhis head, and his ruddy, good-humoured face beaming on his companion, itdid not occur to Faversham that Tatham was thereby refusing the "salt" ofan enemy. 

"They'll bring some tea when Mrs. And Miss Penfold come, " said Faversham. 

Tatham nodded, then grinned irrepressibly. 

"I say! I told Miss Penfold she'd find you in 'piggery. '"

Faversham's dark face showed a certain discomposure. Physical delicacyhad given a peculiar distinction to the gaunt black and white of hiseyes, hair, and complexion, and to the thinness of his long frame, sothat Tatham, who would have said before seeing him that he rememberedhim perfectly, found himself looking at him from time to time insurprise. As to his surroundings, Faversham appeared not only willing butanxious to explain. 

"It's a queer business, " he said frankly. "I can assure I you I neverasked for anything, never wished for anything of the sort. Everything wasarranged for me to go to Keswick--to a home there--when--this happened. "

"When old Melrose broke out!" Tatham threw back his head and gurgled withlaughter. "I suppose you know that nobody but yourself has ever had biteor sup in this house for twenty years, unless it were some of thedealers, who--they say--come occasionally. What have you done to him?You've cast a spell on him!"

Faversham replied again that he had done nothing, and was as much puzzledas anybody. 

"My mother was afraid you would be anything but comfortable, " saidTatham. "She knows this gentleman of old. But she didn't know your powersof soothing the savage breast! However, you have only to say the word, and we shall be delighted to take you in for as long as you like. "

"Oh, I must stay here now, " said Faversham decidedly. "One couldn't beungrateful for what has been done. But my best thanks to Lady Tatham allthe same. I hope I may get over to see her some day. "

"You must, of course. Dixon tells me there is a carriage coming--perhapsa motor; why not!"

A flush rose in Faversham's pale cheek. 

"Mr. Melrose talked of hiring one yesterday, " he said, unwillingly. "Howfar are you?"

They fell into talk about Duddon and the neighbourhood, avoiding anyfurther discussion of Melrose. Then Faversham described his accident, andspoke warmly of Undershaw, an occupation in which Tatham heartily joined. 

"I owe my life to him, " said Faversham; adding with sudden sharpness, "Isuppose I must count it an advantage!"

"That would be the common way of looking at it!" laughed Tatham. "Whatare you doing just now?"

"Nothing in particular. I am one of the large tribe of brieflessbarristers. I suppose I've never given enough of my mind to it. The factis I don't like the law--never have. I've tried other things--fatal, ofcourse!--but they haven't come off, or at least only very moderately. But, as you may suppose--I'm not exactly penniless. I have a fewresources--just enough to live on--without a wife. "

Tatham felt a little awkward. Faversham's tone was already that of a manto some extent disappointed and embittered. 

"You had always so much more brains than the rest of us, " he saidcordially. "You'll be all right. "

"It's not brains that matter nowadays--it's money. What do you get bybrains? A civil service appointment--and a pension of seven hundred ayear. What's the good of slaving for that?"

Faversham turned to his companion with a smile, in which however therewas no good-humour. It made Tatham disagreeably conscious of his ownwealth. 

"Well, of course, there are the prizes--"

"A few. So few that they don't count. A man may grind for years, and getpassed over or forgotten--just by a shave--at the end. I've seen thathappen often. Or you get on swimmingly for a while, and everybodysupposes you're going to romp in; and then something crops up you neverthought of. Some boss takes a dislike to you--or you make a mistake, andcut your own throat. And there you are--pulled!"

Tatham was silent a moment, his blunt features expressing somebewilderment. Then he said--awkwardly:

"So you don't really know what you're going to take up?"

Faversham lit another cigarette. 

"Oh, well, I have some friends--and some ideas. If I once get a foothold, a beginning--I daresay I could make money like other people. Every idiotone meets seems to be doing it. "

"Do you want to go into politics--or something of that kind?"

"I want to remain my own master, and do the things I want to do--and notthe things I must do, " laughed Faversham. "That seems to me the dividingline in life--whether you are under another man's orders or your own. Andbroadly speaking it's the line between poverty and money. But you don'tknow much about it, old fellow!" He looked round with a laugh. 

Tatham screwed up his blue eyes, not finding reply very easy, and notcertain that he liked the "old fellow, " though their college familiarityjustified it. He changed the subject, and they fell into some gossipabout Oxford acquaintances and recollections, which kept the conversationgoing. 

But at the end of it the two men were each secretly conscious thatthe other jarred upon him; and in spite of the tacit appeal made byFaversham's physical weakness and evident depression to Tatham'sboundless good-nature, there had arisen between them at the end anincipient antagonism which a touch might develop. Faversham appeared tothe younger man as querulous, discontented, and rather sordidlyambitious; while the smiling optimism of a youth on whom Fortune hadshowered every conceivable gift--money, position, and influence--withoutthe smallest effort on his own part, rang false or foolish in the ears ofhis companion. Tatham, cut off from the county, agricultural, or sportingsubjects in which he was most at home, fumbled a good deal in his effortsto adjust himself; while Faversham found it no use to talk of travel, art, or music to one who, in spite of an artistic and literary mother andwonderful possessions, had himself neither literary nor artistic faculty, and in the prevailing manner of the English country gentleman, had alwaysfound the pleasures of England so many and superior that there was noneed whatever to cross the Channel in pursuit of others. Both were soonbored; and Tatham would have hurried his departure, but for the hopeof Lydia. With that to fortify him, however, he sat on. 

And at last she came. Mrs. Penfold, it will easily be imagined, enteredupon the scene, in a state of bewildered ravishment. 

"She had never expected--she could not have believed--it was like afairy-tale--a _real_ fairy-tale--wasn't the house _too_ beautiful--Mr. Melrose's _taste_!--and such _things_!" In the wake of this soft, gesticulating whirlwind, followed Lydia, waiting patiently with herbright and humorous look till her mother should give her the chance of aword. Her gray dress, and white hat, her little white scarf, a trifleold-fashioned, and the pansies at her belt seemed to Tatham's eager eyesthe very perfection of dress. He watched her keenly as she came in; thekind look at Faversham; then the start--was it, of pity?--for his alteredaspect, the friendly greeting for himself; and all so sweet, so detached, so composed. His heart sank, he could not have told why. 

"I ought to have warned you of that hill!" she said, standing besideFaversham, and looking down upon him. 

"You couldn't know I was such a duffer!" laughed Faversham. "It wasn'tme--it was the bike. At least, they tell me so. As for me, everything, from the moment I left you till I woke up here six weeks ago, is wipedout. Did you finish your sketch? Were the press notices good?"

She smiled. "Did you see what they were?"

"Certainly. I saw your name in one as I picked it out. "

"I still sleep with it under my pillow--when I feel low, " said Lydia. "Itsaid the nicest things. And I sold my pictures. "

"Magnificent!" said Faversham. "But of course you sold them. "

"Oh, no, Mr. Faversham, not 'of course'!" cried Mrs. Penfold, turninground upon him. "You can't think how Lydia was envied! Hardly anybodysold. There were friends of hers exhibiting--and it was dreadful. Thesecretary said they had hardly ever had such a bad year--something to dowith a bank breaking--or the influenza--or something. But Lydia, luckygirl, sold hers within the first week. And we don't know at all whobought them. The secretary said he was not to tell. There are manybuyers, he told us, who won't give their names--for fear of beingbothered afterward. As if Lydia would ever bother any one!"

The guilty Tatham sat with his cane between his knees twirling it, hiseyes on the ground. No one noticed him. 

"And the sketch you were making that day?" said Faversham. 

"As you liked it, I brought it to show you, " said Lydia shyly. And sheproduced a thin parcel she had been carrying under her arm. 

Faversham praised the drawing warmly. It reminded him, he said, of somework he had seen in March, at one of the Bond Street galleries; a one-manshow by a French water-colourist. He named him. Lydia flushed a little. 

"Next to Mr. Delorme"--she glanced gratefully at Tatham--"he is the manof all the world I admire most! I am afraid I can't help imitating him. "

"But you don't!" cried Faversham. "You are quite independent. I didn'tmean that for a moment. "

Lydia's eyes surveyed him with a look of amusement, which seemed to saythat she was not at all duped by his compliment. He proceeded to justifyit. 

"I'll tell you who do imitate him--"

And forthwith he began to show a remarkable knowledge of certain advancedgroups among the younger artists and their work. Lydia's face kindled. She listened; she agreed; she interrupted; she gave her view; it wasevident that the conversation both surprised and delighted her. 

Tea came out, and, at Faversham's invitation, Lydia presided. The talkbetween her and Faversham flowed on, in spite of the girl's prettyefforts to make it general, to bring Tatham into it. He himself defeatedher. He wanted to listen; so did Mrs. Penfold, who sat in open-mouthedwonder at Lydia's cleverness; while Tatham was presently conscious of astrong discomfort, a jealous discomfort, which spoilt for him thisnearness to Lydia, and the thrill stirred in him by her movements andtones, her soft laugh, her white neck, her eyes.... 

Here, between these two people, Faversham and Lydia, who had only seeneach other for some ten minutes in their lives before, there seemed tohave arisen, at once, an understanding, a freemasonry, such as he himselfhad never reached in all his meetings with Lydia Penfold. 

How had it come about? They talked of people, struggling people, to whomart was life, though also livelihood; of men and women, for whom nothingelse counted, beside the fascination and the torment of their work; Lydiaspeaking from within, as a humble yet devout member of the band;Faversham, as the keen spectator and amateur--not an artist, but thefrequenter of artists. 

And all the time Lydia's face wore a happy animation which redoubled itscharm. Faversham was clearly making a good impression upon her, wasindeed set on doing so, helped always by the look of delicacy, the tracesof suffering, which appealed to her pity. Tatham moved restlessly in hischair, and presently he got up, and proposed to Mrs. Penfold that theyshould examine the improvements in the garden. 

 * * * * *

When they returned, Lydia and Faversham were still talking and stillabsorbed. 

"Lydia, my dear, " cried her mother, "I am afraid we shall be tiring Mr. Faversham! Now you must let Lord Tatham show you the garden--that's beenmade in a _week_! It's like that part in 'Monte Cristo, ' where he ordersan avenue at breakfast-time, that's to be ready by dinner--don't youremember? It's _thrilling_!"

Lydia rose obediently, and Mrs. Penfold slipped into her seat. Lydia, strolling with Tatham along the rampart wall which crowned the sandstonecliff, was now and then uncomfortably aware as they passed the tea-tableof the soft shower of questions that her mother was raining uponFaversham. 

"You really think, Mr. Faversham"--the tone was anxiously lowered--"thedaughter is dead?--the daughter _and_ the mother?"

"I know nothing!"

"She would be the heiress?"

"If she were alive? Morally, I suppose, not legally, unless her fatherpleased. "

"Oh! Mr. Faversham!--but you would never suggest--"

Lydia came to the rescue:

"Mother, really we ought to ask for the pony-carriage. "

Faversham protested, but Lydia was firm, and the hand-bell beside him wasrung. Mrs. Penfold flushed. She quite understood that Lydia thought itunseemly to be putting a guest through a string of questions about theprivate affairs of his host; but the inveterate gossip in her whimpered. 

"You see when one has watched a place for months--and people tellyou such tales--and you come and find it so different--and so--sofascinating--"

She paused, her plaintive look, under her wistful eyebrows, appealing toFaversham to come to her aid, to justify her curiosity. 

Suddenly, a sound of wheels from the front. 

Lydia offered her hand to Faversham. 

"I'm afraid we've tired you!"

"_Tired!_ When will you come to see me again?"

"Will it be permitted?" She laid a finger on her lip, as she glancedsmiling at the house. 

He begged them to repeat their visit. Tatham looked on in silence. Thefigure of Lydia, delicately bright against the dark background of theTower, absorbed him, and this time there was something painful andstrained in his perception of it. In his first meeting with her thatday he had been all hopefulness--content to wait and woo. Now, as he sawher with Faversham, as he perceived the nascent comradeship between them, and the reason for it, he felt a first vague suffering. 

A step approached through the sitting-room of which the door was open tothe terrace. 

The two ladies escorted by Tatham moved toward the house expecting Dixonwith the announcement of their carriage. 

A tall figure stood in the doorway. There was a checked exclamationfrom Tatham, and Faversham perceived to his amazement that it was notDixon--but--Melrose!

 * * * * *

Melrose surveyed the group. Removing his old hat he bowed gravely to theladies. His flowing hair, and largely cut classical features gave him anApollonian aspect as he towered above the startled group, looking down onthem with an expression half triumphant, half sarcastic. Tatham was thefirst to recover himself. He approached Melrose with a coolness like hisown. 

"You are back early, sir? I apologize for my intrusion, which will not beprolonged. I came, as you see, to inquire after my old friend, Mr. Faversham. "

"So I understand. Well--what's wrong with him? Isn't he doing well--eh?Faversham, will you introduce me to your friends?"

Mrs. Penfold, so much shaken by the sudden appearance of the Ogre thatwords failed her, bowed profoundly; Lydia slightly. She was indignant forTatham. Mr. Melrose, having announced his absence for the day, ought notto have returned upon them by surprise, and his manner convinced her thatit had been done on purpose. 

"They gave you tea?" said Melrose to Mrs. Penfold, with gruff civility, as he descended the steps. "Oh, we keep open house nowadays. You'regoing?" This was in answer to Tatham's bow which he slightlyacknowledged. "Good-day, good-day! You'll find your horse. Sorry you'reso hurried. "

Followed by the old man's insolent eyes, Tatham shook hands withFaversham and the Penfolds; then without reentering the house, he took ashort cut across the garden and disappeared. 

"Hm!" said Melrose, looking after him, "I can't say he resembles hismother. His father was a plain fellow. "

No one answered him. Mrs. Penfold nervously pressed for her carriage, throwing herself on the help of Dixon, who was removing the tea things. Melrose meanwhile seated himself, and with a magnificent gesture invitedthe ladies to do the same. Mrs. Penfold obeyed; Lydia remained standingbehind her mother's chair. The situation reminded her of a covey ofpartridges when a hawk is hovering. 

Mrs. Penfold at once began to make conversation, saying the mostdishevelled things for sheer fright. Melrose threw her a monosyllable nowand then, reserving all his attention for the young girl, whose beauty heinstantly perceived. His piercing eyes travelled from Faversham to Lydiarepeatedly, and the invalid rather angrily divined the conjectures whichmight be passing in their owner's brain. 

 * * * * *

"How are you?" asked Melrose abruptly, when he returned from accompanyingthe Penfolds to the front door. 

Faversham replied with some coldness. He was disgusted that Melroseshould have spoilt the final success of his little _festa_ by the breachof a promise he had himself volunteered. 

But Melrose appeared to be in an unusually good temper, and he took nonotice. He had had considerable success that morning, it appeared, at anauction of some fine things at a house near Carlisle; having not onlysecured what he wanted himself, but having punished two or three of hismost prominent rivals, by bidding high for some inferior thing, excitingtheir competition, and then at the critical moment dropping it on thenose, as he explained it, of one of his opponents. "Wilson of York cameto me nearly in tears, and implored me to take some beastly pot or otherthat I had made him buy at a ridiculous price. I told him he might keepit, as a reminder that I always paid those out who bid against me. ThenI found I could get an earlier train home; and I confess I was curious tosee how young Tatham would look, on my premises. He did not expect that Ishould catch him here. " The Ogre chuckled. 

"You told me, if you remember, " said Faversham, not without emphasis, "that I was to say to him you would not be at home. "

"I know. But sometimes there are impulses--of different kinds--that Ican't resist. Of different kinds--" repeated Melrose, his glittering, absent look fixed on Faversham. 

There was silence a little. Then Melrose said slowly, as he rose from hischair: "I have--a rather important proposition to make to you. Thatfellow Undershaw would attack me if I began upon it now. Moreover, itwill want a fresh mind. Will it suit you if I come to see you at eleveno'clock to-morrow?"

IX

On the following morning, Faversham, for the first time, dressed withoutassistance, and walked independently--save for his stick--into hissitting-room. The July day was rather chill and rainy and he decided toawait Melrose indoors. 

As to the "important proposal" his mind was full of conjectures. What hethought most probable was that Melrose intended, according to variousfresh hints and indications, to make him another and a more serious offerfor his gems--no doubt a big offer. They were worth at least threethousand pounds, and Melrose of course knew their value to a hair. 

"Well, I shall not sell them, " thought Faversham, his hands behind hishead, his eyes following the misty course of the river, and the rainshowers scudding over the fells. "I shall not sell them. "

His mind clung obstinately to this resolve. His ambitions with regard tomoney went, in fact, so far beyond anything that three thousand poundscould satisfy, that the inducement to sell at such a price--which he knewto be the market price--and wound thereby the deepest and sincerest ofhis affections, was not really great. The little capital on which helived was nearly double the sum, and could be made to yield a fair incomeby small and judicious speculation. He did not see that he should be muchbetter off for the addition to it of three thousand pounds; and on theother hand, were the gems sold, he should have lost much that he keenlyvalued--the prestige of ownership; the access which it gave him tocircles, learned or wealthy, which had been else closed to him; thedistinction attaching thereby to his otherwise obscure name in cataloguesand monographs, English or foreign. So long as he possessed the"Mackworth gems" he was, in the eyes of the world of connoisseurs, at anyrate, a personage. Without them he was a personage nowhere. Every month, every week, almost, he was beginning to receive requests to be allowedto see and study them, or appeals to lend them for exhibition. In thefour months since his uncle's death, both the Louvre and the BerlinMuseum had approached him, offering to exhibit them, and hinting that theloan might lead, should he so desire it, to a very profitable sale. If hedid anything of the kind, he was pledged of course to give the BritishMuseum the first chance. But he was not going to do it--he was not evengoing to lend them--yet a while. To possess them, and the _kudos_ thatwent with them; _not_ to sell them, for sentimental reasons, and even ata money loss, made a poor man proud, and ministered in strange ways tohis self-respect, which went often rather hungry; gave him, in short, astanding with himself, and with the world. All the more, that the poorman's mind was in fact, set passionately on the conquest of wealth--realand substantial wealth--to which the paltry sum of three thousand poundsbore no sort of relation. 

No, he would not sell them. But he braced himself to a tussle withMelrose, for he seemed to have gathered from a number of smallindications that the fierce old collector had set his heart upon them. And no doubt this business of the newly furnished rooms, and all theluxuries that had been given or promised, made it more difficult--hadbeen intended, perhaps, to make it more difficult? Well, he could but sayhis No and depart, expressing his gratitude--and insisting on the paymentof his score!

But--depart where? The energies of renewed health were pulsing throughhim, and yet he had seldom felt more stranded, or, except in connectionwith the gems, more insignificant, either to himself or others; inspite of this palace which had been oddly renovated for his convenience. His uncle's death had left him singularly forlorn, deprived of the onlyhome he had ever possessed, and the only person who felt for him a closeand spontaneous affection. For his other uncle--his only remainingrelation--was a crusty and selfish widower, with whom he had been onlittle more than formal terms. The rheumatic gout pleaded in the letterto Undershaw had been, he was certain, a mere excuse. 

Well--something must be done; some fresh path opened up. He had inFact left London in a kind of secret exasperation with himself andcircumstance, making an excuse out of meeting the Ransoms--mereacquaintances--at Liverpool; and determined, after the short tour towhich they had invited him, to plunge himself for a week or two in thedepths of a Highland glen where he might fish and think. 

The Ransoms, machine manufacturers from St. Louis, had made mattersworse. Such wealth!--such careless, vulgar, easily gotten wealth!--heapedup by means that seemed to the outsider so facile, and were, in truth, for all but a small minority, so difficult. A commonplace man and afrivolous woman; yet possessed, through their mere money, of a power overlife and its experiences, such as he, Faversham, might strive for all hisdays and never come near. It might be said of course--Herbert Ransomwould probably say it--that all men are worth the wages they get; with anobvious deduction in his own case. But when or where had he ever _got hischance_--a real chance? Visions of the rich men among his acquaintance, sleek, half-breed financiers, idle, conceited youths of the "classes, "pushed on by family interest; pig-headed manufacturers, inheritors offortunes they could never have made; the fatteners on colonial land andrailway speculation--his whole mind rose in angry revolt against thenotion that he could not have done, personally, as well as any of them, had there only been the initial shove, the favourable moment. 

 * * * * *

He envied those who had beaten him in the race, he frankly admitted it;but he must also allow himself the luxury of despising them. 

 * * * * *

Melrose was late. 

Faversham rose and hobbled to the window, his hands on his sides, frowning--a gaunt figure in the rainy light. With the return of physicalstrength there had come a passionate renewal of desire--desire forhappiness and success. The figure of Lydia Penfold hovered perpetuallyin his mind. Marriage!--his whole being, moral and physical, cried outfor it. But how was he ever to marry?--how could he ever give such awoman as that the setting and the scope she could reasonably claim?

"A bad day!" said a harsh voice behind him, "but all the better forbusiness. "

Faversham turned to greet his host, the mental and physical nervestightening. 

"Good morning. Well, here I am"--his laugh showed his nervousness--"atyour disposal. "

He settled himself in his chair. Melrose took a cigarette from the table, and offered one to his guest. He lit and smoked in silence for a fewmoments, then began to speak with deliberation:

"I gather from our conversations, Faversham, during the last few weeksthat you have at the present moment no immediate or pressing occupation?"

Quick colour leapt in Faversham's lean cheek. 

"That is true. It happens to be true--for various reasons. But if youmean to imply by that, that I am necessarily--or willingly--an idler, youare mistaken. "

"I did not mean to imply anything of the kind. I merely wished, so tospeak, to clear the way for what I have to propose. "

Faversham nodded. Melrose continued:

"For clearly it would be an impertinence on my part were I toattempt--suddenly--to lift a man out of a fixed groove and career, andsuggest to him another. I should expect to be sent to the devil--andserve me right. But in your case--correct me if I am wrong--you seemnot yet to have discovered the groove that suits you. Now I am here topropose to you a groove--and a career. "

Faversham looked at him with astonishment. The gems, which had been sourgently present to his mind, receded from it. Melrose in his skullcap, sitting sideways in his chair, his cigarette held aloft, presented aprofile which might have been that of some Venetian Doge, old, witheredand crafty, engaged, say, in negotiation with a Genoese envoy. 

"When you were first brought here, " Melrose continued--"your presence, as Undershaw has no doubt told you--of course he has told you, smallblame to him--was extremely distasteful to me. I am a recluse. I like nowomen--and d----d few men. I can do without them, that's all; theirintimate company, anyway: and my pursuits bring me all the amusement Irequire. Such at any rate was my frame of mind up to a few weeks ago. Idon't apologize for it in the least. Every man has a right to his ownidiosyncrasies. But I confess that your society during the last fewweeks--I am in no mood for mere compliment--has had a considerableeffect upon me. It has revealed to me that I am no longer so young asI was, or so capable--apparently--of entertaining myself. At any rateyour company--I put it quite frankly--instead of being a nuisance--hasbeen a godsend. It has turned out that we have many of the same tastes;and your inheritance of the treasures collected by my old friendMackworth"--("Ah!" thought Faversham, "now we come to it!")--"has madefrom the first, I think, a link between us. Have I your assent?"

"Certainly. "

Melrose paused a moment, and then resumed. The impression he made wasthat of one rehearsing, point by point, a prepared speech. 

"At the same time, I have become more aware than usual of the worries andannoyances connected with the management of my estates. We live, sir, ina world of robbers"--Melrose suddenly rounded on his companion, hiswithered face aflame--"a world of robbers, and of rapine! Not a singleTom, Dick, and Harry in these parts that doesn't think himself my equaland more. Not a single tenant on my estate that doesn't try at everypoint to take advantage of his landlord! Not a single tramp or poacherthat doesn't covet my goods--that wouldn't murder me if he could, andsleep like a baby afterward. I tell you, sir, we shall see a _jacquerie_in England, before we are through with these ideas that are now aboutus like the plague; that every child imbibes from our abominablepress!--that our fools of clergy--our bishops even--are not ashamed topreach. There is precious little sense of property, and not a singlerag of loyalty or respect left in this country! But when you think of thecreatures that rule us--and the fanatics who preach to us--and the foolswho bring up our children, what else can you expect! The whole state isrotten! The men in our great towns are ripe for any revolutionaryvillainy. We shall come to blood, Faversham!"--he struck his handviolently on the arm of his chair--"and then a dictator--the inevitableround. Well, I have done my part. I have fought the battle of property inthis country--the battle of every squire in Cumbria, if the dolts did butknow their own interests. Instead they have done nothing but thwart andbully me for twenty years. And young Tatham with his County Councilnonsense, and his popularity hunting, is one of the very worst of them!Well, now I've done!--personally. I daresay they'll crow--they'll say I'mbeat. Anyway, I've done. There'll have to be fighting, but some one elsemust see to it. I intend to put my affairs into fresh hands. It is mypurpose to appoint a new agent--and to give him complete control of myproperty!"

Melrose stopped abruptly. His hard eyes in their deep, round orbitswere fixed on Faversham. The young man was mainly conscious of ahalf-hysterical inclination to laugh, which he strangled as he bestcould. Was he to be offered the post?

"And, moreover, " Melrose resumed, "I want a secretary--I want acompanion--I want some one who will help me to arrange the immense, thepriceless collections there are stacked in this house--unknown toanybody--hardly known, in the lapse of years, even to myself. I desire tounravel my own web, so to speak--to spin off my own silk--to examine andanalyze what I have accumulated. There are rooms here--containing_masterpieces_--unique treasures--that have never been opened foryears--whose contents I have myself forgotten. That's why people call mea madman. Why? What did I want with a big establishment eating up myincome?--with a lot of prying idiots from outside--museum bores, bothering me for loans--common tourists, offering impertinent tips to myhousekeeper, or picking and stealing, perhaps, when her back was turned!I bought the things, and _shut them up_. They were safe, anyway. But nowthat process has gone on for a quarter of a century. You come along. Achance--a freak--a caprice, if you like, makes me arrange these rooms foryou. That gives me new ideas--"

He turned and looked with sharp, slow scrutiny round the walls:

"The fact is I have been so far engaged in hoarding--heaping together. The things in this house--my extraordinary collections--have been thenuts--and I, the squirrel. But now the nuts are bursting out of the hole, and the squirrel wants to see what he's got. That brings me to my point!"

He turned emphatically toward Faversham, leaning hard on a marqueterietable that stood between them:

"I offer you, sir, the post, the double post, of agent to my property, and of private secretary, or assistant to myself. I offer you a salary ofthree thousand a year--three thousand pounds, a year--if you willundertake the management of my estates, and be my lieutenant in thearrangement of my collections. I wish--as I have said--to unpack thishouse; and I should like to leave my property in order before I die. Which reminds me, I should of course be perfectly ready to make properprovision, by contract, or otherwise, so that in the event of any suddentermination of our agreement--my death for instance--you should beadequately protected. Well, there, in outline, is my proposal!"

During this extraordinary speech Faversham's countenance had reflectedwith tolerable clearness the various impressions made by it--incredulousor amused astonishment--bewilderment--deepening gravity--coming roundagain to astonishment. He raised himself in his chair. 

"You wish to make me your agent--the agent for these immense estates?"

"I do. I had an excellent agent once--twenty years ago. But old Dovedalestole him from me--bribed him by higher pay. Since then I have hadnothing but clerks--rent-collectors--rascally makeshifts, all of them. "

"But I know nothing about land--I have had no experience!"

"A misfortune--but in some ways to the good. I don't want any cocksurefellow, with brand-new ideas lording it over me. I should advise you ofcourse. "

"But--at the same time--I should not be content with a mere clerk'splace, Mr. Melrose, " said Paversham, a momentary flash in his dark eye. "I am one of those men who are better as principals than as subordinates. Otherwise I should be in harness by now. "

Melrose eyed him askance for a moment--then said: "I understand. I shouldbe willing to steer my course accordingly--to give you a reasonablefreedom. There are two old clerks in the estate-office, who knoweverything that is to be known about the property, and there are mysolicitors both in Carlisle and Pengarth. For the rest, you are a lawyer, and there are some litigations pending. Your legal knowledge would be ofconsiderable service. If you are the clever fellow I take you for, amonth or two's hard work, the usual technical books, some expertadvice--and I have little doubt you would make as good an agent as any ofthem. Mind, I am _not_ prepared to spend unlimited money--nor to run myestates as a Socialist concern. But I gather you are as good aConservative as myself. "

Faversham was silent a moment, observing the man before him. The wholething was too astounding. At last he said: "You are not prepared, sir, you say, to spend unlimited money. But the sum you offer me is unheardof. "

"For an agent, yes--for a secretary, yes--for a combination of the two, under the peculiar circumstances, the market offers no precedents. Youand I make a market--and a price. "

"You would expect me to live in this house?"

"I gather these rooms are not disagreeable to you?"

"Disagreeable! They are too sumptuous. If _I_ did this thing, sir, Ishould want to do it in a businesslike way. "

"You want an office? Take your choice. " Melrose's gesture indicated therest of the house. "There are rooms enough. But you will want some place, I imagine, where you can be at home, receive friends--like the young ladyand her mother yesterday--and so on. "

His smile made him more Ogreish than before. 

He resumed:

"And by the way, if you accepted my proposal, I should naturally expectthat for a time you would devote yourself wholly to the organization ofthe collections, inside the house, and to the work of the estate, outsideit. But you are of an age when a man hopes to marry. I should of coursetake that into account. In a year or two--"

"Oh, I have no immediate ideas of that kind, " said Faversham, hastily. 

There was a pause. At the end of it Faversham turned on his companion. Astreak of feverish colour, a sparkling vivacity in the eyes, showed theeffect produced by the conversation. But he had kept his head throughoutthe whole interview, and a certain unexpected strength in his personalityhad revealed itself to Melrose:

"You will hardly expect me, sir, to give an immediate answer to theseproposals?"

"Take your time--take your time--in moderation, " said Melrose, drummingon the table before him. 

"And there are of course a few things that I on my side should wish toknow. "

A series of inquiries followed: as to the term of the proposedengagement; the degree of freedom that would be granted him; the date atwhich his duties would begin, supposing he undertook them--("To-morrow, if it pleases you!" said Melrose, jovially)--passing on to the generalcircumstances of the estates, and the nature of the pending litigations. The questions were put with considerable tact, but were none the lessshrewd. Melrose's strange character with its mixture of sagacity, folly, and violence, had never been more acutely probed--though quiteindirectly. 

At the end of them his companion rose. 

"You have a talent for cross-examination, " he said with a rather soursmile. "I leave you. We have talked enough. "

"Let me at least express before you go the gratitude I feel for proposalsso flattering--so generous, " said Faversham, not without emotion; "andfor all the kindness I have received here, a kindness that no man couldever forget. "

Melrose looked at him oddly, seemed about to speak--then mutteredsomething hardly intelligible, ceased abruptly, and departed. 

 * * * * *

The master of the Tower went slowly to his library through the splendidgallery, where Mrs. Dixon and the new housemaid were timidly dusting. Buthe took no notice of them. He went into his own room, locked his door, and having lit his own fire, he settled down to smoke and ruminate. Hewas exhausted, and his seventy years asserted themselves. The radicalalteration in his habits and outlook which the preceding six weeks hadproduced, the excitement of unpacking the treasures now displayed in thegallery, the constant thinkings and plannings connected with Favershamand the future, and, lastly, the interview just concluded, had triedhis strength. Certain symptoms--symptoms of old age--annoyed him thoughhe would not admit it. No doubt some change was wanted. He must smokeless--travel less--give himself more variety and more amusement. Well, ifFaversham consented, he should at least have bought for himself acompanionship that was agreeable to him, and relief from a number ofroutine occupations which he detested. 

Suddenly--a child's voice--a child's shrill voice, ringing through thegallery--followed by scufflings and hushings, on the part of an olderperson--then a wail--and silence. Melrose had risen to his feet with anexclamation. Some peculiar quality in the voice--some passionate, thrilling quality--had produced for the moment an extraordinary illusion. 

He recovered himself in a moment. It was of course the child of theupholstress who had been working in the house for a week or so. Heremembered to have noticed the little girl. But the sound had inevitablysuggested thoughts he had no wish to entertain. He had a letter in hispocket at that moment which he did not mean to answer--the first he hadreceived for many years. If he once allowed a correspondence to growup--with that individual--on the subject of money, there would be no endto it; it would spread and spread, till his freedom was once moreendangered. He did not intend that persons, who had been once banishedfrom his life, should reenter it--on any pretext. Netta had behaved tohim like a thief and a criminal, and with the mother went the child. Theywere nothing to him, and never should be anything. If she was in trouble, let her go to her own people. 

He took out the letter, and dropped it into the midst of the burning logsbefore him. Then he turned to a heap of sale catalogues lying near him, and after going through them, he rose, and as though drawn to it by amagnetic power, he went to the Riesener table, and unlocked the drawerwhich held the gems. 

Bringing them back to the fireside he watched the play of the flames ontheir shining surfaces, delighting greedily in their beauty; in the longhistory attaching to each one of them, every detail of which he knew; inthe sense of their uniqueness. Nothing like them of their kind, anywhere;and there they were in his hand, after these years of fruitless coveting. He had often made Mackworth offers for them; and Mackworth had laughed athim. 

Well, he had bid high enough this time, not for the gems themselves, butfor the chance of some day persuading their owner to entertain the notionof selling them. It pleased him to guess at what had been probablyFaversham's secret expectation that morning of a proposal for them; andto think that he had baffled it. 

He might, of course, have made some quite preposterous offer which wouldhave forced the young man's hand. But that might have meant, probablywould have meant, the prompt departure of the enriched Faversham. But hewanted both Faversham and the gems; as much as possible--that is, for hismoney. The thought of returning to his former solitariness was rapidlybecoming intolerable to him. Meanwhile the adorable things were stillunder his roof; and with a mad pleasure he relocked the drawer. 

 * * * * *

Faversham spent the rest of the morning in cogitations that may be easilyimagined. He certainly attributed some share in the extraordinaryproposal that had been made to him, to his possession of the gems, and toMelrose's desire to beguile them from him. But what then? Sufficient forthe day! He would decide how to deal with that crisis when it shouldarrive. 

Meanwhile, the amazing proposal itself was before him. If it wereaccepted, he should be at once a comparatively rich man, with an infinityof chances for the future; for Melrose's financial interest and influencewere immense. If not free to marry immediately, he would certainly befree--as Melrose himself had hinted--to prepare for marriage. But couldhe do the work?--could he get on with the old man?--could he endure thelife?

After luncheon Dixon, with the subdued agitation of manner which showedthe advent of yet another change in the household, came in to announcethat a motor had come from Carlisle, that Mr. Melrose did not propose touse it himself, and hoped that Mr. Faversham would take a drive. 

It was the invalid's first excursion into the outer world. 

He sat breathing in great draughts of the scented summer air, feeling hislife and strength come back into him. 

The rain had passed, and the fells rose clear and high above the moisthay meadows and the fresh-leaved trees. 

As they emerged upon the Keswick road he tapped the chauffeur on theshoulder. "Do you know Green Cottage?"

"Mrs. Penfold's, sir? Certainly. "

"How far is it?"

"I should say about two miles. "

"Go there, please. "

The two miles passed for Faversham in a double excitement he had somedifficulty in concealing; the physical excitement of change and movement, of this reentry upon a new world, which was the old; and the mentalexcitement of his own position. 

At the cottage door, he dismounted slowly. The maid-servant said shethought Mrs. Penfold was in the garden. Would the gentleman please comein?

Faversham, leaning on his stick, made his way through the tiny hall ofthe cottage, and the drawing-room door was thrown open for him. A younglady was sitting at the farther end, who rose with a slight cry ofastonishment. It was Lydia. 

Through her reception of him Faversham soon learnt what are theprivileges of the wounded, and how glad are all good women of excuses tobe kind. Lydia placed him in the best chair, in front of the best view, ordered tea, and hovered round him with an eager benevolence. Her mother, she said, would be in directly. Faversham, on his side, could onlysecretly hope that Mrs. Penfold's walk might be prolonged. 

They were not interrupted. Lydia, with concern, conjectured that Mrs. Penfold and Susan had gone to visit a couple of maiden ladies, livinghalf a mile off along the road. But she showed not the smallestawkwardness in entertaining her guest. The rain of the morning had leftthe air chilly, and a wood fire burnt on the hearth. Its pleasant flamegave an added touch of intimity to the little drawing-room, with its wildflowers, its books, its water-colours, and its modest furnishings. Afterthe long struggle of his illness, and the excitement of the morning, Faversham was both soothed and charmed. His whole nature relaxed;happiness flowed in. Presently, on an impulse he could not resist, hetold her of the offer which had been made to him. 

Lydia's embroidery dropped on her lap. 

"Mr. Melrose's agent!" she repeated, in wonder. "He has offered youthat?"

"He has--on most generous terms. Shall I take it?"

She flushed a little, for the ardent deference in his eyes was not easyto ignore. But she examined his news seriously--kindling over it. 

"His _agent_--agent for his miserable, neglected property! Heavens, whata chance!"

She looked at him, her soul in her face. Something warned him to becautious. 

"You think it so neglected?"

"I know it: but ask Lord Tatham! He's chairman of some committee orother--he'll tell you. "

"But perhaps I shall have to fight Tatham? Suppose that turns out to bemy chief business?"

"Oh, no, you can't--you can't! He's too splendid--in all those things. "

"He is of course the model youth, " said Faversham dryly. 

"Ah, but you can't hate him either!" cried Lydia, divining at once theshade of depreciation. "He is the kindest, dearest fellow! I agree--it'sprovoking not to be able to sniff at him--_such_ a Prince Charming--withall the world at his feet. But one can't--one really can't!"

Jealousy sprang up sharply in Faversham, though a wider experience of thesex might have suggested to him that women do not generally shower publicpraise on the men they love. Lydia, however, quickly left the subject, and returned to his own affairs. Nothing, he confessed, could have beenfriendlier or sincerer than her interest in them. They plunged into thesubject of the estate; and Faversham stood amazed at her knowledge of thedales-folk, their lives and their grievances. At the end, he drew a longbreath. 

"By George!--can I do it?"

"Oh, yes, yes, _yes_!" said Lydia eagerly, driving her needle into thesofa cushion. "You'll reform him!"

Faversham laughed. 

"He's a tough customer. He has already warned me I am not to manage hisestates like a Socialist. "

"No--but like a human being!" cried Lydia, indignantly--"that's all wewant. Come and talk to Lord Tatham!"

"Parley with my employer's opponent!"

"Under a flag of truce, " laughed Lydia, "and this shall be the neutralground. You shall meet here--and mamma and I will hold the lists. "

"You think--under those circumstances--we should get through muchbusiness?" His dark eyes, full of gaiety, searched hers. She flushed alittle. 

"Ah, well, you should have the chance anyway. "

Faversham rose unwillingly to go. Lydia bent forward, listening. 

"At last--here comes my mother. "

For outside in the little hall there was suddenly much chatter andswishing of skirts. Some one came laughing to the drawing-room and threwit open. Mrs. Penfold, flushed and excited, stood in the doorway. 

"My dear, did you _ever_ know such kind people!"

Her arms were laden with flowers, and with parcels of different sorts. Susy came behind, carrying two great pots of Japanese lilies. 

"You said you'd like to see those old drawings of Keswick--by I forgetwhom. Lady Tatham has sent you the whole set--they had them--you maykeep them as long as you like. And Lord Tatham has sent flowers. Justlook at those roses!" Mrs. Penfold put down the basket heaped with themat Lydia's feet, while Susy--demurely--did the same with the lilies. "And there is a fascinating parcel of books for Susy--_all_ the newreviews! ... _Oh_! Mr. Faversham--I declare--why, I never saw you!"

Voluble excuses and apologies followed. Meanwhile Lydia, with a brightcolour, stood bewildered, the flowers all about her, and the drawings inher hands. Faversham escaped as soon as he could. As he approached Lydiato say good-bye, she looked up, put the drawings aside, and hurriedlycame with him to the door. 

"_Accept_!" she said. "Be sure you accept!"

He had a last vision of her standing in the dark hall, and of her soft, encouraging look. As he drove away, two facts stood out in consciousness:first, that he was falling fast and deep in love; next, that--by the lookof things--he had a rival, with whom, in the opinion of all practicalpeople, it would be mere folly for him to think of competing. 

BOOK II

X

While Faversham was driving back to Threlfall, his mind possessed by atumult of projects and images--which was a painful tumult, becausehis physical strength was not yet equal to coping with it--a scene waspassing in a bare cottage beside the Ulls-water road, whence in due timeone of those events was to arise which we call sudden or startling onlybecause we are ignorant of the slow [Greek: anankê ] which has producedthem. 

An elderly man had just entered the cottage after his day's work. He wasevidently dead tired, and he had sunk down on a chair beside a tablewhich held tea things and some bread and butter. His wife could be heardmoving about in the lean-to scullery behind the living-room. 

The man sat motionless, his hands hanging over his knees, his head bent. He seemed to be watching the motes dancing in a shaft of dusty sunlightthat had found its way into the darkened room. For the western sun wasblazing on the front, the blinds were down, and the little room was likean oven. The cottage was a new one and stood in a bare plot of garden, unshaded and unsheltered, on a stretch of road which crossed the openfell. It was a labourer's cottage, but the furniture of the living-roomwas superior in quality to that commonly found in the cottages of theneighbourhood. A piano was crowded into one corner, and a sideboard, toolarge for the room, occupied the wall opposite the fireplace. 

The man sitting in the chair also was clearly not an ordinary labourer. His brown suit, though worn and frayed, had once been such a suit asMessrs. Carter, tailors, of Pengarth, were accustomed to sell to theirfarmer clients, and it was crossed by an old-fashioned chain and seal. The suit was heavily splashed with mud; so were the thick boots; and onthe drooped brow shone beads of sweat. John Brand was not much overfifty, but he was tired out in mind and body; and his soul was bitterwithin him. 

A year before this date he had been still the nominal owner of a smallfreehold farm between Pengarth and Carlisle, bordering on the Threlfallproperty. But he was then within an ace of ruin, and irreparable calamityhad since overtaken him. 

How it was that he had fallen into such a plight was still more or lessmysterious to a dull brain. Up to the age of forty-seven, he had beenemployed on his father's land, with little more than the wages of alabourer, possessing but small authority over the men working on thefarm, and no liberty but such as the will of a tyrannical master allowedhim. Then suddenly the father died, and Brand succeeded to the farm. Allhis long-checked manhood asserted itself. There was a brief period ofdrinking, betting, and high living. The old man had left a small sum ofready money in the bank, which to the son, who had always been denied thehandling of money, seemed riches. It was soon spent, and then unexpectedburdens and claims disclosed themselves. There was a debt to the bank, which there were no means of paying. And he discovered to his dismay thata spinster cousin of his mother's had lent money to his father within thepreceding five years, on the security of his stock and furniture. Wherethe borrowed money had gone no one knew, but the spinster cousin, alarmedperhaps by exaggerated accounts of the new man's drinking habits, pressedfor repayment. 

Brand set his teeth, ceased to spend money, and did his best to earn it. But he was a stupid man, and the leading-strings in which his life hadbeen held up to middle age had enfeebled such natural powers as hepossessed. His knowledge was old-fashioned, his methods slovenly; and hiswife, as harmless as himself, but no cleverer, could do nothing to helphim. By dint, however, of living and working hard he got through two orthree years, and might just have escaped his fate--for his creditors, atthat stage, were all ready to give him time--had not ill-fortune thrownhim across the path of Edmund Melrose. The next farm to his belonged tothe Threlfall estate. Melrose's methods as a landlord had thrown out onetenant after another, till he could do nothing but put in a bailiff andwork it himself. The bailiff was incompetent, and a herd of cattle madetheir way one morning through a broken fence that no one had troubled tomend, and did serious damage to Brand's standing crops. Melrose was askedto compensate, and flatly declined. The fence was no doubt his; but heclaimed that it had been broken by one of Brand's men. Hence theaccident. The statement was false, and the evidence supporting itcorrupt. Moreover the whole business was only the last of a series ofunneighbourly acts on the part both of the bailiff and landowner, and asudden fury blazed up in Brand's slow mind. He took his claim to thecounty court and won his case; the judge allowing himself a sharpsentence or two on the management of the Threlfall property. Brand spentpart of his compensation money in entertaining a group of friends at aPengarth public. But that was the last of his triumph. Thenceforwardthings went mysteriously wrong with him. His creditors, first one, thenall, began to tighten their pressure on him; and presently the bankmanager--the Jove of Brand's little world--passed abruptly from civilityor indulgence, to a peremptory reminder that debts were meant to be paid. A fresh bill of sale on furniture and stock staved off disaster for atime. But a bad season brought it once more a long step nearer, and thebank, however urgently appealed to, showed itself adamant, not only as toany further advance, but as to any postponement of their own claim. Various desperate expedients only made matters worse, and after a fewmore wretched months during which his farm deteriorated, and his businesswent still further to wreck, owing largely to his own distress of mind, Brand threw up the sponge. He sold his small remaining interest in hisfarm, which did not even suffice to pay his debts, and went out of it abankrupt and broken man, prematurely aged. A neighbouring squire, indignant with what was commonly supposed to be the secret influencesat work in the affair, offered him the post of bailiff in a vacant farm;and he and his family migrated to the new-built cottage on the Ullswaterroad. 

As to these secret influences, they were plain enough to many people. Melrose who had been present on the day when the case was tried had leftthe court-house in a fury, in company with a certain ill-famed solicitor, one Nash, who had worked up the defence, and had served the master ofThrelfall before in various litigations connected with his estates, suchas the respectable family lawyers in Carlisle and Pengarth would havenothing to do with. Nash told his intimates that night that Brand wouldrue his audacity, and the prophecy soon dismally fulfilled itself. Thelocal bank to which Brand owed money had been accustomed for years todeal with very large temporary balances--representing the rents of halfthe Threlfall estates. Nash was well known to the manager, as one ofthose backstairs informants, indispensable in a neighbourhood where everyfarmer wanted advances--now on his crops--now on his stock--and theleading bank could only escape losses by the maintenance of a surprisingamount of knowledge as to each man's circumstances and character. Nashwas observed on one or two occasions going in and out of the bank'sprivate room, at moments corresponding with some of the worst crises ofBrand's fortunes. And with regard to other creditors, no one could sayprecisely how they were worked on, but they certainly showed a surprisingreadiness to join in the harrying of a struggling and helpless man. 

In any case Brand believed, and had good cause for believing, that he hadbeen ruined by Melrose in revenge for the county court action. His twosons believed it also. 

The tired man sat brooding over these things in the little hot room. Hiswife came in, and stood at the door observing him, twisting her apron ina pair of wet hands. 

"Yo'll have your tea?"

"Aye. Where are t' lads?"

"Johnnie's gotten his papers. He's gane oot to speak wi' theschoolmaster. He's thinkin' o' takkin' his passage for t' laast weekin t' year. "

Brand made no reply. Johnnie, the elder son, was the apple of his eye. But an uncle had offered him half his passage to Quebec, and his parentscould not stand in the way. 

"An' Will?"

"He's cleanin' hissel'. "

As she spoke, wavering steps were heard on the stairs, and while shereturned to her kitchen the younger son, Will Brand, opened the door ofthe front room. 

He was a lanky, loose-jointed youth of twenty, with a long hatchet face. His movements were strangely clumsy, and his eye wandered. The neighbourshad always regarded him as feeble-witted; and about a year before thistime an outburst of rough practical joking on the lad's part--suddenjumpings out from hedges to frighten school-children going home, or thesudden whoopings and howlings of a white-sheeted figure, for thestartling of lovers in the gloaming--had drawn the attention of theWhitebeck policeman to his "queerness. " Only his parents knew of whatfits of rage he was capable. 

He wore now, as he came into the living-room, an excited, quasi-triumphant look, which did not escape his father. 

"What you been after, Will?"

"Helpin' Wilson. "

Wilson was a neighbouring keeper, who in June and July, before the youngpheasants were returned to the woods, occasionally employed Will Brand asa watcher, especially at night. 

Brand made no reply. His wife brought in the tea, and he and Will helpedthemselves greedily. Presently Will said abruptly:

"A've made that owd gun work all right. "

"Aye?" Brand's tone was interrogative, but listless. 

"I shot a kestrel an' a stoat wi' un this morning. "

"Yo'did, eh?"

Will nodded, his mouth crammed with bread and butter, strange lights andflickering expressions playing over his starved, bony face. 

"Wilson says I'm gettin' a varra fair shot. "

"Aye? I've heard tha' practisin'. " Brand turned a pair of dull eyes uponhis son. 

"An' I wish tha' wudn't do't i' my garden!" said Mrs. Brand, with energy. "I doan't howd wi' guns an' shootin' aboot, in a sma' garden, wi' t'washin' an' aw. "

"It's feyther's garden, ain't it, as long as he pays t' rent!" said Will, bringing his hand down on the table with sudden passion. "Wha's to hinderme? Mebbe yo' think Melrose 'ull be aboot. "

"Howd your tongue, Willie, " said his mother, mildly. "We werena taakin'o' Melrose. "

"Noa--because we're aye thinkin'!"

The lad's eyes blazed as he roughly pushed his cup for a fresh supply. His mother endeavoured to soothe him by changing the subject. But neitherhusband nor son encouraged her. A gloomy silence fell over the tea-table. Presently Brand moved, and with halting step went to the little horsehairsofa, and stretched himself full length upon it. Such an action on hispart was unheard of. Both wife and son stared at him without speaking. Then Mrs. Brand got up, fetched an old shawl, and put it over her husbandwho had closed his eyes. Will left the room, and sitting on a stooloutside the cottage door, with the old gun between his knees, he watchedthe sunset as it flushed the west, and ran along the fell-tops, tilllittle by little the summer night rose from the purple valley, or fellsoftly from the emerging stars, and day was done. 

 * * * * *

A fortnight later, Mr. Louis Delorme, the famous portrait painter, arrived at Duddon Castle. Various guests had been invited to meet him. Two guests--members of the Tatham family--had invited themselves, much toLady Tatham's annoyance. And certain neighbours were coming to dine;among them Mrs. Penfold and her daughters. 

Dinner was laid in a white-pillared loggia, built by an "Italianate" LordTatham in the eighteenth century on the western side of the house, communicating with the dining-room behind it, and with the Italian gardenin front. It commanded the distant blue line of the Keswick and Ullswatermountains, and a foreground of wood and crag, while the Italian garden towhich the marble steps of the loggia descended, with its formal patternsof bright colour, blue, purple, and crimson, lay burning in the afterglowof sunset light, which, in a northern July, will let you read till teno'clock. 

The guests gathered on the circle of smooth-shaven grass that in thecentre made a space around a fountain, with a gleaming water nymph. Abroad grass pathway led them to the house, so that guests emerging fromit arrived in rather spectacular fashion--well seen, against the iviedwalls of the castle, to the unfair advantage, as usual, of grace and goodlooks. 

Before hostess or neighbours appeared, however, Mr. Delorme and a certainGerald Tatham, Lady Tatham's brother-in-law, had the green circle tothemselves. Gerald Tatham was one of the uninvited guests. He consideredhimself entitled to descend on Duddon twice a year, and generally left ithaving borrowed money of his nephew, in elaborate forgetfulness of asimilar transaction twelve months earlier still undischarged. He wasmarried, but his wife did not pay visits with him. Victoria greatlypreferred her--plain and silent as she was--to her husband; but realizingwhat a relief it must be to a woman to get such a man off her hands asoften as possible, she never pressed her to come to Duddon. MeanwhileGerald Tatham passed as an agreeable person, well versed in all thoseaffairs of his neighbours which they would gladly have kept tothemselves, and possessed of certain odd pockets of knowledge, sportingor financial, which helped him to earn the honest or doubtful pennies onwhich his existence depended. 

Delorme and he got on excellently. Gerald respected the painter as aperson whose brush, in a strangely constituted world, was able to supplyhim with an income which even the sons of land or commerce might envy;and secretly despised him for a lack of grandfathers, for his crop ofblack curls, his southern complexion and his foreign birth. Delormethought Gerald an idler of no account, and perceived in him the suresigns of a decadence which was rapidly drawing the English aristocraticclass into the limbo of things that were. But Gerald was an insatiablehawker of gossip; and a fashionable painter, with an empire among youngand pretty women, must keep himself well stocked with that article. 

So the two walked up and down together, talking pleasantly enough. Presently Delorme, sweeping a powerful hand before him, exclaimed onthe beauty of the castle and its surroundings. 

"Yes--a pretty place, " said Gerald, carelessly, "and, for once, moneyenough to keep it up. "

"Your nephew is a lucky fellow. Why don't they marry him. "

"No hurry! When it does come off my sister-in-law will do somethingabsurd. "

"Something sentimental? I'll bet you she doesn't! Democracy is all verywell--except when it comes to marriage. Then even idealists like LadyTatham knock under. "

"I wish you may be right. Anyway, she won't send him to New York!"

"No need! Blue blood--impoverished!--that's my forecast. "

Gerald smiled--ungenially. 

"Victoria would positively dislike an heiress. Jolly easy to take thatsort of line--on forty thousand a year! But as to birth, the family, inmy opinion, has a right to be considered. "

Delorme hesitated a moment, then threw a provocative look at hiscompanion, the look of the alien to whom English assumptions aresometimes intolerable. 

"Pretty mixed--your stocks--some of them--by now!"

"Not ours. You'd find, if you looked into it, that we've descended verystraight. There's been no carelessness. "

Delorme threw up his hands. 

"Good heavens! Carelessness, as you call it, is the only hope for afamily nowadays. A strong blood--that's what you want--a blood that willstand this modern life--and you'll never get that by mating in and in. Ah! here come the others. "

They turned, and saw a stream of people coming round the corner of thehouse. The rector and Mrs. Deacon--the gold cross on the rector'swaistcoat shining in the diffused light. Lady Barbara Woolson, the otheruninvited guest, Victoria's first cousin; a young man in a dinner jacketand black tie walking with Lady Tatham; a Madonnalike woman in black, hand in hand with a tall schoolboy; and two elderly gentlemen. 

But in front--some little way in front--there walked a pair for whom allthe rest appeared to be mere escort and attendance; so vivid, so chargedwith meaning they seemed, among the summer flowers, and under the summersky. 

A slender girl in white, and a tall youth looking down upon her, treadingthe grass just slightly in advance of her, with a happy deference, asthough he led in the fairy queen. So delicate were her proportions, sobright her hair, and so compelling the charm that floated round her, thatDelorme, dropping his cigarette, hastily put up his eyeglasses, and fellinto his native tongue. 

"Sapristi!--quelle petite fée avez-vous là?"

"My sister-in-law talked of some neighbours--"

"Mais elle entre en reine! My dear fellow, it looks dangerous. "

Gerald pulled his moustaches, looking hard at the advancing pair. 

"A pretty little minx--I must have it out with Victoria. " But his tonewas doubtful. It was not easy to have things out with Victoria. 

 * * * * *

The dinner under the loggia went gaily. Not many courses; much fruit; ashimmer of tea-roses before the guests; and the scent of roses blowing infrom the garden outside. 

Victoria had Delorme on her right, and Lydia sat next the great man. Tatham could only glance at her from afar. On his right, he had hiscousin, Lady Barbara, whom he cordially disliked. Her yearly visit, always fixed and announced by herself, was a time of trial both for himand his mother, but they endured it out of a sentimental and probablymistaken belief that the late Lord Tatham had--in her youth--borne her acousinly affection. Lady Barbara was a committee-woman, indefatigable, and indiscriminate. She lived and gloried in a chronic state of overwork, for which no one but herself saw the necessity. Her conversation about itonly confirmed the frivolous persons whom she tried to convert to "socialservice, " in their frivolity. After a quarter of an hour's conversationwith her, Tatham was generally dumb, and as nearly rude as histemperament allowed. While, as to his own small efforts, his cottages, County Council, and the rest, no blandishments would have drawn from hima word about them; although, like many of us, Lady Barbara would gladlyhave purchased leave to talk about her own achievements by a strictlymoderate amount of listening to other people's. 

On his other side sat a very different person--the sweet-faced lady, whose boy of fourteen sitting opposite kept up with her through dinner ashy telegraphy of eye and smile. They were evidently alone in the world, and everything to each other. She was a widow--a Mrs. Edward Manisty, whose husband, a brilliant but selfish man of letters, had died some fouryears before this date. His wife had never found out that he was selfish;her love had haloed him; though she had plenty of character of her own. She herself was an American, a New Englander by birth, carrying with herstill the perfume of a quiet life begun among the hills of Vermont, andin sight of the Adirondacks; a life fundamentally Puritan and based onPuritan ideals; yet softened and expanded by the modern forces of art, travel, and books. Lucy Manisty had attracted her husband, when he, aweary cosmopolitan, had met her first in Rome, by just this touch ofsomething austerely sweet, like the scent of lavender or dewy grass; andshe had it still--mingled with a kind humour--in her middle years, whichwere so lonely but for her boy. She and Victoria Tatham had made friendson the warm soil of Italy, and through a third person, a rare andcharming woman, whose death had first made them really known to eachother. 

"I never saw anything so attractive!" Mrs. Manisty was murmuring inTatham's ear. 

He followed the direction of her eyes, and his fair skin reddened. 

"She is very pretty, isn't she?"

"Very--like a Verrocchio angel--who has been to college! She is anartist?"

"She paints. She admires Delorme. "

"That one can see. And he admires her!"

"We--my mother--wants him to paint her. "

"He will--if he knows his own business. "

"A Miss Penfold?" said Lady Barbara, putting up her eyeglass. "You sayshe paints. The modern girl must always _do_ something! _My_ girls havebeen brought up for _home_. "

A remark that drove Tatham into a rash defence of the modern girl towhich he was quite unequal, and in which indeed he was half-hearted, forhis fundamental ideas were quite as old-fashioned as Lady Barbara's. ButLydia, for him, was of no date; only charm itself, one with all the magicand grace that had ever been in the world, or would be. 

Suddenly he saw that she was looking at him--a bright, signalling look, only to tell him how hugely well she was getting on with Delorme. Hesmiled in return, but inwardly he was discontented. Always this gaycamaraderie--like a boy's. Not the slightest tremor in it. Not a touch ofconsciousness--or of sex. He could not indeed have put it so. All he knewwas that he was always thirstily seeking something she showed no signs ofgiving him. 

But he himself was being rapidly swept off his feet. Since their meetingat Threlfall, which had been interrupted by Melrose's freakish return, there had been other meetings, as delightful as before, yet no moreconclusive or encouraging. He and Lydia had indeed grown intimate. He hadrevealed to her thoughts and feelings which he had unveiled for no oneelse--not even for Victoria--since he was a boy at school with boyishfriendships. And she had handled them with such delicacy, such sweetness;such frankness too, in return as to her own "ideas, " those stubbornintractable ideas, which made him frown to think of. Yet all the time--heknew it--there had been no flirting on her part. Never had she given himthe smallest ground to think her in love with him. On the contrary, shehad maintained between them for all her gentleness, from beginning toend, that soft, intangible barrier which at once checked and challengedhim. 

Passion ran high in him. And, moreover, he was beginning to be more thanvaguely jealous. He had seen for himself how much there was in commonbetween her and Faversham; during the last fortnight he had met Favershamat the cottage on several occasions; and there had been references toother visits from the new agent. He understood perfectly that Lydia wasbroadly, humanly interested in the man's task: the poet, the enthusiastin her was stirred by what he might do, if he would, for the humble folkshe loved. But still, there they were--meeting constantly. "And he cantalk to her about all the things I can't!"

His earlier optimism had quite passed by now; probably, thoughunconsciously, under the influence of Lydia's nascent friendshipwith Faversham. There had sprung up in him instead a constant agitationand disquiet that could no longer be controlled. No help--but ratherdanger--lay in waiting.... 

Delorme had now turned away from Lydia to his hostess, and Lydia wastalking to Squire Andover on her other side, a jolly old boy, with agracious, absent look, who inclined his head to her paternally. Tathamknew very well that there was no one in the county who was more rigidlytied to caste or rank. But he was kind always to the outsider--kindtherefore to Lydia. Good heavens!--as if there was any one at the tablefit to tie her shoe-string!

His pulses raced. The heat, the golden evening, the flowers, all thelavish colour and scents of nature, seemed to be driving him towardspeech--toward some expression of himself, which must be risked, even ifit lead him to disaster. 

 * * * * *

The dinner which appeared to Tatham interminable, and was really soshort, by Victoria's orders, that Squire Andover felt resentfully he hadhad nothing to eat, at last broke up. The gentlemen lingered smoking onthe loggia. The ladies dispersed through the garden, and Delorme--after alook round the male company--quietly went with them. So did the gentlemanin the dinner jacket and black tie. Tatham, impatiently doing his duty ashost, could only follow the fugitives with his eyes, their pale silksand muslins, among the flowers and under the trees. 

But his guests, over their cigars, were busy with some local news, and, catching Faversham's name, Tatham presently recalled his thoughtssufficiently to listen to what was being said. The topic, naturally, wasFaversham's appointment. Every landowner there was full of it. He hadbeen seen in Brampton on market day driving in a very decent motor; andsince his accession he had succeeded in letting two or three of thederelict farms, on a promise of repairs and improvements which had beenat last wrung out of Melrose. It was rumoured also that the mostastonishing things were happening in the house and the gardens. 

"Who on earth is the man, and where does he come from?" asked a short, high-shouldered man with a blunt, pugnacious face. He was an ex-officer, a J. P. , and one of the most active Conservative wire-pullers of theneighbourhood. He and Victoria Tatham were the best of friends. Theydiffered on almost all subjects. He was a mass of prejudices, large andsmall, and Victoria laughed at him. But when she wanted to help anyparticularly lame dog over any particularly high stile, she always wentto Colonel Barton. A cockney doctor attached to the Workhouse had oncedescribed him to her as--'eart of gold, 'edd of feathers'--and the labelhad stuck. 

"A Londoner, picked up badly hurt on the road, by Undershaw, Iunderstand, and carried into the lion's den, " said Andover, in answer toBarton. "And now they say he is obtaining the most extraordinaryinfluence over the old boy. "

"And the house--turned into a perfect palace!" said the rector, throwingup his hands. 

The others, except Tatham, crowded eagerly round, while the rectordescribed a visit he had paid to Faversham, within a few days of theagent's appointment, on behalf of a farmer's widow, a parishioner, undernotice to quit. 

"Hadn't been in the house for twenty years. The place is absolutelytransformed! It used to be a pigsty. Now Faversham's rooms are fitfor a prince. Nothing short of one of your rooms here"--he addressedTatham, with a laughing gesture toward the house--"comparable to hissitting-room. Priceless things in it! And close by, an excellent office, with room for two clerks--one already at work--piles of blue-books, pamphlets, heavens knows what! And they are fitting up a telephonebetween Threlfall and some new rooms that he has taken for estatebusiness in Pengarth. "

"A _telephone_--at Threlfall!" murmured Andover. 

"And Undershaw tells me that Melrose has taken the most extraordinaryfancy for the young man. Everything is done for him. He may have anythinghe likes. And, rumour says--an enormous salary!"

"Sounds like an adventurer, " grumbled Barton, "probably is. "

Tatham broke in. "No, you're wrong there, Colonel. I knew Faversham atcollege. He's a very decent fellow--and awfully clever. "

Yet, somehow, his praise stuck in his throat. 

"Well, of course, " said Andover with a shrug, "if he _is_ a decentfellow, as Tatham says, he won't stay long. Do you imagine Melrose isgoing to change his spots?--not he!"

"Somebody must really go and talk to this chap, " said Barton gloomily. "Ibelieve Melrose will lose us the next election up here. You really can'texpect people to vote for Tories, if Tories are that sort. "

The talk flowed on. But Tatham had ceased to listen. For some little timethere had been no voices or steps in the garden outside. They had meltedinto the wood beyond. But now they had returned. He perceived a whitefigure against a distant background of clipped yew. 

Rising joyously he threw down his cigarette. 

"Shall we join the ladies?"

"I say, you've had a dose of Delorme. "

For he had found her still with the painter, who as soon as Tathamappeared had subsided languidly into allowing Lady Barbara to talk tohim. 

"Oh! but so amusing!" cried Lydia, her face twinkling. "We've picked allthe Academy to pieces and danced on their bones. "

"Has he asked you to sit to him?"

Lydia hesitated, and in the soft light he saw her flush. 

"He said something. Of course it would be a great, great honour!"

"An honour to him, " said Tatham hotly. 

"I'm afraid you don't know how to respect great men!" she said laughing, as they drew out of the shadow of the Italian garden with its clippedyews and cypresses, and reached a broad terrace whence the undulations ofthe park stretched westward and upward into the purple fissures andclefts of the mountains. Trees, fells, grass were steeped in a wan, goldlight, a mingling of sunset and moonrise. The sky was clear; thegradations of colour on the hills ethereally distinct. From a clump oftrees came a soft hooting of owls; and close behind them a tall hedge ofroses red and white made a bower for Lydia's light form, and filled thenight with perfume. 

"What do great men matter?" said Tatham incoherently as they paused;"what does anything matter--but--_Lydia!_"

It was a cry of pain. A hand groped for hers. Lydia startled, looked upto see the face of Tatham looking down upon her through the warmdusk--transfigured. 

"You'll let me speak, won't you? I daresay it's much too soon--I daresayyou can't think of it--yet. But I love you. I love you so dearly! I can'tkeep it to myself. I have--ever since I first saw you. You won't be angrywith me for speaking? You won't think I took you by surprise? I don'twant to hurry you--I only want you to know--"

Emotion choked him. Lydia, after a murmur he couldn't catch, hid her facein her hands. 

He waited; and already there crept through him the dull sense ofdisaster. The impulse to speak had been irresistible, and now--he wishedhe had not spoken. 

At last she looked up. 

"Oh, you have been so good to me--so sweet to me, " and before he knewwhat she was doing, she had lifted one of his hands in her two slenderones and touched it with her lips. 

Outraged--enchanted--bewildered--he tried to catch her in his arms. Butshe slipped away from him and with her hands behind her, she looked athim, smiling through tears, her fair hair blown back from her temples, her delicate face alive with feeling. 

"I can't say yes--it wouldn't be honest if I did--it wouldn't be fairto you. But, oh, dear, I'm so sorry--so dreadfully sorry--if it's myfault--if I've misled you. I thought I'd tried hard to show what I reallyfelt--that I wanted to be friends--but not--not this. Dear Lord Tatham, Ido like and admire you so much--but--"

"You don't want to marry me!" he said bitterly, turning away. 

She paused a moment. 

"No"--the word came with soft decision--"no. And if I were to marry youwithout--without that feeling--you have a right to--I should be doingwrong--to you--and to myself. You see"--she looked down, the points ofher white shoe drawing circles on the grass, as though to help out herfaltering speech--"I--I'm not what I believe you think me. I've got allsorts of hard, independent notions in my mind. I want to paint--andstudy--and travel--I want to be free--"

"You should be free as air!" he interrupted passionately. 

"Ah, but no!--not if I married. I shouldn't want to be free in that way, if--"

"If you were in love? I understand. And you're not in love with me. Whyshould you be?" said poor Tatham, with a new and desperate humility. "Whyon earth should you be? But I'd adore you--I'd give you anything in theworld you wanted. "

Sounds of talking and footsteps emerged from the dusk behind them; thehigh notes of Lady Barbara, and the answering bass of Delorme. 

"Don't let them find us, " said Lydia impetuously--"I've _so_ much tosay. "

Tatham turned, and led the way to the pillared darkness of a pergola totheir left. One side of it was formed by a high yew hedge; on the other, its rose-twined arches looked out upon the northern stretches of thepark, and on the garden front of Duddon. There it lay, the great house, faintly lit; and there in front stretched its demesne, symbol of itsancient rule and of its modern power. A natural excitement passed throughLydia as they paused, and she caught its stately outline through thenight. And then, the tameless something in her soul, which was her veryself, rose up, rejoicing in its own strength, and yet--wistful, full oftenderness. Now!--let her play her stroke--her stroke in the new greatgame that was to be, in the new age, between men and women. 

"Why shouldn't we just be friends?" she urged. "I know it sounds an old, stale thing to say. But it isn't. There's a new meaning in it now, because--because women are being made new. It used to be offering whatwe couldn't give. We could be lovers; we weren't good enough--we hadn'tstuff enough--to be friends. But now--dear Lord Tatham--just try me--"She held out to him two hands, which he took against his will. "I likeyou so much!--I know that I should love your mother. Now that we've hadthis out, why shouldn't we build up something quite fresh? I want afriend--so badly!"

"And I want something--so much more than a friend!" he said, pressing herhands fiercely. 

"Ah, but give it up!" she pleaded. "If you can't, I mustn't come here anymore, nor you to us. And why? It would be such a waste--of what ourfriendship might be. You could teach me so many things. I think I couldteach you some. "

He dropped her hands, mastering himself with difficulty. 

"It's nonsense, " he said shortly; "I know it's nonsense! But--if Ipromised not to say anything of this kind again for a year?"

She pondered. There were compunctions, remorses, in her. As Susan hadwarned her, was she playing with a man's heart and life?

But her trust in her own resources, the zest of spiritual adventure, anda sheer longing to comfort him prevailed. 

"You'll promise that; and I'll promise--just to be as nice to you as everI can!" She paused. They looked at each other; the trouble in his eyesquestioning the smile in hers. "Now please!--my friend!"--she sliddexterously, though very softly, into the everyday tone--"will you adviseme? Mr. Delorme has asked me to sit to him. Just a sketch in thegarden--for a picture he's at work on. You would like me to accept?"

She stood before him, her eyes raised, with the frank gentleness of achild. Yet there was a condition implied in the question. 

Tatham broke out--passionately, "Just tell me. There's--there's no one else?"

She suffered for him; she hastened to comfort him. 

"No, no--indeed there's no one else. Though, mind, I'm free. And so areyou. Shall I come to-morrow?" she asked again, with quiet insistence. 

There was a gulp in Tatham's throat. Yet he rose--dismally--to herchallenge. 

"You would do what I like?" he asked, quivering. 

"Indeed I would. "

"I invited Delorme here--just to please you--and because I hoped he'dpaint you. "

"Then that's settled!" she said, with a little sigh of satisfaction. 

"And what, please, am I to do--that _you'd_ like?" She looked upmischievously. 

"Call me Lydia--forget that you ever wanted to marry me--and don't mind arap what people say!"

He laughed, through his pain, and gravely took her hand. 

"And now, " said Lydia, "I think it's time to go home. "

 * * * * *

When all the guests were gone, when Gerald and Delorme had smoked theirlast interminable cigars, and Delorme had made his last mocking commentson the "old masters" who adorned the smoking-room, Tatham saw him safelyto bed, and returned to his sitting-room on the ground floor. The Frenchwindow was open, and he passed out into the garden. Soon, in his strugglewith himself, he had left the garden and the park behind, and wasclimbing the slope of the fells. The play of the soft summer winds underthe stars, the scents of bracken and heather and rushes, the distantthrobbing sounds that rose from the woods as the wind travelled throughthem--and soon, the short mountain turf beneath his feet, and around andbelow him, the great shapes of the hills, mysteriously still, and yet, asit seemed to him, mysteriously alive--these things spoke to him and, little by little, calmed his blood. 

It was the first anguish of a happy man. When, presently, he lay safehidden in a hollow of the lonely fell, face downward among the moonlitrocks, some young and furious tears fell upon the sod. That quietstrength of will in so soft a creature--a will opposed to his will--hadbrought him up against the unyieldingness of the world. The joyouscertainties of life were shaken to their base; and yet he could not, hedid not, cease to hope. 

XI

Victoria was sitting to Delorme in a corner of the Italian garden. Hewished to paint her _en plein air_, and he was restlessly walking to andfro, about her, choosing a point of view. Victoria was vaguely pleased bythe picturesqueness of his lion head set close on a pair of powerfulshoulders, no less than by the vivacity of his dark face and southerngesture. He wore a linen jacket with bulging pockets, and a blackskullcap, which gave him a masterful, pontifical air. To Victoria'sthinking, indeed, he "pontified" at all times, a great deal more than wasnecessary. 

However she sat resigned. She did not like Delorme, and her preferencewas all for another school of art. She had moreover a critical respectfor her own features, and she did not want at all to see them rendered bywhat seemed to her the splashing violence of Delorme's brushwork. ButHarry had asked it of her, and here she was. 

Her thoughts, moreover, were full of Harry's affairs, so that theconversation between her and the painter was more or less pretence on herpart. 

Delorme, meanwhile, was divided between the passion of a new subject andthe wrath excited in him by a newspaper article which had reached him atbreakfast. 

"A little more to the left, please, Lady Tatham. Admirable! One moment!"The scrabble of charcoal on paper. 

Delorme stepped back. Victoria sat languidly passive. 

"Did you read that article on me in _The Weekly_? The man's afool!--knows nothing, and writes like God Almighty. A little more fullface. That's it! I suppose all professions are full of these jealousbeasts. Ours is cluttered up with them--men who never sell a picture, and make up by living on the compliments of their own little snarlingset. But, upon my word, it makes one rather sick. Ah, that's good! Youmoved a trifle--that's better--just a moment!"

"I'm glad you let me sit, " said Victoria absently. "I _stood_ to Whistleronce. It nearly killed me. "

"Ah, Jimmy!" said Delorme. "Jimmy was a Tartar!"

He went off at score into recollections of Whistler, drawing hard all thetime. 

Victoria did not listen. She was thinking of those sounds of footstepsshe had heard under her window at dawn, and passing her room. Thismorning Harry looked as usual, except for something in the eyes, whichnone but she would notice. What had he been doing all those hours? Therewas nothing erratic or abnormal about Harry. Sound sleep from the momenthe put his head on his pillow to the moment at eight o'clock when hisservant with great difficulty woke him, was the rule with him. 

What could have happened the night before--while he and Lydia Penfoldwere alone together? Victoria had seen them come back into the generalcompany, had indeed been restlessly on the watch for their return. Ithad seemed to her--though how be sure in that mingled light?--both at themoment of their reappearance and afterward, that Harry was somewhatunusually pale and quiet, while the girl's look had struck her assingular--_exalteé_--the eyes shining--yet the manner composed and sweetas usual. She already divined the theorist in Lydia, the speculator withlife and conduct. "But not with my Harry!" thought the mother, fiercely. 

But how could she prevent it? What could she do? What can any mother dowhen the wave of energy--spiritual and physical--has risen or is risingto its height in the young creature, and the only question is how andwhere it shall break; in crash and tempest, or in a summer sea?

Delorme suddenly raised his great head from his easel. 

"That was a delicious creature that sat by me last night. "

"Miss Penfold? She is one of your devotees. "

"She paints, so she said. _Mon Dieu_! Why do women paint?"

Victoria, roused, hotly defended the right of her sex to ply any honestart in the world that might bring them either pleasure or money. 

"_Mais la peinture_!" Delorme's shoulder shrugged still higher. "It is aninfernal thing, milady, painting. What can a woman make of it? She canonly unsex herself. And in the end--what she produces--what is it?"

"If it pays the rent--isn't that enough?"

"But a young girl like that! What, in God's name, has she do to withpaying the rent? Let her dance and sing--have a train of lovers--lookbeautiful!"

"The whole duty of woman!" laughed Victoria with a touch of scorn; "forour grandmothers. "

"No: for all time, " said Delorme stoutly. "Ask milord. " He looked towardthe house, and Victoria saw Tatham emerging. But she had no intentionwhatever of asking him. She rose hastily, excused herself on the score ofneeding a few minutes' rest, and went to meet her son. 

"I forgot to tell you, mother, " he said, as they approached each other, "Faversham's coming this afternoon. I had a letter from him this morning. He seems to be trying to make the old man behave. "

"I shall be glad to see him. "

Struck by something lifeless and jaded in the voice she loved, Victoriashot a glance at her son, then slipped her hand into his arm, and walkedback with him to his library. 

He sat down silently to his books and papers. A couple of officialreports lay open, and Victoria knew that he was going to an importantcounty meeting that evening, where he was to be in the chair. Many oldermen, men who had won their spurs in politics or business, would be there, and it was entirely by their wish--their kindly wish--that Harry wouldtake the lead. They desired to see him treading in the steps of hisforefathers. 

Perched on the end of his writing table, she watched her son a moment. Itseemed to her she saw already what the young face would be like when itwas old. A pang struck her. 

"Harry--is there anything wrong?"

He looked up quite simply and stretched his hand to her. 

"I asked her to marry me last night. "

"Well?" The colour rushed into the mother's face. 

"No go. She doesn't love me. She wants us to be friends. "

Victoria gasped. 

"But she's coming to sit to Delorme this afternoon!"

"Because I asked her. "

"Harry, dear boy, for both your sakes--either all or nothing! If shedoesn't care--break it off. "

"There's nothing to break off, dearest. And don't ask me not to see her. I couldn't. Who knows? She's got her ideas. Of course I've got mine. Perhaps--after all--I may win. Or, if not--perhaps"--he shaded his facewith his hand--"she'll show me--how not to mind. I know she wants to. "

Silence a moment. Then the lad's hand dropped. He smiled at Victoria. 

"Let's fall in! There's nothing else to do anyway. She's not like othergirls. When she says a thing--she means it. But so long as I can seeher--I'm happy!"

"You ought to forget her!" said Victoria angrily, kissing his hair. "These things should _end_--one way or the other. "

He looked perplexed. 

"She doesn't think so--and I'm thankful she doesn't, mother--don't sayanything to her. Promise me. She said last night--she loved you. Shewants to come here. Let's give her a jolly time. Perhaps--"

The patience in his blue eyes nearly made her cry. And there was also thejealousy that no fond mother escapes, the commonest of all jealousies. Hewas passing out of her hands, this creature of her own flesh. Till nowshe had moulded and shaped him. Henceforward the lightest influencerained by this girl's eyes would mean more to him than all the intensityof her own affection. 

 * * * * *

Victoria's mind for the rest of the sitting was in a state ofabstraction, and she sat so still that Delorme was greatly pleased withher. At luncheon she was still absent-minded, and Lady Barbara whisperedin Gerald Tatham's ear that Victoria was always a poor hostess, but thistime her manners were really impossible. 

"But you intend to stay a fortnight, don't you?" said Gerald, not withoutmalice. 

"If I can possibly stay it out. " The reply was lofty, but the situation, as Gerald knew, was commonplace. Lady Barbara's house in town was let foranother fortnight, and Duddon's Castle was more agreeable and moreeconomical than either lodgings or a hotel. 

Meanwhile a pair of eyes belonging to the young man whose dinner jacketand black tie had marked him out amid the other male guests of the nightbefore were observing matters with a more subtle and friendly spiritbehind them. Cyril Boden was a Fellow of All Souls, a journalist, anadvanced Radical, a charmer, and a fanatic. He hated no man. That indeedwas the truth. But he hated the theories and the doings of so many men, that the difference between him and the mere revolutionary was hard toseize. He had a smooth and ruddy face, in which the eyebrows seemed to bealways rising interrogatively; longish hair; stooping shoulders, and anamiable, lazy, mocking look that belied a nature of singular passion, always occupied with the most tremendous problems of life, and afraid ofno solution. 

He had been overworking himself in the attempt to settle a dock strike, and had come to Duddon to rest. Victoria was much attached to him in amotherly way, and he to her. They sparred a good deal; she attacking"agitators" and "demagogues, " he, fierce on "feudal tyranny, " especiallywhen masked in the beauties and amenities of such a place as Duddon. Butthey were friends all the same, exchanging the unpaid services offriends. 

In the afternoon, before Lydia Penfold appeared, Boden found amusementin teasing Delorme--an old acquaintance. Delorme was accustomed to posein all societies as Whistler's lawful and only successor. "Pattern" and"harmony" possessed him; "finish" was only made for fools, and thestory-teller in art was the unclean thing. His ambition, like Whistler's, was to paint a full length in three days, and hear it hailed amasterpiece. And, like Whistler, he had no sooner painted it than hescraped it out; which most sitters found discouraging. 

Boden, meanwhile, made amends for all that was revolutionary in hispolitics or economics, by reaction on two subjects--art and divorce. Hehad old-fashioned ideas on the family, and did not want to see divorcemade easy. And he was quaintly Ruskinian in matters of art, believingthat all art should appeal to ethical or poetic emotion. 

"Boden admires a painter because he is a good man and pays his washingbills, " drawled Delorme behind his cigarette, from the lazy depths of agarden chair. "His very colours are virtues, and his pictures must bemasterpieces, because he subscribes to the Dogs' Home, and doesn't beathis wife. "

"Excellently put, " said Boden, his hat on the back of his head, his eyesbeginning to shine. "Do men gather grapes off thistles?"

"Constantly. There is no relation whatever between art and morality. "Delorme smoked pugnaciously. "The greater the artist, generally speaking, the worse the man. "

"I say! Really as bad as that?"

Boden waved a languid hand toward the smoke-wreathed phantom of Delorme. The circle round the two laughed, languidly also, for it was almost toohot laugh. The circle consisted of Victoria, Gerald Tatham, Mrs. Manisty, and Colonel Barton, who had reappeared at luncheon, in order to urgeTatham to see Faversham as soon as possible on certain local affairs. 

"Oh! I give you my head in a charger, " said Delorme, not without heat. "For you, Burne-Jones is 'pure' and I am 'decadent'; because he paintsanemic knights in sham armour and I paint what I see. "

"The one absolutely fatal course! Don't you agree?"

Boden turned smiling to Mrs. Manisty, of whose lovely head and soft eyeshe was conscious through all the chatter. 

The eyes responded. 

"What do we see?" she said, with her shy smile. "Surely we only see whatwe think--or dream!"

"True!" cried Delorme; "but a painter thinks _in paint_. "

"There you go, " said Boden, "with your esoteric stuff. All your greatpainters have thought and felt with the multitude--painted for themultitude. "

"Never. " The painter jerked away his cigar, and sat up. "The multitude isa brute beast!"

"A just beast, " murmured Boden. 

"Anything but!" said the painter. "But you know my views. In everygeneration, so far as art is concerned, there are about thirty men whomatter--in all the world!"

"Artists?" The voice was Lucy Manisty's. 

"Good heavens, no! Artists--and judges--together. The gate of art is adeal straiter than the gate of Heaven. "

Boden caught Victoria's laugh. 

"Let him alone, " he said, indulgently. "His is the only aristocracy I canstand--with apologies to my hostess. "

"Oh, we're done for, " said Victoria, quietly. 

Boden turned a humorous eye, first to the great house basking in thesunshine, then to his hostess. 

"Not yet. But you're doomed. As the old Yorkshireman said to his son, when they were watching the triumphs of a lion-tamer in the travellingmenagerie--that 'genelman's to be wooried _soom_ day. ' When the realArmageddon comes, it'll not find you in possession. _You'll_ have gonedown long before. "

"Really? Then who will be in possession?" asked Gerald Tatham, a veryperceptible sneer in his disagreeable voice. He disliked Boden as one of"the infernal Radicals" whom Victoria would inflict on the sacredprecincts of Duddon, but he was generally afraid of him in conversation. 

"Merely the rich"--the tone was still nonchalant--"the Haves against theHaven'ts. No nonsense left, by that time, about 'blood' and 'family. 'Society will have dropped all those little trimmings and embroideries. We shall have come to the naked fundamental things. "

"The struggle of rich and poor?" said Delorme. "Precisely. That's whatall you fellows who go and preach revolution to dockers are after. Andwhat on earth would the world do without wealth? Wealth is onlymaterialized intelligence! What's wrong with it?"

"Only that we're dying of it. "

The young man paused. He sat silently smoking, his eyes--unseeing--fixedupon the house. Lucy Manisty looked at him with sympathy. 

"You mean, " she said, "that no one who has the power to be rich has nowever the courage to be poor?"

He nodded, and turning to her he continued in a lower voice: "Andthink what's lost! Are we _all_ to be smothered in this paraphernaliaof servants, and motor cars and gluttonous living? There's scarcely aman--for instance--among my friends who'll dare to marry! Hundreds usedto be enough--now they must have thousands--or say their wives must. Andthey'll sell their souls to get the thousands. Who's the better--who'sthe happier for it in the end? We have left ourselves nothing to lovewith--nothing to be happy with. What does natural beauty--or humanfeeling--matter to the men who spend their days speculating in the City?I know 'em. I have watched some of them for years. It's a thirst thatdestroys a man. To want to be rich is bad enough--to want to be rich_quick_ is death and damnation ... "

There was silence again, till suddenly Boden addressed Colonel Barton, who was sitting opposite half asleep in the sun. 

"I say, what's the name of a village, about two miles from here, I walkedthrough while you were all at church this morning?--the most God-forsakenplace I ever saw!--a horrible, insanitary hole!"

"Mainstairs!" said Barton, promptly, waking up. "That's the only villagehereabout that fits the description. But Melrose owns two or three ofthem. "

"The man that owns that village ought to be hung, " said Boden with quietferocity. "In any decent state of society he would be hung. "

Barton shrugged his shoulders. 

"I'm on the sanitary authority. We've summoned him till we're tired, toput those cottages in repair. No use. Now, we've told him that we shallrepair them ourselves and send in the bill to him. That's stirred him, and he's immediately given everybody notice to quit--says he'll close thewhole village. But the people won't go. There are no other cottages formiles--they've taken to stoning our inspectors. "

"And you think our land system's going to last on these terms?" saidBoden, his eyes flaming. 

The little Tory opposite drew himself up. 

"It's not the system--it's the man. "

"The system's judged--that permits the man. "

"Melrose is unique, " said Barton, hotly; "we are a model county, but forthe Melrose estate. "

"But the exception is damning! It compromises you all. That such a placeas Mainstairs should be _possible_--that's the point!"

"For you Socialists, I daresay!" cried Barton. "The rest of us knowbetter than to expect a perfect world!"

Boden laughed, the passion dying from his face. 

"Ah, well, we shall have to make you march--you fellows in possession. Nohope--unless we are 'behind you with a bradawl!'"

"On the contrary! We marched before you Socialists were thought of. Whohave put the bulk of the cottages of England in repair during the lasthalf century, I should like to know--and built most of the new ones? Thelandlords of England! Who stands in the way of reform at the presentmoment? The small owner. And who are the small owners? Mainly Radicaltradesmen. "

Boden looked at him--then queerly smiled. "I daresay. I trust noman--further than I can see him. But if what you say is true, why don'tyou Conservatives--in your own interest--coerce men like Melrose? He'sgiving you away, every month he exists. "

"Well, Tatham's at it, " said Barton quietly; "we're all at it. Andthere's a new agent just appointed. Something to be hoped from him. "

"Who is it?"

"You didn't hear us discussing him last night? A man called ClaudeFaversham. "

"Claude Faversham? A tall, dark fellow--writes a little--does a littlelaw--but mostly unemployed? Oh, I know him perfectly. Faversham? Youdon't mean it!" Boden threw himself back in his chair with a sarcasticlip, and relit his pipe. As he watched the spirals of smoke he recalledthe few incidents of his acquaintance with the young man. They had bothbeen among the original members of a small club in London, frequentedby men of letters and junior barristers. Faversham had long since droppedout of the club, and was now the companion, so Boden understood, of muchricher men, and a great frequenter of the Stock Exchange, where money ismysteriously made without working for it. That fact alone was enough forCyril Boden. He felt an instinctive, almost a fanatical, antipathy towardthe new agent. On the one side the worshippers of the Unbought and theUnpriced; on the other Mammon and all his troop. It was so that Bodenhabitually envisaged his generation. It was so, and by no other test, that he divided the sheep from the goats. 

Meanwhile, Lydia Penfold, driving a diminutive pony, was slowlyapproaching the castle through the avenue of splendid oaks which led upto it. Faversham was walking beside her. He had overtaken her at thebeginning of the avenue, and had sent on his motor that he might havethe pleasure of her society. 

The daintiness of her white dress, with all its pretty details, the touchof blue in her hat, and at her waist, delighted his eyes. It pleased himthat there was not a trace in her of Bohemian carelessness in theserespects. Everything was simple, but everything was considered. She knewher own beauty; that was clear. It gave her self-possession; but, so faras he could see, without a trace of conceit. He had never met a younggirl with whom he could talk so easily. 

She had greeted him with her most friendly smile. But it seemed to himnevertheless that she was a little pensive and overcast. 

"You dined here last night?" he asked her. "Did the lion roar properly?"

"Magnificently. You weren't there?"

"No. Undershaw put down his foot. I shan't submit much longer!"

"You're really getting strong?"

Her kind eyes considered him. He had often marveled that one so youngshould be mistress of such a look--so softly frank and unafraid. 

"A Hercules! Besides, the work's so interesting, one's no time to thinkof one's game leg!"

"You're getting to know the estate?"

"I've been motoring about it for a fortnight, that's something for abeginning. And I've got plenty of things to tell you. "

He plunged into them. It was evident that he was resuming topics familiarto them both. Their talk indeed showed them already intimate, sharers ina common enterprise, where she was often inspiration, and he executiveand practical force. Ever since, indeed, she had said to him with thatkindled, eager look--"Accept! Accept!"--he had been sharply aware of howbest to approach, to attract her. She was, it seemed, no mere passivegirl. She was in her measure a thinker--a character. He perceived inher--deep down--enthusiasms and compassions, that seemed often as thoughthey shook her beyond her strength. They made him uncomfortable; theywere strange to his own mind; and yet they moved and influenced him. During the short time, for instance, that she had lived in their midst, she had made friends everywhere--so he discovered--among these Cumbriafolk. She never harangued about them; a few words, a few looks, burningfrom an inward fire--these expressed her: as when, twice, he had met herat dusk, with the aspect of a wounded spirit, coming out of hovels thathe himself must now be ashamed of, since they were Melrose's hovels. 

"I've just come from Mainstairs, " he said to her abruptly, as the housein front drew nearer. 

The colour rushed into Lydia's cheeks. 

"Are you going to put that right?"

"I'm going to try. I've been talking to your old friend Dobbs. I saw hispoor daughter, and I went into most of the cottages. "

Somewhat to his dismay he saw the delicate face beside him quiver, andthe eyes cloud. But the emotion was driven back. 

"You're too late--for Bessie!" she said--how sadly! The accent touchedhim. 

"The girl is really dying? Was it diphtheria?"

"She has been dying for months--and in such _pain_. "

"It is paralysis?"

"After diphtheria. Did they show you the graves in the churchyard?--theycall it the Innocents' Corner. Thirty children died in that village lastyear and the year before. "

There was silence a little. 

"I wonder what I can do, " said Faversham, at last, reflectively. "I havebeen working out a number of new proposals--and I submit them to Mr. Melrose to-night. "

She looked wistfully at the speaker. 

"Good luck! But Mr. Melrose is hard to move. "

Faversham assented. 

"The hope lies in his being now an old man--and anxious to get rid ofresponsibilities. I shall try to show him that bad citizenship costs moremoney than good. "

"I hope--oh! I _hope_--you'll succeed!" she said fervently. Her emotioninfected him. He smiled down upon her. 

"That ought to make me succeed! But of course I have no experience. I ama townsman. "

"You've always been a Londoner?"

"Practically, always. But I was tired of London before all thishappened--dying to get out of it. "

And he began a short account of himself, more intimate than any he hadyet given her; to which Lydia listened with her open, friendly look, perhaps a little shyer than before. And so different, instinctively, isthe way in which a man will tell his story to a woman, from that in whichhe tells it to a man, that the same half-ironic, half-bitter narrativewhich had repelled Tatham, attracted Lydia. Her sympathy rose at once tomeet it. He was an orphan, and till now lonely and unsuccessful;tormented, too, by unsatisfied ideals and ambitions. Her imagination waspitiful and quick; she imagined she understood. She liked his frankness;it flattered and touched her. She liked his deep rich voice, and his darkface, with its lean strength, and almost southern colour. During hisillness he had grown a small peaked beard, and it pleased her artisticsense, by giving him a look of Cardinal Richelieu--as that great manstood figured in an old French print she had picked up once in a box onthe Paris quays. Moreover his friendship offered her so much freshknowledge of the world and life. Here, again, was comradeship. She waslucky indeed. Harry Tatham--and now this clever, interesting man, entering on his task. It was a great responsibility. She would not faileither of her new friends! They knew--she had made--she would make itquite plain, that she was not setting her cap at either. Wider insights, fresh powers, honourable, legitimate powers, for her sex--it was theseshe was after. 

In all all this Lydia was perfectly sincere. But the Comic Spirit sittingaloft took note. 

They paused a moment on the edge of the plateau on which the housestood--the ground breaking from it to the west. A group of cottagesappeared amid the woods far away. 

"If all estates were like this estate!" cried Lydia, pointing to them, "and all cottages like their cottages!"

Faversham flushed and stiffened. 

"Oh! the Tathams are always perfection!"

Lydia's eyebrows lifted. 

"It is a crime?"

"No--but one hears too much of it. "

"Not from them!" The tone was indignant. 

"I daresay. "

Suddenly, he threw her a look which startled her. She descended from herpony-cart at the steps of the castle, her breath fluttering a little. What had happened?

"Her ladyship is in the garden, " said the footman who received them. Andhe led the way through a door in the wall of the side court. Theyfollowed--in a constrained silence. Lydia felt puzzled, and rather angry. 

Faversham recovered himself. 

"I apologize! They have all the virtues. "

His voice was lowered--for her ear; there was deference in his smile. Butsomehow Lydia was conscious of a note of stormy self-assertion in him, which was new to her; something strong and stubborn, which refused totake her lead as usual. 

Lady Tatham advanced. The eyes of a group of people sitting in a circleunder the shade of a spreading yew tree turned toward them. 

Boden, who had given Faversham a perfunctory greeting, fell back into hischair again, and watched the new agent's reception with coolly smilingeyes. 

Tatham came hurrying up to greet them. No one but Lydia could havedistinguished any change in the boyish voice and look. But it was there. She felt it. 

He turned from her to Faversham. 

"Awfully glad to see you. Hope you're quite fit again. "

"Very nearly all right, thank you. "

"Are you actually at work? Great excitement everywhere about you!"

Tatham stood, with his straw hat tilted toward the back of his head, andhis hands on his sides, observing his guest. 

Faversham shrugged his shoulders. 

"I feel horribly nervous!"

"Well you may!" laughed Tatham. "Never mind. We'll all back you up, ifyou'll let us. "

"As far as I am concerned--the smallest contributions thankfullyreceived. Who are these people here?"

Tatham introduced him. 

Then to Lydia:

"Delorme is waiting for you. " He carried her off. 

By this time Mr. Andover, the old grizzled squire who had been Lydia'spartner at dinner the night before, had dropped in, and various otherresidents from the neighbourhood. They gathered eagerly round Faversham, in the deep shade of the yews. 

And before long, the new man had produced an excellent first impressionupon these country gentlemen who were now to be his neighbours. It wasevident that he was anxious to remove grievances. His tone as to hisemployer was guarded, but not at all servile; and he made the impressionof a man of ability accustomed to business, though modestly avowing hisignorance of rural affairs; independent, yet anxious to do his best witha great trust. 

After half an hour's discussion, Barton drew Victoria aside, and said toher excitedly that the new agent was "a capital fellow!"

"He'll do the job, you'll see! Melrose is breaking up--thank God! Everyone who's seen him lately says he's not half the man he was. He'll haveto give this fellow a free hand. That estate has been a plague-spot!But we'll get it cleared up now. "

Victoria wondered. Secretly, she doubted the power of any man to manageMelrose even _moriturus_. 

Meanwhile it had not escaped her that the new agent and Lydia Penfold hadarrived together. It had struck her also that their manner toward eachother, as she went to meet them, had been the manner of persons justemerged from a somewhat intimate conversation. And she already perceivedthe nascent jealousy in Harry. 

Well, no doubt the agent also was to be practised on by thesenewfangled arts. For no girl could have had the audacity to make thecompact Lydia Penfold had made with Harry, if she were already in lovewith another man! No. Faversham, it was plain, would be the next addedto her train. Victoria beheld the golden-haired creature as the modernCirce, surrounded by troops of ex-suitors--lovers transmogrified toFriends--docile at the heel of the sorceress. You took your chance, received your "No, " and subsided cheerfully into the pen. Victoria vowedto herself that her Harry should do nothing of the kind!

She looked round her for the presumptuous maiden. There she was, under afountain wall in the Italian garden, her white dress gleaming from thewarm shadow in which the stone was steeped; Delorme, with an easel, infront. He was making a rapid charcoal sketch of her, and she was sittingdaintily erect, talking and smiling at intervals. A little way off, agroup of people, critical observers of the proceeding, lounged on thegrass or in garden chairs; among them, Tatham. And as he sat watching thesitting, his hat drawn forward over his brow and eyes, although hechatted occasionally with Mrs. Manisty beside him, his mother wasmiserably certain that he was in truth alive to nothing but the whitevision under the wall--the delicate three-quarter face, with its pointedchin, and the wisps of gold hair blowing about the temples. 

And the owner of the face! Was she quite unmoved by a situation whichmight, Victoria felt, have strained the nerves even of the experienced?

A slight incident seemed to show that she was not unmoved. Lydia hadshown a keen, girlish pleasure in the prospect of sitting to Delorme, thegod, professionally, of her idolatry. Yet the sketch, for that afternoon, came to nothing. For after an hour's sitting Delorme, as usual, becamerestless and excited, exclaimed at the difficulty of the subject, cursedthe light, and finally, in a fit of disgust, wiped out everything he haddone. Lydia rose from her seat, looking rather white, and threw astrange, appealing glance--the mother caught it--at her young host. Tatham sprang up, released her instantly and peremptorily, though Delormeimplored for another half-hour. Lydia, unheard by the artist, gave softthanks to her deliverer, and, presently, there they were--she andHarry--strolling up and down the rose-alleys together, as though nothing, absolutely nothing, had happened. 

And yet Harry had only asked her to marry him the night before, and shehad only refused! Impossible to suppose that it was the mere plotting ofthe finished coquette. This lover required neither teasing nor kindling. 

However, there it was. This little struggling artist had refused Harry;and she had refused Duddon. 

For one could not be so absurd as to ignore _that_. Victoria, sitting inthe shade beside Lady Barbara, who had gone to sleep, looked dreamilyround on the rose-red pile of building, on the great engirdling woods, the hills, the silver reaches of river--interwoven now with the darktree-masses, now with glades of sunlit pasture. Duddon was one of thegreat possessions of England. And this slip of a girl, with her home-madeblouses, and her joy in making twenty pounds out of her drawings, wherewith to pay the rent, had put it aside, apparently without amoment's hesitation. Magnanimity--or stupidity?

The next moment Victoria was despising her own amazement. "One takesone's own lofty feelings for granted--but never other people's! She saysshe doesn't love him--and that's the reason. And I straightway don'tbelieve her. What snobs we all are! One's astonishment betrays one'sstandard. Gerald says, 'What have the poor to do with fine feelings?' andI detest him for it. But I'm no better. "

Suddenly, on the other side of the yew hedge behind her--voices. Harryand Lydia Penfold, in eager and laughing discussion. And all at once aname reached her ears:

"Lydia"--pronounced rather shyly, in Tatham's voice. 

"_Lydia!"_ No doubt by the bidding of the young lady. 

"I did not know I was so old-fashioned, " thought Lady Tatham indignantly. 

Yet the tone in which the name was given was neither caressing nortender. It simply meant, of course, that the young woman was breaking himin to her ideas; her absurd ideas, from which Harry must be protected. 

They emerged from the shrubbery and came toward her. Lydia timidlyapproached Victoria. With Tatham she had not apparently been timid. Butfor his mother she was all deference. 

"Isn't there a flower-show here to-morrow? May Susan and I come andhelp?"

The speaker raised her eyes to Lady Tatham, and Victoria read in themsomething beautiful and appealing, that at once moved and angered her. The girl seemed to offer her heart to Tatham's mother. 

"_I can't marry your son!--but let me love you--be your friend!--thefriend of both_. "

Was that what it meant?

What could Victoria do? There was Harry hovering in the background, withthat eager, pale look. She was helpless. Mechanically she said, "We shallbe delighted--grateful. I will send for you. "

Thenceforward, however, Lydia allowed Tatham no more private speech withher. She made herself agreeable to all Victoria's guests in turn. Delormefell head over ears in love with her, so judicious, yet so evidentlysincere were the flatteries she turned upon him, and so docile herconsent to another sitting. Sweet, grave Lucy Manisty watched her withfascination. The Manisty boy dragged her to the Long Pond, to show herthe water-beasts there, as the best way of marking his approval. ColonelBarton forgot politics to chat with her; and the mocking speculation inCyril Boden's eyes gradually softened, as the girl's charm and beautypenetrated, little by little, through all the company. 

Faversham alone seemed to have no innings with her till he wasabout to take his departure. Then Victoria noticed that Lydia made aquick movement toward him, and they stood together a few minutes, talking--certainly not as strangers. 

Gerald Tatham also noticed it. There were few things, within his powers, that he left unnoticed. 

"Now _that_ would be suitable!" he said in Lady Barbara's ear, noddingtoward the pair. "You saw how they came in together. But of course it's ablind. Any one with half an eye can see that she's just fishing forHarry!"

XII

Faversham sped home through the winding Cumbrian lanes, driven by the newchauffeur just imported from Manchester. The hedges were thick withmeadow-sweet and its scent, mingled with that of new-mown hay, hung inthe hot, still air. In front of him the Ullswater mountains showed dimlyblue. It was a country he was beginning to love. His heart rose to it. 

Small wonder in that! For here, in this northern landscape, so strange tohim but three months ago, he had first stumbled on Success--and he hadfirst met Lydia. 

Was there any chance for him? Through all his talks with the countryneighbours, or with Lady Tatham, he had been keenly on the watch foranything that might show him what Lydia's position in the Duddon Castlecircle actually was. That Tatham was in love with her was clear. Mrs. Penfold's chatter as to the daily homage paid by the castle to thecottage, through every channel--courtesies or gifts--that the Tathams'delicacy could invent, or the Penfolds' delicacy accept, had convincedhim on that point. And Faversham had seen for himself at Duddon thatTatham hung upon her every movement and always knew where she was and towhom she was talking; nor had the long conversation in the rose-walkescaped him. 

Well, of course, in the case of any other girl in the world than Lydia, such things would be conclusive. Who was likely to refuse Tatham, plusthe Tatham estates? But unless he had mistaken her altogether--herdetachment, her unworldliness, her high spirit--Lydia Penfold was notthe girl to marry an estate. And if Tatham himself had touched herheart--"would she have allowed me the play with her that she has donethis last fortnight?" She would have been absorbed, preoccupied; and shehad been neither. He thought of her kind eyes, her frank, welcoming ways, her intense interest in his fortunes. Impossible--if she were in lovewith or on the point of an engagement to Harry Tatham. 

She had forgiven him for his touch of jealous ill-temper! As they stoodtogether at the last in the Duddon garden, she had said, "I _must_ hearabout to-night! send me a word!" And he carried still, stamped upon hismind, the vision of her--half shy, half eager--looking up. 

For the rest, the passion that was rapidly rising in the veins of a manfull of life and will, surprised the man himself, excited in him a newcomplacency and self-respect. For years he had said to himself that hecould only marry money. He remembered with a blush one or two rathersordid steps in that direction--happily futile. But Lydia was penniless;and he could make her rich. For his career was only beginning; and onwealth, the wealth which is power, he was more than ever determined. 

A turn in the road brought Threlfall into view. The new agent sat withfolded arms, gazing at the distant outline, and steadily pulling himselftogether to meet the ordeal of the evening. It was by Melrose's own wishhe had drawn up a careful scheme of the alterations and improvementswhich seemed to him imperatively necessary in the financial interests ofthe estate; and he had added to it a statement--very cautious anddiplomatic--of the various public and private quarrels in which Melrosewas now concerned, with suggestions as to what could be done tostraighten them out. With regard to two or three of them litigation wasalready going on; had, indeed, been going on interminably. Faversham wascertain that with a little good-will and a very moderate amount of moneyhe could settle the majority of them in a week. 

So far Melrose had been fairly amenable--had given a curt assent, forinstance, to the conditions on which Faversham had proposed to relet twoof the vacant farms, and to one or two other changes. But Favershamrealized that he possessed no true knowledge of the old man's mind andtemperament. Exultant though he often felt in his new office, and thepreposterously large salary attached to it, he reminded himselfconstantly that he trod on unsure ground. Once or twice he had beenconscious of a strange sense as of some couchant beast beside him readyto spring; also of some curious weakening and disintegration in Melrose, even since he had first known him. He seemed to be more incalculable, less to be depended on. His memory was often faulty, and his irritabilityhardly sane. 

Faversham indeed was certain, from his own observation, that the mereexcitement of opening and exploring the huge collections he hadaccumulated, during these twenty years, in the locked rooms of the house, had imposed a sharp nervous strain on a man now past seventy, who for allthe latter part of his life had taken no exercise and smoked incessantly. 

Supposing he were suddenly to fall ill and die--what would happen to thehouse and its collections, or to the immense fortune, the proportions ofwhich the new agent was now slowly beginning to appreciate? All sorts ofquestions with regard to the vanished wife and child were now risinginsistently in Faversham's mind. Were they really dead, and if so, howand where? Once or twice, since his acceptance of the agency, Melrose hadrepeated to him with emphasis: "I am alone in the world. " Dixon and hiswife preserved an absolute silence on the subject, and loyalty to hisemployer forbade Faversham to question them or any other of Melrose'sdependents. It struck him, indeed, that Mrs. Dixon had shown a curiousagitation when, that morning, Faversham had conveyed to her Melrose'sinstructions to prepare a certain room on the first floor as the agent'sfuture bedroom. 

"Aye, sir, aye--but it wor Mrs. Melrose's room, " she had said, lookingdown, her lip twitching a little, her old hands fumbling with the stringsof her apron. 

Faversham had asked uncomfortably whether there were not some other roomin a less conspicuous part of the house to which he might be transferred, the once dismantled drawing-room being now wanted to house the finethings that were constantly coming to light. Mrs. Dixon shook her head. All the available rooms were still full of what she called "stoof. " Andthen she had abruptly left him. 

The light was fast failing as he approached the house. By the shearingaway of trees and creeper, at least from all its central and easternparts, Threlfall had now lost much of its savage picturesqueness; theformal garden within the forecourt had been to some extent restored;and the front door had received a coat or two of paint. But the whole ofthe west wing was still practically untouched. There they still were--theshuttered and overgrown windows. Faversham looked at them expectantly. The exploration of the house roused in him now the same kind ofexcitement that drives on the excavators of Delphi or Ephesus, or thedivers for Spanish treasure. He and Melrose had already dug out so manyprecious things--things many of them which had long sunk below thesurface of the old man's memory--that heaven only knew what might turnup. The passion of adventure ran high; he longed to be at the businessagain and was sorry to think it must some day have an end. 

That broken window, for instance, now widely open in the west wing, wasthe window of the room they had forced on the previous day. In general, Melrose possessed some rough record of the contents of the locked rooms, and their labelled keys; but in this case both record and label had beenlost. A small amount of violence, however, had sufficed to open thehalf-rotten door. Inside--thick darkness, save for one faint gleamthrough a dilapidated shutter. As Faversham advanced, groping into theroom, there was a sudden scurry of mice, and a sudden flapping ofsomething in a corner, which turned out to be a couple of bats. When hemade for the window, dense cobwebs brushed against his face, and half theshutter on which he laid his hand came away at his touch and lay infragments at his feet. The rain had come in for twenty years through abroken pane, and had completely rotted the wood. Strange noises in thechimney showed that owls had built there; and as the shutter fell ahideous nest of earwigs was disturbed, and ran hither and thither overthe floor. 

And when Faversham turned to look at the contents of the room, he sawMelrose in his skullcap, poking about among a medley of black objects onthe floor and in a open cupboard, his withered cheeks ghastly in thesudden daylight. 

"What are they?" asked Faversham, wondering. 

"Silver, " was the sharp reply. "Some of the finest things known. "

And from the filthy cupboard Melrose's shaking hand had drawn out a ewerand basin, whence some ragged coverings fell away. It was almost entirelyblack; but the exquisite work of it--the spiral fluting of the ewer, itsshell-like cover, the winged dragon on the handle, and, round the ovalbasin, the rim of chasing dolphins, could still be seen. 

"That came from the Wolfgang sale--I gave six hundred for it. It'sworth six thousand now--you can't find such a piece anywhere. Ah! byGeorge!"--with a stifled shout--"and that's the Demidoff tazza!"--asFaversham lifted up a thing lying in a half-open box that might have beenebony--a shallow cup on a stem, with a young vine-crowned Bacchus for ahandle. Melrose took it eagerly, put up his eyeglass, and, rubbing awaywith his handkerchief, searched for the mark. "There it is!--a Caduceusand 1620. And the signature--see!--'A. D. Viana. ' There was a cup signedby Viana sold last week at Christie's--fetched a fabulous sum! Everysingle thing in this room is worth treble and quadruple what I gave forit. Talk of investments! There are no such investments as works of art. Buy 'em, I say--lock 'em up--and forget 'em for twenty years!"

With much labour, they had at last ranged the most important pieces onsome trestle tables and in the cupboards of the room. A number of smallerboxes and packages still remained to be looked through. Faversham, byMelrose's directions, had written to a London firm of dealers in antiquesilver, directing them to send down two of their best men to clean, mend, and catalogue. Proper glazed cupboards, baize-lined, were to be put upalong each side of the room; the room itself was to be repaired, whitened, and painted. Faversham already foresaw the gleaming splendourof the show, when all should be done, and these marvels of a most lovelyart--these silver nymphs and fauns, these dainty sea-horses and dolphins, these temples and shrines, now holding a Hercules, now a St. Sebastian, these arabesques, garlands, festoons, running in a riot of beauty overthe surface of cup and salver--had been restored to daylight and men'ssight, after the burial of a generation. 

But the value of what the house contained! In these days of huge pricesand hungry buyers, it must be simply enormous. 

Faversham often found himself speculating eagerly upon it, and alwayswith the query in the background "For _whom_ is it all piling up?"

As they left the silver room, Melrose had made the grim remark that thecontents of that room alone would make it prudent to let loose an extracouple of bloodhounds in the park at night. Dixon's frowning countenanceas he followed in their wake showed an answering anxiety. For he had nowbeen made guardian of the collections; and a raw nephew of his, chosenapparently for his honesty and his speechlessness, had been put on asmanservant, Mrs. Dixon had two housemaids under her, and a girl in thekitchen. It was sometimes evident to Faversham that the agitation ofthese changes which had come so suddenly upon them, had aged the two oldservants, just as it had tried their master. 

Faversham on dismounting was told by Joseph, the new man, that Mr. Melrose would dine alone, but would be glad to see Mr. Faversham in thelibrary after dinner. 

Faversham made a quick and sparing meal in his own room, and thenadjourning to his newly furnished office ran eagerly through the variouspapers and proposals which he had to lay before his employer. 

As he did so, he was more conscious than ever before of the enormityof Melrose's whole career as a landowner. The fact was that the estatehad been for years a mere field for the display of its owner's worstqualities--caprice, miserliness, jealous or vindictive love of power. The finance of it mattered nothing to him. Had he been a poorer man hislanded property might have had a chance; he would have been forced torun it more or less on business lines. But his immense income came tohim apparently from quite other sources--mines, railways, foreigninvestments; and with all the human relations involved in landowning hewas totally unfit to deal. 

Hence these endless quarrels with his tenants to whom he never allowed alease; these constant evictions; these litigations as to improvements, compensation, and heaven knows what. The land was naturally of excellentquality, and many a tenant came in with high hopes, only to find that thepromises on the strength of which he had taken his farm were neverfulfilled, and that if it came to lawyers, Melrose generally managed "tobest it. " Hence, too, the rotten, insanitary cottages--maintained, Faversham could almost swear, for the mere sake of defying the localauthorities and teaching "those Socialist fools" a lesson. Hence theconstant charges of persecution for political reasons; and hence, too, this bad case of the Brands, which had roused such a strong and angrysympathy in the neighbourhood that Faversham felt the success of his ownregime must be endangered unless some means could be found, compatiblewith Melrose's arrogance, of helping the ruined family. 

Well, there in those clear typewritten sheets, lay his suggestions fordealing with these various injustices and infamies. They were moderate. Expensive for the moment, they would be economical in the long run. Hehad given them his best brains and his hardest work. And he had taken thebest advice. But they meant, no doubt, a complete change in theadministration and _personnel_ of the estate. 

Faversham stepped into the garden, and, hanging over the low wall whichedged the sandstone cliff, he looked out over the gorge of the river, across the woods, into the ravines and gullies of the fells. Mountain andwood stood dark against a saffron sky. In the dim blue above it Venussailed. A light wind stirred the trees and the stream. Along the rivermeadows he could hear the cows munching and see their dusky forms movingthrough a thin mist. The air was amethyst and gold, and the beautifulearth shone through it, ennobled by the large indistinctness, the quietmassing of the evening tones. 

His heart withdrew itself into some inner shrine where it might be withLydia. She represented to him some force, some help, to which he turned. 

Please God, he would win her!--and through a piece of honourablework--the cleansing of an ugly corner of human life. A nobler ambitionthan he had ever yet been conscious of, entered in. He felt himself abetter man, with a purpose in the world. 

Nor, at this critical moment, did he forget his uncle--the man who hadbeen a father to him in his orphaned boyhood. What pleasure the dear oldfellow would have taken in this new opening--and in Melrose's marvellouspossessions! By the way--Melrose had said nothing about the gems for along time past, and Faversham was well content to leave them in histemporary keeping. But his superstitious feeling about them--and all menhave some touch of superstition--was stronger than ever. It was as thoughhe protested anew to some hovering shape, which took the aspect now ofMackworth, now of Fortuna--"Stand by me!--even as I hold by them. "

The chiming clock in the gallery--a marvel of French _horlogerie_, madefor the Regent Orleans--had just finished striking eleven. Melrose, whohad been speaking with energy through the soft, repeated notes, threwhimself back in his chair, and lit a cigarette. His white hair shoneagainst the panelled background of the room, and, beneath it, framed inbushy brows still black, a pair of menacing eyes fixed themselves onFaversham. 

Faversham remained for a minute at the table, looking down upon it, hishand resting on the document from which he had been reading. Then he toopushed his chair slowly backward, and looked up. 

"I understand then, Mr. Melrose, that these proposals of mine do not meetwith your approval?"

"I have told you what I approve. "

"You have approved a few matters--of minor importance. But my chiefproposals"--he ran his finger lightly over the pages of his memorandum, enumerating the various headings--"these, if I have understood youcorrectly, are not to your mind, and you refuse to sanction them?"

The face before him was as iron. 

"Let half these things wait, I tell you, and they will settle themselves. I pointed out to you when we made our bargain, that I would not have myestate run on any damned Socialist principles. "

Faversham smiled; but he had grown very pale. "Your financial profit, Mr. Melrose, and the business management of your property have been my soleconcern. "

"I am sure that you think so. But as to what is profit and what isbusiness, you must allow me to be the final judge. "

Faversham thought a moment, then rose, and walked quietly up and down thelength of the room, his hands in his pockets. The old man watched him, his haughty look and regular features illuminated by the lamp beside him. In front of him was the famous French table, crowded as usual with amultitude of miscellaneous _objets d'art_, conspicuous among them a pairof Tanagra figures, white visions of pure grace, amid the dusty confusionof their surroundings. 

Suddenly Melrose flung his cigarette vehemently away. 

"Faversham! Don't be a fool! I have something to say to you a deal moreimportant than this damned nonsense!" He struck his hand on the openmemorandum. 

Faversham turned in astonishment. 

"Sit down again!" said Melrose peremptorily, "and listen to me. I desireto put things as plainly and simply as possible. But I must have all yourattention. "

Faversham sat down. Melrose was now standing, his hands on the back ofthe chair from which he had risen. 

"I have just made my will, " he said abruptly. "Tomorrow I hope to signit. It depends on you whether I sign it or not. "

As the speaker paused, Faversham, leaning back and fronting him, grewvisibly rigid. An intense and startled expectancy dawned in his face; hislips parted. 

"My will, " Melrose continued, in a deliberately even voice, "concerns afortune of rather more--than a million sterling--allowing little ornothing for the contents of this house. I inherited a great deal, and bythe methods I have adopted--not the methods, my dear Faversham, I maysay, that you have been recommending to me to-night. I have more thandoubled it. I have given nothing away to worthless people, and no sloppyphilanthropies have stood between me and the advantages to which myknowledge and my brains entitled me. Hence these accumulations. Now, thequestion is, what is to be done with them? I am alone in the world. Ihave no interest whatever in building universities, or providing freelibraries, or subsidizing hospitals. I didn't make the world, and I havenever seen why I should spend my energies in trying to mend what theDemiurge has made a mess of. In my view the object of everybody should beto _live_, as acutely as possible--to get as many sensations, as manypleasant reactions as possible--out of the day. Some people get theirsensations--or say they do--out of fussing about the poor. Forty yearsago I got them out of politics--or racing--or high play. For years past, as you know, I have got them out of collecting works of art--and fightingthe other people in the world who want the same things that I do. Perfectly legitimate in my belief! I make no apology whatever for myexistence. Well, now then, I begin to be old--don't interrupt me--I don'tlike it, but I recognize the fact. I have various ailments. Doctors aremostly fools; but I admit that in my case they may be right; though Iintend to live a good while yet in spite of them. Still--there it is--whois to have this money--and these collections? Sooner than let anyrascally Chancellor of the Exchequer get at them, I would leave them toDixon. But I confess I think Dixon would be embarrassed to know what todo with them. I don't think I possess a single relation that I don'tdislike. So now we come to the point. With your leave--and by yourleave--I propose to leave the money and the collections--to you!" Theyoung man--flushed and staring--half rose in his chair. 

"To _me_? What can you possibly mean, sir?"

"Precisely what I say. On conditions, of course. It depends on yourself. But you were brought into this house by a strange chance--you happen tosuit me--to interest me. 'Provvy' as Bentham would say, seems to point toyou. Here--in this drawer"--he brought his hand down strongly on thewriting table--"is a will which I wrote last night. It leaves the wholeof my property to you, subject to certain directions as to the works ofart--to a provision for old Dixon, and so on. You can't witness it, ofcourse, nor can Dixon; otherwise it might be signed to-night. But if wecome to an understanding to-night, I can sign it to-morrow morning andget a couple of men from the farm to witness it. I think I can promise tolive so long!"

There was silence. With an uncertain, swaying movement Melrose returnedto his chair. The physical weakness betrayed by the action was strangelybelied, however, by his imperious aspect, as of an embodied Will. Hiseyes never left Faversham, even while he rested heavily on the tablebefore him for support. 

Suddenly, Faversham, who had been sitting pale and motionless, looked up. 

"Mr. Melrose--have you no natural heirs?"

Melrose could not altogether disguise the shock of the question. He threwhimself back, however, with a smile. 

"You have been listening I see to the stories that people tell. "

Faversham bent forward and spoke earnestly: "I understand that your wifeand child left you twenty years ago. Are they still living?"

Melrose shrugged his shoulders. "Whether they are or not, really mattersnothing at all either to you or me: Mrs. Melrose left this house of herown free will. That ended the connection between us. In any case, youneed have no alarm. There is no entail--even were there a son, and therenever was a son. I do what I will with my own. There is no claim onme--there would be no claim on you. "

"There must be--there would be--a moral claim!"

The colour rushed into Melrose's face. He drummed the table impatiently. 

"We will not, if you please, argue the matter, which is for me a _chosejugée_. And no one who wishes to remain a friend of mine"--he spoke withemphasis--"will ever attempt to raise ghosts that are better left intheir graves. I repeat--my property is unencumbered--my power to dealwith it absolute. I propose to make you my heir--on conditions. The firstis"--he looked sombrely and straight at his companion--"that I should notbe harassed or distressed by any such references as those you have justmade. "

Faversham made no sound. His chin was propped on his hand, and his eyespursued the intricacies of a silver cup studded with precious stoneswhich stood on the table beside him. He thought, "The next condition willbe--the gems. "

"The second, " Melrose resumed, after a somewhat long pause, and with asarcastic intonation, "is that you should resist the very naturaltemptation of exhibiting me to the world as a penitent and reformedcharacter. In that document you have just read you suggest to me--first, that I should retire from three lawsuits in which, whatever other peoplemay think, I conceive that I have a perfectly good case; second"--heticked the items off on the long tapering finger of his left hand--"thatI should rebuild a score or two of cottages it would not pay me torebuild--in which I force no one to live--and which I shall pull downwhen it pleases me, just to teach a parcel of busybodies to mind theirown business; third--that I should surrender, hands down, to a lot oftrumpery complaints and grievances got up partly to spite a landlord, partly to get money out of him; and fourthly--with regard to the right ofway--that I should let that young prig Tatham, a lad just out of thenursery, dictate to me, bring the whole country about my ears, andbrowbeat me out of my rights. Now--I warn you--I shall do none of thesethings!"

The speaker paused a moment, and then turned impetuously on hiscompanion. 

"Have you any reason so far to complain of my conduct toward you?"

"Complain? You have been only too amazingly, incredibly generous. "

Melrose's hand made a disdainful movement. 

"I did what suited me. And I told you, to begin with, it would _not_ suitme to run my estate as though it were a University Settlement. Handle megently--that's all. You've had your way about some of the farms--you'llget it no doubt with regard to others. But don't go about playing thereformer--on this dramatic scale!--at my expense. I don't believe in thismodern wish-wash; and I don't intend to don the white sheet. "

He rose, and lighting another cigarette, he dropped a log on the fire, and stood with his back to it, quietly smoking. But his eyes were allfierce life under the dome of his forehead, and his hand shook a little. 

Faversham sat absolutely still. Rushing through his veins was the senseof something incredible and intoxicating. The word "million" rang in hisears. He was conscious of the years behind him--their poverty, theirthwarted ambitions, their impotent discontent. And suddenly the yearsbefore him lit up; all was possible; all was changed. Yet as he sat therehis pulses hurrying, words coming to his lips which dropped away again, he became conscious of two or three extremely sharp visualizations. 

A room in one of the Mainstairs cottages, containing a bed, and on it aparalyzed girl, paralyzed after diphtheria--the useless hands--thevacant, miserable look--other beds in the same room filling it up--theroof so low that it seemed to be crushing down on the girl--holes in thethatch rudely mended. 

Again--a corner in the Mainstairs churchyard, filled with small, crowdedgraves, barely grass-grown; the "Innocents' Corner. "

And again, a wretched one-roomed cottage in the same row of hovels, kitchen, bedroom, and living-room in one, mud-floored, the outer dooropening into it, the bed at the back, and an old husband and wife, crippled with rheumatism, sitting opposite each other on a day of pouringrain, shivering in the damp and the draughts. 

Then, driving these out--the face of Colonel Barton with its blunt, stupid kindliness, and that whole group at Duddon, welcoming the new man, believing in him, ready to help him, with the instinctive trust of honestfolk. 

And last, but flashing through all the rest, Lydia's eyes--the light inthem--and the tones of her voice--"You'll do it!--you'll do it!--you'llset it all right!"

He perfectly realized at that moment--before the brain had begun torefine on the situation--what was asked of him. He was to be Melrose'stool and accomplice in all that Melrose's tyrannical caprice chose to dowith the lives of human beings; he was to forfeit the respect of goodmen; he was to make an enemy of Harry Tatham; and he was to hurt--andpossibly alienate--Lydia. 

And the price of it was a million. 

He rose rather heavily to his feet, and gathered up his papers--a slimand comely figure amid the queer medley of the room. 

"I must have some time to think about what you have said to me, Mr. Melrose. You've taken my breath away--you won't be surprised at that. "

Melrose smiled grimly. 

"Not at all. That's natural! Very well then--we meet to-morrow morning. Before eleven o'clock the will must be either signed--or cancelled. Andfor the present--please!--silence!"

They exchanged good-nights. Melrose looked oddly after the young man, asthe door closed. 

"He took it well. I suppose he's been sitting up nights over thatprecious memorandum. He was to be the popular hero, and I the 'shockingexample. ' Well, he'll get over it. I think--I have--both him--and theMedusa. And what does the will matter to me? Any one may have the gear, when I can't have it. But I'll not be dictated to--_this_ side of theStyx!"

Faversham wandered out once more into the summer night. A little pathalong the cliff took him down to the riverside, and he paced beside thedimly shining water, overhung by the black shadow of the woods. When hereturned to the Tower, just as the light was altering, and the chill ofdawn beginning, a long process of tumultuous reflection had linked themood of the preceding evening to the mood of this new day, and of thedays that were to follow. He had determined on his answer to Melrose; andhe was exultantly sure of his power to deal with the future. The scruplesand terrors of the evening were gone. His intelligence rose to his task. 

This old man, already ill, liable at any moment to the accidents of age, and still madly absorbed, to the full extent of his powers and his time, in the pursuits of connoisseurship--what could he really do in the way ofeffective supervision of his agent? A little tact, a little prudentmaneuvering; some money here, possibly out of his, Faversham's, ownpocket; judicious temporizing there; white lying when necessary--acertain element of intrigue in Faversham rose to the business withalacrity. In the pride of his young brain and his recovered strength hedid not regard it as possible that he should fail in it. After all, thelaw was now squeezing Melrose; and might be gently and invisiblyassisted. If, as to the will itself, his lips were sealed, it would bepossible to give some hint to Lydia, for friendship to interpret; toplead with her for patience, in view of the powers, the beneficentpowers, that must be his--aye and hers--the darling!--some day. 

The thought of them was intoxicating! A man to whom wealth had alwaysappeared as the only gate of opportunity, was now to be rich beyond theutmost dream of his ambition. The world lay at his feet. He would use itwell; he would do all things honourably. Ease, travel, a politicalcareer, wide influence, the possession of beautiful things--in a veryshort time they would all be in his grasp; for Melrose was near his end. Some difficulty first, but not too much; the struggle that leads to theprize!

As he softly let himself in at the side door of the Tower, and mounted tohis new room, his whole nature was like a fiercely sped arrow, aflightfor its goal. Of what obstacles might lie between him and his goal he hadceased to take account. Compunctions had disappeared. 

Only--once--as he stood dreamily looking round the strange bedroom towhich his personal possessions had been transferred, an image crossed hismind which was disagreeable. It was that of Nash, the shady solicitor inPengarth, Melrose's factotum in many disreputable affairs, and his agentin the ruin of the Brands. A little reptile if ever there was one!Faversham had come across the creature a good deal since his appointmentas agent; and was well aware that he had excited Nash's jealousy anddislike. A man to be guarded against no doubt; but what could he do?Faversham contemptuously dismissed the thought of him. 

A charming old room!--though the height and the dark tone of the oakpanelling sucked all the light from his pair of candles. That would bealtered as soon as the electric installation, for which Melrose had justsigned the contract, was complete. In the centre of the wall oppositethe window, through which a chill dawn was just beginning to penetrate, stood a fine _armoire_ of carved Norman work. Faversham went to look atit, and vaguely opened one of its drawers. 

There was something at the back of the drawer, a picture, apparently anold photograph, lying face downward. He drew it out, and looked at it. 

He beheld a young and rather pretty woman, with a curiously flat head, staring black eyes, and sharp chin. She had a child on her knee of abouta year old, an elf with delicately proud features, and a frowning, passionate look. 

Who were they? The photograph was stained with age and damp; deep, too, in dust. From the woman's dress it must be a good many years old. 

The answer suggested itself at once. He was now inhabiting Mrs. Melrose'sroom, which, according to Mrs. Dixon, had been closed for years, from thedate of her flight. The photograph must have been hers; the child washers--and Melrose's! The likeness indeed cried out. 

He replaced the photograph, his mind absorbed in the excitement of itsdiscovery. Where were they now--the forlorn pair? He had no doubtwhatever that they were alive--at the old man's mercy, somewhere. 

He let in the dawn, and stood long in thought beside the open window. Butin the end, he satisfied himself. He would find a way of meeting all justclaims, when the time arrived. Why not?

BOOK III

XIII

When Delorme left Duddon, carrying with him a huge full-length ofVictoria, which must, Victoria felt, entirely cut her off from Londonduring the ensuing spring and summer--for it was to go into the Academy, and on no account could she bear to find herself in the same room withit--he left behind him a cordial invitation to the "little painting girl"to come and work in his Somersetshire studio--where he was feverishlybusy with a great commission for an American town-hall for the remainderof August and September. Such invitations were extraordinarily coveted;and Lydia, "advanced" as she was, should have been jubilant. She acceptedfor her art's sake; but no one could have called her jubilant. 

Mrs. Penfold, who for some weeks had been in a state of nervous andrather irritable mystification with regard to Lydia, noticed the fact atonce. She consulted Susy. 

"I can't make her out!" said the mother plaintively. "Oh, Susy, do youknow what's been going on? Lydia has been at Duddon at least six timesthis last fortnight--and Lord Tatham has been here--and _nothing_happens. And all the time Lydia keeps telling me she's not in love withhim, and doesn't mean to marry him. But what's _he_ doing?"

Susan was looking dishevelled and highly strung. She had spent theafternoon in writing the fifth act of a tragedy on Belisarius; and itwas more than a fortnight since Mr. Weston, the young vicar of Dunscale, had been to call. Her cheeks were sallow; her dark eyes burnt behindtheir thick lashes. 

"Suppose he's done it?" she said gloomily. 

Mrs. Penfold gave a little shriek. 

"Done what? What do you mean?"

"He's proposed--and she's said 'No. '"

"Lord Tatham! Oh, Susy!" wailed Mrs. Penfold; "you don't think that?"

"Yes, I do, " said Susan, with resolution. "And now she's letting him downgently. "

"And never said a word to you or me! Oh, Susy, she couldn't be sounkind. "

Mrs. Penfold's pink and white countenance, on which age had as yet laidso light a finger, showed the approach of tears. She and Susy weresitting in a leafy recess of the garden; Lydia had gone after tea to seeold Dobbs and his daughter. 

"That's all this _friendship_ business, she's so full of, " said Susy. "Ifshe'd accepted him, she'd have told us, of course. Now he's plucked as alover, and readmitted as a friend. And one doesn't betray a friend'ssecrets--even to one's relations. There it is. "

"I never heard such nonsense, " cried Mrs. Penfold. "I used to try thatkind of thing--making friends with young men. It was no use at all. Theyalways proposed. "

Susan's state of tension--caused by the fact that her Fifth Act had beena veritable shambles--broke up in laughter. She couldn't help kissing hermother. 

"You're priceless, darling, you really are. I wouldn't say anything toher about it, if I were you, " she added, more seriously. "I shall attackher, of course, some day. "

"But she still goes on seeing him, " said Mrs. Penfold, pursuing her ownbewildered thoughts. 

"That's her theory. She sees him--they write to each other--they probablycall each other 'Lydia' and 'Harry. '"

"Susy!"

"Why not? Christian names are very common nowadays. "

"In my youth if any girl called a young man by his Christian name, itmeant she was engaged to him, " said Mrs. Penfold with energy, her lookclearing. "And if they do call each other 'Lydia' and 'Harry' you may saywhat you like, Susy, but she will be engaged to him some day--if not now, in the winter, or some time. "

"Well, you may be right. Anyway, don't talk to her, mother. Leave heralone!"

Mrs. Penfold sighed deeply. 

"Just think, Susy, what it would be like"--she dropped hervoice--"'_Countess_ Tatham!'--can't you see her going to thedrawing-room--with her feathers and her tiara? Wouldn't she belovely--wouldn't she have the world at her feet? Think what yourfather would have said. "

"I don't believe those things ever enter Lydia's mind!"

Mrs. Penfold slowly shook her head. 

"It isn't human, " she said plaintively, "it really isn't. " And in amournful silence she returned to her embroidery. 

Susan invaded her sister's bedroom late that night, and found Lydiabefore her looking-glass enveloped in shimmering clouds of hair. Theyounger sister sat down on the edge of the bed with her arms folded. 

"Why are you so slack about this Delorme plan, Lydia? I don't believe youwant to go. "

Lydia turned with a start. 

"But of course I want to go! It's the greatest chance. I shall learn aheap of things. "

Susan nodded. 

"All the same you don't seem a bit keen. "

Lydia fidgeted. 

"Well, you see, I admire Mr. Delorme's work as much as ever. But--"

"You don't like Mr. Delorme? The greatest egotist I ever saw, " said theuncompromising Susan, who, as a dramatist, prided herself on a knowledgeof character. 

"Ah, but a great, great painter!" cried Lydia. "Don't dissuade me, Susan. Professionally--I must do it!"

"It's not because Mr. Delorme is an egotist, that you don't want to goaway, " said Susan, quietly. "It's for quite a different reason. "

"What do you mean?"

"It's because--no, I don't mind if I do make you angry!--it's becauseyou're so desperately interested in Mr. Faversham. "

"Really, Susan!" The cloud of hair was thrown back, and Lydia's faceemerged, the clear, indignant eyes shining in the candlelight. 

"Oh, I don't mean that you're in love with him--wish you were! But you'reroping him in--just like Lord Tatham. And as he's the latest, he's themost--well, exciting!"

Susan with her chin in her hands, and her dusky countenance very muchalive, seemed to be playing her sister with cautious mockery--feeling herway. 

"Dear Susy--I don't know why you're so unkind--and unjust, " said Lydia, after a moment, in the tone of one wounded. 

"How am I unkind? You're the practical one of us three. You run us andtake care of us. We know we're stupids compared to you. But really mammaand I stand aghast at the way in which you manage your love affairs!"

"My love affairs!" cried Lydia, "but I haven't got any!"

"Do you mean to say that Lord Tatham is not in love with you?" said Susanseverely--"that he wouldn't marry you to-morrow if you'd let him?"

Lydia flushed, but her look was neither resentful nor repentant. 

"Why should we put it in that way?" she said, ardently. "Isn't itpossible to look at men in some other light than as possible husbands?Haven't they got hearts and minds--don't they think and feel--just likeus?"

"Oh, no, not like us, " said Susan hastily--"never. "

Lydia smiled. 

"Well, enough like us, anyway. Do you ever think, Susy!" she seized hersister's wrist and looked her in the eyes--"that there are a million morewomen than men in this country? It is evident we can't all be married. Well, then, I withdraw from the competition! It's demoralizing to women;and it's worse for men. But I don't intend to confine myself to womenfriends. "

"They bore you, " said Susy sharply; "confess it at once!"

"How unkind of you!" Lydia's protest was almost tearful. "You know I haveat least four"--she recalled their names--"who love me, and I them. Butneither men nor women should live in a world apart. They complete eachother. "

"Yes--in marriage, " said Susan. 

"No!--in a thousand other ways--we hardly dream of yet. Not marriageonly--but comradeship--help--in all the great--impersonal--delightfulthings!"

"You look like a prophetess, " said Susan, appraising her sister's kindledbeauty, with an artistic eye; "but I should like to know what Lady Tathamhas to say!"

Lydia was silent, her lip quivering a little. 

"And I warn you, " Susan continued, greatly daring, "that Faversham won'tlet you do what you like with him!"

Lydia rose slowly, gathered up her golden veil into one big knot withoutspeaking, and went on with her preparations for bed. 

Susy too uncoiled her small figure and stood up. 

"I've told mamma not to bother you, " she saidabruptly. 

Lydia threw an arm round her tormentor. 

"Dear Sue, I don't want to scold, but if you only knew how you spoilthings!"

Susy's eyes twinkled. She let Lydia kiss her, and then walking veryslowly to the door, so as not to have an appearance of being put toflight, she disappeared. 

Lydia was left to think--and think--her eyes on the ground. Never hadlife run so warmly and richly; she was amply conscious of it. And what, pray, in spite of Susy's teasing, had love to say to it? Passion wasruled out--she held the senses in leash, submissive. Harry Tatham, indeed, was now writing to her every day; and she to him, less often. Faversham, too, was writing to her, coming to consult her; and all that awoman's sympathy, all that mind and spirit could do to help him in hisheavy and solitary task she would do. Toward Tatham she felt with atender sisterliness; anxious often; yet confident in herself, and in theissue. In Faversham's case, it was rather a keen, a romantic curiosity, to see how a man would quit himself in a great ordeal suddenly thrustupon him; and a girlish pride that he should turn to her for help. 

His first note to her lay there--inside her sketch book. It had reachedher the morning after his interview with Mr. Melrose. 

"I didn't find Mr. Melrose in a yielding mood last night. I beg of youdon't expect too much. Please, please be patient, and remember that if Ican do as yet but little, I honestly believe nobody else could doanything. We must wait and watch--here a step, and there a step. But Ithink I may ask you to trust me; and, if you can, suggest to others to dothe same. How much your sympathy helps me I cannot express. "

Of course she would be patient. But she was triumphantly certain ofhim--and his power. What Susy said to her unwillingness to go south waspartly true. She would have liked to stay and watch the progress ofthings on the Melrose estates; to be at hand if Mr. Faversham wanted her. She thought of Mainstairs--that dying girl--the sickly children--thehelpless old people. Indignant pity gripped her. That surely would be thefirst--the very first step; a mere question of weeks--or days. It was sosimple, so obvious! Mr. Melrose would be _shamed_ into action! Mr. Faversham could not fail there. 

But she must go. She had her profession; and she must earn money. 

Also--the admission caused her discomfort--the sooner she went, thesooner would it be possible for Lady Tatham to induce her son to migrateto the Scotch moor where, as a rule, she and he were always to be foundsettled by the first days of August. It was evident that she was anxiousto be gone. Lydia confessed it, sorely, to herself. It seemed to her thatshe had been spending some weeks in trying hard to make friends with LadyTatham; and she had not succeeded. 

"Why won't she talk to me!" she thought; "and I daren't--to her. It wouldbe so easy to understand each other!"

Three days later, Green Cottage was in the occupation of a Manchestersolicitor, who was paying a rent for it, which put Mrs. Penfold inhigh spirits; especially when coupled with the astonishing fact thatLydia had sold all her three drawings which had been sent to a Londonexhibition--also, apparently, to a solicitor. Mrs. Penfold expressed hersurprise to her daughter that the practice of the law should lead both toa love of scenery and the patronage of the arts; she had been brought upto think of it as a deadening profession. 

Lydia had gone south; Mrs. Penfold and Susy were paying visits torelations; and Duddon was closed till the end of September. It was knownthat Mr. Melrose had gone off on one of his curio-hunting tours; and thenew agent ruled. A whole countryside, or what was left of it in August, settled down to watch. 

 * * * * *

High on the moors of Ross-shire, Lady Tatham too watched. The lodgefilled up with guests, and one charming girl succeeded another, byVictoria's careful contrivance. None of your painted and powderedcampaigners with minds torn between the desire to "best" a rival, andthe terror of their dressmakers' bills; but the freshest, sweetest, best-bred young women she could discover among the daughters of herfriends. Tatham was delightful with them all, patiently played golf withthem, taught them to fish, and tramped with them over the moors. And whenthey said good-bye, and the motor took them to the station, Victoriabelieved that he remembered them just about as much, or as little, as the"bag" of the last shoot. 

Her own feeling was curiously mixed. There were many days when she wouldhave liked to beat Lydia Penfold, and at all times her pride lay wounded, bitterly wounded, at the girl's soft hands. When Harry had first confidedin her, she had been certain that no nice girl could long resist him, ifonly she, Harry's mother, gave opportunities and held the lists. It wouldnot be necessary for her to take any active steps. Mere propinquity woulddo it. Then, when Tatham stumbled prematurely into his proposal, Victoriamight have intervened to help, but for Lydia's handling of the situation. She had refused the natural place offered her in Harry's life--the placeof lover and wife. But she had claimed and was now holding a place onlyless intimate, only less important; and Victoria felt herself disarmedand powerless. To try and separate them was to deal a blow at her son ofwhich she was incapable; and at the same time there was the gnawinganxiety lest their absurd "friendship" should stand in the way of herboy's marriage--should "queer the pitch" for the future. 

Meanwhile, day by day, Tatham's letters travelled south to Lydia, andtwice a week or thereabout, letters addressed in a clear and beautifulhandwriting arrived by an evening post from the south. And graduallyVictoria became aware of new forces and new growths in her son. "Whatdoes she write to you about?" she had said to him once, with herhalf-sarcastic smile. And after a little hesitation--silently, Tatham hadhanded over to her the letter of the afternoon. "I'd like you to see it, "he had said simply. "She makes one think a lot. "

And, indeed, it was a remarkable letter, full of poetry but also full offun. The humours of Delorme's studio--a play she had seen in London--abook she had read--the characteristics of a Somersetshire village--theeager pen ran on without effort, without pretence. But it was the pen ofyouth, of feeling, of romance; and it revealed the delicate heart andmind of a woman. There was a liberal education in it; and Victoriawatched the process at work, sometimes with jealousy, sometimes withemotion. After all, might it not be a mere stage--and a useful one. Shereserved her judgment, waiting for the time when these two should meetagain, face to face. 

September was more than halfway through, when one morning Tatham tossed aletter to his mother across the breakfast table with the remark:

"I say, mother, the new broom doesn't seem to be sweeping very well!"

The letter was from Undershaw. Tatham--in whom the rural reformer wassteadily developing--kept up a fairly regular correspondence with theactive young doctor, on medical and sanitary matters, connected withhis own estate and the county. 

"Matters are going rather oddly in this neighbourhood. I must say I can'tmake Faversham out. You remember what an excellent beginning he seemed tomake a couple of months ago. Colonel Barton told me that he had everyhope of him; he was evidently most anxious to purge some at least of Mr. Melrose's misdeeds; seemed businesslike, conciliatory, etc. Well, Iassure you, he has done almost nothing! It is not really a question ofgiving him time. There were certain scandalous things, years old, that heought to have put right _at once_--on the nail--or thrown up his post. The Mainstairs cottages for instance. We are in for another diphtheriaepidemic there. The conditions are simply horrible. Melrose, as before, will do nothing, and defies anybody else to do anything; says he hasgiven the tenants notice that he intends to pull the cottages down, andthe people stay in them at their own peril. The local authority can donothing; the people say they have nowhere to go, and cling like limpetsto the rock. Melrose could put those sixteen cottages in order for acouple of thousand pounds, which would be about as much to him ashalf-a-crown to me. It is all insane pride and obstinacy--he won't bedictated to--and the rest. I shall be a land-nationalizer if I hear muchmore of Melrose. 

"Meanwhile, Faversham will soon come in for his master's hideousunpopularity, if he can't manage him better. He is looking white andharassed, and seems to avoid persons like myself who might attack him. But I gather that he has been trying to come round Melrose by attemptingsome reforms behind his back, and probably with his own money. Something, for instance, was begun at Mainstairs, while Melrose was away in Holland, after the fresh diphtheria cases broke out. There was an attempt made toget at the pollutions infecting the water supply, and repairs were begunon the worst cottage. 

"But in the middle Melrose came home, and was, I believe, immediatelyinformed of what was going on by that low scoundrel Nash who used tobe his factotum, and has shown great jealousy of Faversham since hisappointment. What happened exactly I can't say, but from something oldDixon said to me the other day--I have been attending him forrheumatism--I imagine there was a big row between the two men. WhyFaversham didn't throw up there and then, I can't understand. Howeverthere he is still, immersed they tell me in the business of the estate, but incessantly watched and hampered by Melrose himself, an extraordinarydevelopment in so short a time; and able, apparently, even if he iswilling, which I assume--to do little or nothing to meet the worstcomplaints of the tenants. They are beginning to turn against himfuriously. 

"Last week the sight of Mainstairs and the horrible suffering there goton my nerves. I sat down and wrote to Melrose peremptorily demanding aproper supply of antitoxin at once, at his expense. A post-card from himarrived, refusing, and bidding me apply to a Socialist government. Thatnight, however, on arriving at my surgery, I found a splendid supply ofantitoxin, labelled 'for Mainstairs, ' without another word. I have reasonto think Faversham had been in Carlisle himself that day to get it; hemust have cleared out the place. 

"Next day I saw him in the village. He specially haunts a cottage wherethere is a poor girl of eighteen, paralyzed after an attack of diphtherialast year, and not, I think, long for this world. The new epidemic hasnow attacked her younger sister, a pretty child of eight. I doubt whetherwe shall save her. Miss Penfold has always been very kind in coming tovisit them. She will be dreadfully sorry. 

"Faversham, I believe, has tried to move the whole family. But where arethey to go? The grandfather is a shepherd on a farm near--too old for anew place. There isn't a vacant cottage in the whole neighbourhood--asyou know; and scores that ought to be built. 

"As to the right-of-way business, Melrose's fences are all up again, hisrascally lawyers, Nash at the head, are as busy as bees trumping up hiscase; and I can only suppose that he has been forcing Faversham to writethe unscrupulous letters about it that have been appearing in some of thepapers. 

"What makes it all rather gruesome is that there are the most persistentrumours that the young man has been adopted by Melrose, and will probablybe his heir. I can't give you any proofs, but I am certain that all thepeople about the Tower believe it. If so, he will no doubt be well paidfor his soul! But sell it he must, or go. I have no doubt he thought hecould manage Melrose. Poor devil!

"The whole thing makes me very sick--I liked him so much while he was mypatient. And I expect you and Lady Tatham will be pretty disappointedtoo. "

 * * * * *

Victoria returned the letter to her son, pointing to the last sentence. 

"It depends on what you expected. I never took to the young man. "

"Why doesn't he insist--or go!" cried Tatham. 

"Apparently Melrose has bought him. "

"I say, don't let's believe that till we know!"

When his mother left him, Tatham took his way to the moor, and spentan uncomfortable hour in rumination. Lydia had spoken of Faversham onceor twice in her early letters from the south; but lately there had beenno references to him at all. Was she disappointed--or too muchinterested?--too deeply involved? A vague but gnawing jealousy wasfastening on Tatham day by day; and he had not been able to conceal itfrom his mother. Lydia was free--of course she was free! But friends havetheir right too. "If she is really going that way, I ought to know, "thought poor Tatham. 

 * * * * *

Meanwhile Lydia herself would have been hard put to it to say whither shewas going. But that moral and intellectual landscape which had lain soclear before her when she left Green Cottage was certainly beginning toblur; the mists were descending upon it. 

She spent the August and September days working feverishly hard inDelorme's studio, and her evenings in a pleasant society of youngartists, of both sexes, all gathered at the feet of the great man. Buther mind was often far away; and rational theories as to the truerelations between men and women were neither so clear nor so supportingas they had been. 

She had now two intimate men friends; two ardent and devotedcorrespondents. Scarcely a day passed that she was not in touch with bothof them. Her knowledge of the male temperament and male ways of lookingat things was increasing fast. So far she had her desire. And in hercorrespondence with the two men, she had amply "played up. " She had givenherself--her thoughts, feelings, imaginations--to both; in differentways, and different degrees. 

And what was happening? Simply a natural, irresistible discrimination, which was like the slow inflooding of the tide through the river mouthit forces. Tatham's letters were all pleasure. Not a word of wooing inthem. He had given his word, and he kept it. But the unveiling of acharacter so simple, strong, and honest, to the eyes of this girl offour-and-twenty, conveyed of itself a tribute that could not but rouseboth gratitude and affection in Lydia. She did her best to reward him;and so far her "ideas" had worked. 

Faversham's letters, on the other hand, from the governing event of theday, had now become a pain and a distress. The exultant and exuberantself-confidence of the earlier correspondence, the practical dreams onpaper which had stirred her enthusiasm and delight--they came, it seemedto her, to a sudden and jarring end, somewhere about the opening ofSeptember. The change was evidently connected with the return of Mr. Melrose from abroad just at that time. The letters grew rambling, evasive, contradictory. Doubt and bitterness began to appear in them. She asked for facts about his work, and they were not given her. Insteadthe figure of Melrose rose on the horizon, till he dominated thecorrespondence, a harsh and fantastic task-master, to whose will andconscience it was useless to appeal. 

When two months of this double correspondence had gone by, and in theabsence of Lydia's usual friends and correspondents from the Pengarthneighbourhood, no other information from the north had arrived tosupplement Faversham's letters, Susy, who was in the Tyrol with a friend, might have drawn ample "copy, " from her sister's condition, had shewitnessed it. Lydia was most clearly unhappy. She was desperatelyinterested, and full of pity; yet apparently powerless to help. Therewas a tug at her heart, a grip on her thoughts, which increasedperpetually. Faversham wrote to her often like a guilty man; why, shecould not imagine. The appeal of his letters to her had begun to shakeher nerves, to haunt her nights. She longed for the October day whenGreen Cottage would be free from its tenants, and she once more on thespot. 

With the second week of October, Lady Tatham returned to Duddon. Tathamwould have been with her, but that he was detained, grumbling, by apolitical demonstration at Newcastle. Never had he felt politicalspeech-making so tedious. But for a foolish promise to talk drivel to acrowd of people who knew even less about the subject than he, he mighthave been spending the evening with Lydia. For the strangers in GreenCottage had departed, and Lydia was again within his reach. 

The return to Duddon after an absence had never lost its freshness forVictoria. Woman of fifty as she was, she was still a bundle of passions, in the intellectual and poetic sense. The sight of her own fells andstreams, the sound of the Cumbrian "aa's, " and "oo's, " the scurrying ofthe sheep among the fern, the breath of the wind in the Glendarra woods, the scent of moss and heather--these things rilled her with just the samethrills and gushes of delight as in her youth. Such thrills and gusheswere for her own use only; she never offered them for inspection by otherpeople. 

She had no sooner looked at her letters, and chatted with herhousekeeper, on the day of her return, than clothed in her oldest gownand thickest shoes, she went out wandering by herself through the Octoberdusk; ravished by the colour in which autumn had been wrapping theCumbrian earth since she had beheld it last; the purples and golds andamethysts, the touches of emerald green, the fringes of blue and purplemist; by the familiar music of the streams, which is not as the Scotchmusic; and the scents of the hills, which are not as the scents of theHighlands. Yet all the time she was thinking of Harry and Lydia Penfold;trying to plan the winter, and what she was to do. 

It was dark, with a rising moon when she got back to Duddon. The butler, an old servant, was watching for her in the hall. She noticed disturbancein his manner. 

"There are two ladies, my lady, in the drawing-room. "

"Two ladies!--Hurst!" The tone was reproachful. Victoria did not alwayssuffer her neighbours gladly, and Hurst knew her ways. The first eveningat home was sacred. 

"I could not help it, my lady. I told them you were out, and might not bein till dark. They said they must see you--they had come from Italy--andit was most important. "

"From Italy!" repeated Victoria, wondering--"who on earth--Did they givetheir name?"

"No, my lady, they said you'd know them quite well. "

Victoria hurried on to the drawing-room. Two figures rose as she enteredthe room, which was only lit by the firelight; and then stood motionless. 

Victoria advanced bewildered. 

"Will you kindly tell me your names?"

"Don't you remember me, Lady Tatham?" said a low, excited voice. 

Victoria turned on an electric switch close to her hand, and the room wassuddenly in a blaze of light. She looked in scrutinizing astonishment atthe figure in dingy black, standing before her, and at a girl, lookingabout sixteen--deathly pale--who seemed to be leaning on a chair in thebackground. 

That strange, triangular face, with the sharp chin, and the abnormaleyes--where, in what dim past, had she seen it before? For some secondsmemory wrestled. Then, old and new came together; and she recognized hervisitor. 

"Mrs. Melrose!" she said, in incredulous amazement. The woman in blackcame nearer, and spoke brokenly--the bitter emotion beneath graduallyforcing its way. 

"I am in great distress--I don't know what to do. My daughter and I arestarving--and I remembered you'd come to see me--that once--at Threlfall. I knew all about you. I've asked English people often. I thought perhapsyou'd help me--you'd tell me how to make my husband do something forme--for me--and for his daughter! Look at her"--Netta paused andpointed--"she's ill--she's dropping. We had to hurry through from Lucca. We couldn't afford to stop on the way. We sold everything we had; somepeople collected a hundred francs for us; and we just managed to buy ourtickets. Felicia didn't want to come, but I made her. I couldn't see herdie before my eyes. We've starved for months. We've parted witheverything, and I've written to Mr. Melrose again and again. He's neveranswered--till a few weeks ago, and he said if we troubled him againhe'd stop the money. He's a bad, bad man. "

Shaking, her teeth chattering, her hands clenched at her side, theforlorn creature stared at Victoria. She was not old, but she was awreck; a withered, emaciated wreck of the woman Victoria had once seentwenty years before. 

Victoria, laying a gentle hand upon her, drew an armchair forward. 

"Sit down, please, and rest. You shall have food directly. I will haverooms got ready. And this is your daughter?"

She went up to the girl who stood shivering like her mother, andspeechless. But her proud black eyes met Victoria's with a passion inthem that seemed to resent a touch, a look. "She ought to be lovely!"thought Victoria; "she is--if one could feed and dress her. "

"You poor child! Come and lie down. "

She took hold of the girl and guided her to a sofa. When they reached it, the little creature fell half fainting upon it. But she controlledherself by an astonishing effort, thanked Victoria in Italian, andcurling herself up in a corner she closed her eyes. The white profile onthe dark sofa cushion was of a most delicate perfection, and as Victoriahelped to remove her hat she saw a small dark head covered with shortcurls like a boy's. 

Netta Melrose looked round the beautiful room, its pictures, its deepsofas and chairs, its bright fire, and then at the figures of Victoriaand the housekeeper in the distance. Victoria was giving her orders. Thetears were on Netta's cheeks. Yet she had the vague, ineffable feeling ofone just drawn from the waves. She had done right. She had saved herselfand Felicia. 

Food was brought, and wine. They were coaxed to eat, warmed andcomforted. Then Victoria took them up through the broad, scented passagesof the beautiful house to rooms that had been got ready for them. 

"Don't talk any more to-night. You shall tell me everything to-morrow. Mymaid will help you. I will come back presently to see you have everythingyou want. "

Felicia, frowning, wished to unpack their small hand-bag, with its shabbycontents, for herself. But she was too feeble, and the maid, in spite ofwhat seemed to the two forlorn ones her fine clothes and fine ways, waskind and tactful. Victoria's wardrobe was soon laid under contribution;beautiful linen, and soft silken things she possessed but seldom wore, were brought out for her destitute guests. 

Victoria came in to say good-night. Netta looked at the stately woman, the hair just beginning to be gray, the strong face with its story offastidious thought, of refined and sheltered living. 

"You're awfully good to us. It's twenty years!--" Her voice failed her. 

"Twenty years--yes, indeed! since I drove over to see you that time! Yourdaughter was a little toddling thing. "

"We've had such a life--these last few years--oh, such an awfullife! My old father's still alive--but would be better if he were dead. My mother depended on us entirely--she's dead. But I'll explaineverything--everything. "

It was clear, however, that till sleep had knit up the ravelled nerves ofthe poor lady, no coherent conversation was possible. Victoria hastenedto depart. 

"To-morrow you shall tell me all about yourself. My son will be hometo-morrow. We will consult him and see what can be done. "

Mother and daughter were left alone. Felicia rose feebly to go to her ownroom, which adjoined her mother's. She was wearing a dressing-gown ofembroidered silk--pale blue, and shimmering--which Victoria's maid hadwrapped her in, after the child's travelling clothes, thread-bare andmud-stained, had been taken off. The girl's tiny neck and wrists emergedfrom it, her little head, and her face from which weariness and distresshad robbed all natural bloom. What she was wearing, or how she looked, she did not know and did not care. But her mother, in whom dress had beenfor years a passion never to be indulged, was suddenly--though all herexhaustion--enchanted with her daughter's appearance. 

"Oh, Felicia, you look so nice!"

She took up the silk of the dressing-gown and passed it through herfingers covetously; then her tired eyes ran over the room, the white bedstanding ready, the dressing-table with its silver ornaments and flowers, the chintz-covered sofas and chairs. 

"Why shouldn't we be rich too?" she said angrily. "Your father is richerthan the Tathams. It's a wicked, wicked shame!"

Felicia put her hand to her head. 

"Oh, do let me go to bed, " she said in Italian. 

Netta put her arm round her, supporting her. Presently they passed aportrait on the wall, an enlarged photograph of a boy in cricketingdress. 

Underneath it was written:

"_Harry. Eton Eleven. July 189---_. "

Felicia for the first time showed a gleam of interest. She stopped tolook at the picture. 

"Who is it?"

"It must be her son, Lord Tatham. "

The girl's sunken eyes seemed to drink in the pleasant image of theEnglish boy. 

"Shall we see him?"

"Of course. To-morrow. Now come to bed!"

Felicia's head was no sooner on the pillow than she plunged into sleep. Netta, on the other hand, was for a long time sleepless. The luxury ofthe bed and the room was inexpressibly delightful and reviving to her. Recollections of a small bare house in the Apuan Alps above Lucca, and ofall that she and Felicia had endured there, ran through her mind, mingledwith visions of Threlfall as she had known it of old, its chokedpassages--the locked room from which she had stolen the Hermes--thegreat table in Edmund's room with its litter of bric-à-brac--Edmundhimself.... 

She trembled; alternately desperate, and full of fears. The thought thatMelrose was only a few miles from her--that she was going to face andbrave him after all these years--turned her cold with terror. And yetmisery had made her reckless. 

"He _shall_ provide for us!" She gathered up her weak soul into thissupreme resolve. How wise she had been to follow the sudden impulse whichhad bade her appeal to the Tathams! Were they not her kinsfolk bymarriage?

They knew what Edmund was! They were kind and powerful. They wouldprotect her, and take up her cause. Edmund was now an old man. If hedied, who else had a right to his money but she and Felicia? Oh! LadyTatham would help them; she'd see them righted! Cradled in that hope, Netta Melrose at last fell asleep. 

XIV

Tatham arrived at Duddon by the earliest possible train on the followingmorning. 

On crossing the hall he perceived in the distance a very slight thingirl, dressed in black, coming out of his mother's sitting-room. When shesaw him she turned hurriedly to the stairs and ran up, only pausing onceon the first landing to flash upon him a singularly white face, lit bysingularly black eyes. Then she disappeared. 

"Who is that lady?" he asked of Hurst in astonishment. 

"Her ladyship expects you, my lord, " replied Hurst evasively, throwingopen the door of the morning-room. Victoria was disclosed; pacing up anddown, her hands in the pockets of her tweed jacket. Tatham saw at oncethat something had happened. 

She put her hands on his shoulders, kissed him, and delivered her news. She did so with a peculiar and secret zest. To watch how he took thefresh experiences of life, and to be exultantly proud and sure of him thewhile, was all part of her adoration of him. 

"Melrose's wife and daughter! Great Scot! So they're not dead?" Tathamstood amazed. 

"He seems to have done his best to kill them. They're starved--anddestitute. But here they are. "

"And why in the name of fortune do they come to us?"

"We are cousins, my dear--and I saw her twenty years ago. It isn't a badmove. Indeed the foolish woman might have come before. "

"But what on earth can we do for them?"

The young man sat down bewildered, while his mother told the story, piecing it together from the rambling though copious narrative, which shehad gathered that morning from Netta in her bed, where she had beenforced to remain, at least for breakfast. 

After her flight, Melrose's fugitive wife had settled down with her childin Florence, under the wing of her own family. But they were a shiftless, importunate crew, and, in the course of years, every one of them camemore or less visibly to grief. Her sisters married men of the samedubious world as themselves, and were always in difficulties. Netta'seldest brother got into trouble with the bank where he was employed, andanother brother, as a deserter from the army, had to make his escape toSouth America. The father, Robert Smeath, had found it more and moredifficult to earn anything on which to keep his belongings, and as apicture dealer seemed to have fallen into bad odour with the Italianauthorities, for reasons of which Netta could give no account. 

"And how much do you think Mr. Melrose allowed his wife and child?" askedVictoria, her eyes sparkling. "_Eighty pounds a year_!--on which in theend the whole family seem to have lived. Finally, the mother died, andMr. Smeath got into some scrape or other--I naturally avoided theparticulars--which involved pledging half Mrs. Melrose's allowance forfive years. And on the rest--forty pounds--she and her daughter, and herold father have been trying to live for the last two. You never heardsuch a story! They found a small half-ruined villa in the mountains northof Pisa, and there they somehow existed. They couldn't afford nursing ordoctoring for the old father; they were half starved; the mother anddaughter have both actually worked in the vineyards; and, of course, theyhad no servant. You should see the poor woman's hands! Then she began towrite to her husband. No reply--for eighteen months, no reply--till justlately, an intimation from the Florentine bank, that if any more similarletters were addressed to Mr. Melrose the allowance would be stopped. "

"Old fiend!" cried Tatham, "now we'll get at him!"

Victoria went on to describe how, at last, an English family who hadtaken one of the old villas on the Luccan Alps for the summer had comeacross the forlorn trio. They were scandalized by the story, and theyhad impressed on Mrs. Melrose that she and her daughter had a legalright to suitable maintenance from her husband. Urged by them--andstarvation--Netta had at last plucked up courage. The old father was leftin the charge of a _contadino_ family, a small loan was raised for themto which the English visitors contributed, and the mother and daughterstarted for home. 

"But without us, or some one else to help her, " said Victoria, "she wouldnever--never!--get through the business. Her terror of Melrose is aperfect disease. She shakes if you mention his name. That was what madeher think of me--and that visit I paid her. Poor thing! she was ratherpretty then. But it was plain enough what their relations were. Well, now, Harry, it's for you to say. But my blood's up! I suggest we see thisthing through!"

The door slowly opened as she spoke, and two small figures came insilently, closing it behind them. There they stood, a story inthemselves; Netta, with the bearing and the dress of a shabby littlehousekeeper; the girl ghastly thin, her shoulder-blades cutting herflimsy dress, blue shadows in all the hollows of the face, but withextraordinary pride of bearing, and extraordinary possibilities of beautyin the modelling of her delicate features, and splendid melancholy eyes. Tatham could not help staring at her. She was indeed the disinheritedprincess. 

Then he walked up to them, and shook hands with boyish heartiness. 

"I say, you do look pumped out! But don't you worry too much. My motherand I'll see what can be done. We'll set the lawyers on, if there'snothing else. It's a beastly shame, anyway! But now, you take it easy. We'll look after you. Sit down, won't you? Mother's chairs are the mostcomfortable in the house!"

He installed them; and then at once took the serious, business air, which still gave his mother a pleasure which was half amusement. Felicia, sitting in a corner behind her mother's sofa, could not take her eyesfrom him. The tall, fair English youth, six foot two, and splendidlydeveloped, the pink of health, modesty, and kindly courtesy, wasdifferent from all other beings that had ever swum into her view. Shewatched him close and furtively--his features, his dress, his gestures;comparing the living man in her mind with the photograph upstairs, and soabsorbed in her study of him that she scarcely heard a word of thetriangular discussion going on between her mother, Tatham, and Victoria. The whole time she was drinking in impressions, as of a god-likecreature, all beneficence. 

After an hour's cross-examination of the poor, shrinking Netta, Tatham'sblood too was up; he was eager for the fray. To attack Melrose was a joy;made none the less keen by the reflection that to help these two helplessones was a duty. Lydia's approval, Lydia's sympathy were certain; hekindled the more. 

"All right!" he said, rising. "Now I think we are agreed on the firststep. Faversham is our man. I must see Faversham at once, and set him towork! If I find him, I will report the result to you, Mrs. Melrose--sofar--by luncheon time. "

He departed, to ring up the Threlfall office in Pengarth and inquirewhether Faversham could be seen there. Victoria left the room with him. 

"Have you forgotten these rumours of which Undershaw wrote you?"

"What, as to Faversham? No, I have not forgotten them. But I shan't takeany notice of them. He can't accept anything for himself till these twohave got their due! What right has he to Melrose's property at all?"said the young man indignantly. 

 * * * * *

The mother and son had scarcely left the room when Netta turned to herdaughter with trembling lips. 

"I haven't"--half whispering--"told them anything about the Hermes!"

"It was no theft!" said Felicia passionately. "I would tell anybody!"

Netta was silent, her face working with unspoken fear. Suddenly, Feliciasaid in her foreign English, pronounced with a slight effort, and veryprecisely:

"That is a very beautiful young man!"

Netta was startled. 

"Lord Tatham? Not at all, Felicia. He is very nice, but I do not evencall him good-looking. "

"He is a very beautiful young man, " repeated Felicia with emphasis, "andI am going to marry him!"

"Felicia! for heaven's sake--do not show your mad ways here!" criedNetta, white with new alarm. 

For the first time for many, many days Felicia smiled. She got up andwent to a glass that hung on the wall. Taking one of the sidecombs fromher curls, she began to pull them out, winding them round her tinyfingers, making more of them, and patting them back into place, till herhead was one silky mass of ripples. Then she looked at herself. 

"I must have a new dress at once!" she said peremptorily. 

"I don't know where you'll get it!" cried Netta--"you foolish child!"

"The young man will give it me. " And still before the glass, she gave alittle bound, like a kitten. Then she ran back to her mother, tookNetta's face in her hands, dashed a kiss at it, and subsided, weak andgasping, on to a sofa. When Victoria reappeared Felicia was motionlessas before, but there was a first streak of colour in her thin, cheeks, and a queer brightness in her eyes. 

Faversham was sitting in his Pengarth office, turning over the morning'spost. He had just ridden in from the Tower. Before him lay a telephonemessage taken down for him by his clerk, before his arrival:

"Lord Tatham will be at Mr. Faversham's office by 12:30. He wishes tospeak to Mr. Faversham on important business. "

Something, no doubt, to do with the right-of-way proceedings to whichTatham was a party; or, possibly, with a County Council notice which hadroused Melrose to fury, to the effect that some Threlfall land would betaken compulsorily for allotments under a recent Act, if the land werenot provided by arrangement. 

"Perfectly reasonable! And every complaint that Tatham will make--if hehas come to complain--will be perfectly reasonable. And I shall have totell him to go to the devil!"

He sat pen in hand, staring at the paper on his desk, his mind dividedbetween a bitter disgust with his day's work and the consciousness of adeep central resolve, which that disgust did not affect, and would not beallowed to affect. He was looking harassed, pale, and perceptibly older. No doubt his general health had not yet fully recovered from hisaccident. But those who disliked in him a certain natural haughtiness, said that he had now more "side on" than ever. 

A bell below warned him of Tatham's arrival. He hurriedly took out papersfrom various drawers, and arranged them on the office table. They relatedto the matter on which he thought Tatham might wish to confer with him. 

His door opened. 

"Hullo, Faversham! Hope you're quite strong, " said the incomer. 

"All right, thank you. " The two men shook hands. "You've been doingScotland as usual?"

"Two months of it. Beastly few birds. Not at all sorry to come back. Well, now--I've got something very surprising to talk to you about. Isay"--he looked round him--"we shan't be disturbed?"

Faversham rose, gave a telephone order and resumed his seat. 

"Who do you think we've got staying at Duddon?"

"I haven't an idea. Have a cigarette?"

"Thanks. Has Melrose ever talked to you about his wife and daughter?"

Faversham stared, took a whiff at his cigarette, and put it down. 

"Are you her to tell me anything about them?"

"They are staying at Duddon at this moment, " said Tatham, watching hiseffect; "arrived last night--penniless and starving. "

Faversham flushed. 

"You're sure they are the right people?" he said after a pause. 

Tatham laughed. 

"My mother remembers Mrs. Melrose twenty years ago; and the daughter, ifit weren't that she's little more than skin and bone, would be the imageof Melrose--on a tiny scale. Now, look here! this is their story. "

The young man settled down to it, telling it just as it had been told tohim, until toward the end a tolerably hot indignation forced its way, andhe used some strong language with regard to Melrose, under whichFaversham sat silent. 

"I've no doubt he's told you the same lies he's told everybody else!"exclaimed Tatham, after waiting a little for comments that were slow incoming. 

"I was quite aware they were alive, " said Faversham, slowly. 

"You were, by Jove!"

"And I have already appealed to Melrose to behave reasonably towardthem. "

"Reasonably! Good heavens!" Tatham had flushed in his turn. "A man isbound to behave rather more than 'reasonably'--toward his daughter, anyway--I don't care what the mother had done. I tell you the girl's areal beauty, or will be, when she's properly fed and dressed. She's agirl anybody might be proud of. And there he's been wallowing in wealth, while his child has been starving. And threatening to stop their wretchedallowance! Well, you know as well as I, what public opinion will be, ifthese facts get about. Public opinion is pretty strong already. But, byGeorge, when this is added to the rest! Can't you persuade him to behavehimself before it all gets into the papers? It will get into them ofcourse. There the poor things are, and we mean to stand by them. Theremust be a proper provision for the wife--that the courts can get out ofhim. And as to the girl--why, she is his heiress!--and ought to beacknowledged as such. "

Tatham turned suddenly, as he spoke, and fixed a pair of very straightblue eyes on his companion. 

"Mr. Melrose is not bound to make her his heir, " said Faversham quietly. 

"Not bound! I daresay. But who else is there? He's not very likely toleave it to any of _us_, " said Tatham with a grin. "And he's not the kindof gentleman to be endowing missions. Who is there?" he repeated. 

"Mr. Melrose will please himself, " said Faversham, coldly. "Of that wemay be sure. Now then--what is it exactly that these ladies have come toask?" he continued, in a sharp businesslike tone. "You are aware ofcourse that Mrs. Melrose left her husband of her own free will--withoutany provocation?"

"You won't get a judge to believe that very easily--in the case ofMelrose! Anyway she's done nothing criminal. And she's willing, poorwretch! to go back to him. But if not, she asks for a maintenanceallowance, suitable to his wealth and position, and that the daughtershould be provided for. _You_ can't surely refuse to support us so far?"

Tatham had insensibly stiffened in his chair. His manner which at first, though not exactly cordial, had still been that of the college friend andcontemporary, had unconsciously, in the course of the conversation, assumed a certain tone of authority, as though there spoke through himthe force of a settled and traditional society, of which he knew himselfto be one of the natural chiefs. 

To Faversham, full of a secret bitterness, this second manner of Tatham'swas merely arrogance. His own pride rose against it, and what he felt itimplied. Not a sign of that confidence in the new agent which had been sofreely expressed at Duddon a couple of months before! His detractors hadno doubt been at work with this jolly, stupid fellow, whom everybodyliked. He would have to fight for himself. Well, he would fight!

"I shall certainly support any just claim, " he said, as Tatham rose, "butI warn you that Mr. Melrose is ill--he is very irritable--and Mrs. Melrose had better not attempt to spring any surprises on him. If shewill write me a letter, I will see that it gets to Mr. Melrose, and Iwill do my best for her. "

"No one could ask you to do any more, " said Tatham heartily, repentinghimself a little. "They will be with us for the present. Mrs. Melroseshall write you a full statement and you will reply to Duddon?"

"By all means. "

"There are a good many other things, " said Tatham--uncertainly--ashe lingered, hat in hand--"that you and I might discuss--Mainstairs, forinstance! I ought to tell you that my mother has just sent two nursesthere. The condition of things is simply appalling. "

Faversham straightened his tall figure. 

"Mainstairs is a deadlock. Mr. Melrose won't repair the cottages. Heintends to pull them down. He has given the people notice, and he isreceiving no rent. They won't go. I suppose the next step will be toapply for an ejectment order. Meanwhile the people stay at their ownperil. There you have the whole thing. "

"I hear the children are dying like flies. "

"I can do nothing, " said Faversham. 

Again a shock of antagonism passed through the two men. "Yes, you can!"thought Tatham; "you can resign your fat post, and your expectations, andput the screw on the old man, that's what you could do. " Aloud he said:

"A couple of thousand pounds, according to Undershaw, would do the job. If you succeed in forcing them out, where are they to go?"

"That's not our affair. "

Tatham caught up his hat and stick, and abruptly departed; reflectingindeed when he reached the street, that he had not been the mostdiplomatic of ambassadors on Mrs. Melrose's behalf. 

Faversham, after some ten minutes of motionless reflection, heavilyreturned to his papers, ordering his horse to be ready in half an hour. He forced himself to write some ordinary business letters, and to eatsome lunch, and immediately after he started on horseback to find his waythrough the October lanes to the village of Mainstairs. 

A man more harassed, and yet more resolved, it would have been difficultto find. For six weeks now he had been wading deeper and deeper into amoral quagmire from which he saw no issue at all--except indeed by thedeath of Edmund Melrose! That event would solve all difficulties. 

For some time now he had been convinced, not only that the mother anddaughter were living, but that there had been some recent communicationbetween them and Melrose. Various trifling incidents and cryptic sayingsof the old man, not now so much on his guard as formerly, had ledFaversham to this conclusion. He realized that he himself had beenhaunted of late by the constant expectation that they might turn up. 

Well, now they had turned up. Was he at once to make way for them, asTatham clearly took for granted?--to advise Melrose to tear up his newlymade will, and gracefully surrender his expectations as Melrose's heir tothis girl of twenty-one? By no means!

What is the claim of birth in such a case, if you come to that? Look atit straight in the face. A child is born to a certain father; is thentorn from that father against his will, and brought up for twenty yearsout of his reach. What claim has that child, when mature, upon thefather--beyond, of course, a claim for reasonable provision--unlesshe chooses to acknowledge a further obligation? None whatever. The fatherhas lived his life, and accumulated his fortune, without the child'shelp, without the child's affection or tendance. His possessions aremorally and legally his own, to deal with as he pleases. 

In the course of life, other human beings become connected with him, attached to him, and he to them. Natural claims must be considered anddecently satisfied--agreed! But for the disposal of a man'ssuperfluities, of such a fortune as Melrose's, there is no law--thereought to be no law; and the English character, as distinct from theFrench, has decided that there shall be no law. "If his liking, or hiscaprice even, " thought Faversham passionately, "chooses to make me hisheir, he has every right to give, and I to accept. I am a stranger tohim; so, in all but the physical sense, is his daughter. But I am not astranger to English life. My upbringing and experience--even such as theyare--are better qualifications than hers. What can a girl of twenty, partly Italian, brought up away from England, hardly speaking herfather's tongue, do for this English estate, compared to what I coulddo--with a free hand, and a million to draw on? Whom do I wrong byaccepting what a miraculous chance has brought me--by standing by it--byfighting for it? No one--justly considered. And I will fight forit--though a hundred Tathams call me adventurer!"

So much for the root determination of the man; the result of weeks ofexcited brooding over wealth, and what can be done with wealth, amidincreasing difficulties and problems from all sides. 

His determination indeed did not protect him from the attacks ofconscience; of certain moral instincts and prepossessions, that is, natural to a man of his birth and environment. 

The mind, however, replied to them glibly enough. "I shall do the justand reasonable thing! As I promised Tatham, I shall look into the storyof these two women, and if it is what it professes to be, I shall pressMelrose to provide for them. "

Conscience objected: "If he refuses?"

"They can enforce their claim legally, and I shall make him realize it. "

"Can you?" said Conscience. "Have you any hold upon him at all?"

A flood of humiliation, indeed, rushed in upon him, as he recalled hiseffort, while Melrose was away in August, to make at least some temporaryimprovement in the condition of the Mainstairs cottages--secretly--out ofhis own money--by the help of the cottagers themselves. The attempt hadbeen reported to Melrose by that spying little beast, Nash, andperemptorily stopped by telegram--"Kindly leave my property alone. It isnot yours to meddle with. "

And that most abominable scene, after Melrose's return to the Tower!Faversham could never think of it without shame and disgust. Ten timeshad he been on the point of dashing down his papers at Melrose's feet, and turning his back on the old madman, and his house, forever. It was, of course, the thought of the gifts he had already accepted, and of thatvast heritage waiting for him when Melrose should be in his grave, whichhad restrained him--that alone; no cynic could put it more nakedly thandid Faversham's own thoughts. He was tied and bound by his own actions, and his own desires; he had submitted--grovelled to a tyrant; and he knewwell enough that from that day he had been a lesser and a meaner man. 

But--no silly exaggeration! He straightened himself in his saddle. He wasdoing plenty of good work elsewhere, work with which Melrose did nottrouble himself to interfere; work which would gradually tell upon thecondition and happiness of the estate. Put that against the other. Menare not plaster saints--or, still less, live ones, with the power ofmiracle; but struggling creatures of flesh and blood, who do, not whatthey will, but what they can. 

And suddenly he seemed once more to be writing to Lydia Penfold. Howoften he had written to her during these two months! He recalled the joyof the earlier correspondence, in which he had been his natural self, pleading, arguing, planning; showing all the eagerness--the sincereeagerness--there was in him, to make a decent job of his agency, to standwell with his new neighbours--above all with "one slight girl. "

And her letters to him--sweet, frank, intelligent, sympathetic--they hadbeen his founts of refreshing, his manna by the way. Until that fatalnight, when Melrose had crushed in him all that foolish optimism andself-conceit with which he had entered into the original bargain! Sincethen, he knew well that his letters had chilled and disappointed her;they had been the letters of a slave. 

And now this awful business at Mainstairs! Bessie Dobbs, the girl ofeighteen--Lydia's friend--who had been slowly dying since the diphtheriaepidemic of the year before, was dead at last, after much suffering; andhe did not expect to find the child of eight, her little sister, stillalive. There were nearly a score of other cases, and there were threechildren down with scarlet fever, besides some terrible attacks ofblood-poisoning--one after childbirth--due probably to some form of thescarlet fever infection, acting on persons weakened by the long effect offilthy conditions. What would Lydia say, when she knew--when she came?From her latest letter it was not clear to him on what day she wouldreach home. After making his inspection he would ride on to Green Cottageand inquire. He dreaded to meet her; and yet he was eager to defendhimself; his mind was already rehearsing all that he would say. 

A long lane, shaded by heavy trees, made an abrupt turning, and he sawbefore him the Mainstairs village--one straggling street of wretchedhouses, mostly thatched, and built of "clay-lump, " whitewashed. In acounty of prosperous farming, and good landlords, where cottages hadbeen largely rebuilt during the preceding century, this miserablevillage, with various other hamlets and almost all the cottages attachedto farms on the Melrose estate, were the scandal of the countryside. Roofs that let in rain and wind, clay floors, a subsoil soaked in everypossible abomination, bedrooms "more like dens for wild animals thansleeping-places for men and women, " to quote a recent Government report, and a polluted water supply!--what more could reckless human living, aided by human carelessness and cruelty, have done to make a hell ofnatural beauty?

Over the village rose the low shoulder of a grassy fell, its patches ofgolden fern glistening under the October sunshine; great sycamores, withtheir rounded masses of leaf, hung above the dilapidated roofs, as thoughNature herself tried to shelter the beings for whom men had no care; thethatched slopes were green with moss and weed; and the blue smoke wreathsthat rose from the chimneys, together with the few flowers that gleamedin the gardens, the picturesque irregularity of the houses, and thegeneral setting of wood and distant mountain, made of the poisonedvillage a "subject, " on which a wandering artist, who had set up hiscanvas at the corner of the road, was at the moment, indeed, hard atwork. There might be death in those houses; but out of the beauty whichsunshine strikes from ruin, a man, honestly in search of a few pounds, was making what he could. 

To Faversham's overstrung mind the whole scene was as the blood-stainedpalace of the Atreidae to the agonized vision of Cassandra. He saw itsteeped in death--death upon death--and dreaded of what new "murder" hemight hear as soon as he approached the houses. For what was it butmurder? His conscience, arguing with itself, did not dispute the word. Had Melrose, out of his immense income, spent a couple of thousand poundson the village at any time during the preceding years, a score of deathswould have been saved, and the physical degeneracy of a whole populationwould have been prevented. 

 * * * * *

Heavens! that light figure in Dobbs's garden, talking with the oldshepherd--his heart leapt and then sickened. It was Lydia. 

A poignant fear stirred in him. He gave his horse a touch of the whip, and was at her side. 

"Miss Penfold!--you oughtn't to be here! For heaven's sake go home!"

Lydia, who in the absorption of her talk with the shepherd had notheard his approach, turned with a start. Her face was one of passionategrief--there were tears on her cheek. 

"Oh, Mr. Faversham--"

"The child?" he asked, as he dismounted. 

"She died--last night. "

"Aye, an' there's another doon--t' li'le boy--t' three-year-old, " saidold Dobbs sharply, straightening himself on his stick, at sight of theagent. 

"The nurses are here?" said Faversham after a pause. 

"Aye, " said the shepherd, turning toward his cottage, "but they can donowt. The childer are marked for deein afore they're sick. " And he walkedaway, his inner mind shaken with a passion that forbade him to stay andtalk with Melrose's agent. 

Two or three labourers who were lounging in front of their houses cameslowly toward the agent. It was evident that there was unemployment aswell as disease in the village, and that the neighbouring farms, wherethere were young children, were cutting themselves off, as much as theycould, from the Mainstairs infection, by dismissing the Mainstairs men. 

Faversham meanwhile again implored Lydia to go home. "This whole placereeks with infection. You ought not to be here. "

"They say that nothing has been done!"

Her tone was quiet, but her look pierced. 

"I tried. It was impossible. The only thing that could be done was thatthe people should go. They are under notice. Every single person is herein defiance of the law. The police will have to be called in. "

"And where are we to goa, sir!" cried one of the men who had come up. "Theer's noa house to be had nearer than Pengarth--yo' know thatyoursen--an' how are we to be waakin' fower mile to our work i' t'mornin', an' fower mile back i' t' evening? Why, we havena got t'strength! It isna exactly a health resort--yo' ken--Mainstairs!"

"I'll tell yo' where soom on us might goa, Muster Faversham, " saidanother older man, removing the pipe he had been stolidly smoking;"theer's two farmhouses o' Melrose's, within half a mile o' thisplace--shut oop--noabody there. They're big houses--yan o' them wor an'owd manor-house, years agone. A body might put oop five or six familiesin 'em at a pinch. Thattens might dëa for a beginnin'; while soom o'these houses were coomin' doon. "

Lydia turned eagerly to Faversham. 

"_Couldn't_ that be done--some of the families with young children thatare not yet attacked?" Her eyes hung on him. 

He shook his head. He had already proposed something of the sort toMelrose. It had been vetoed. 

The men watched him. At last one of them--a lanky youth, with a frowning, ironic expression and famous as a heckler at public meetings--said withslow emphasis:

"There'll coom a day i' this coontry, mates, when men as treat poor foaklike Muster Melrose, 'ull be pulled off t' backs of oos an' our like. Andmay aa live to see 't!"

"Aye! aye!" came in deep assent from the others, as they turned away. Butone white and sickly fellow looked back to say:

"An' it's a graat pity for a yoong mon like you, sir, to be doin' MusterMelrose's dirty work--taakin' o' the police--as though yo' had 'em oopyour sleeve!"

"Haven't I done what I could for you?" cried Faversham, stung by thereproach, and its effect on Lydia's face. 

"Aye--mebbe--but it's nowt to boast on. " The man, middle aged butprematurely old, stood still, trembling from head to foot. "My babe aswor born yesterday, deed this mornin'; an' they say t' wife 'ull ligbeside it afore night. "

There was a sombre silence. Faversham broke it. "I must see the nurses, "he said to Lydia; "but again, I beg of you to go! I will send you news. "

"I will wait for you. Don't be afraid. I won't go indoors. "

He went round the houses, watched by the people, as they stood at theirdoors. He himself was paying two nurses, and now Lady Tatham had sent twomore. He satisfied himself that they had all the stores which Undershawhad ordered; he left a donation of money with one of them, and then hereturned to Lydia. 

They walked together in silence; while a boy from the village ledFaversham's horse some distance in the rear. All that Faversham had meantto say had dropped away from him. His planned defence of himself couldfind no voice. 

"You too blame me?" he said, at last, hoarsely. 

She shook her head sadly. 

"I don't know what to think. But when we last met--you were so hopeful--"

"Yes--like a fool. But what can you do--with a madman. "

"Can you bear--to be still in his employ?"

She looked up, her beautiful eyes bright and challenging. 

"Mainstairs is not the whole estate. If I'm powerless here--I'm notelsewhere--"

She was silent. He turned upon her. 

"If _you_ are to misunderstand and mistrust me--then indeed I shall loseheart!"

The feeling, one might almost say the anguish, in his dark, commandingface moved her strangely. Condemnation and pity--aye, and something elsethan pity--struggled within her. For the first time Lydia began to knowherself. She was strangely shaken. 

"I will try--and understand, " she said in a voice that trembled. 

"All my power of doing anything depends on it!" he said, passionately. "Ican say truly that things would have been infinitely worse if I had notbeen here. And I have worked like a horse to better them--before youcame. "

She was silent. His appeal to her as to his judge hurt her poignantly. Yet what could she do or say? Her natural longing was to console; butwhere were the elements of consolation? _Could_ anything be worse thanwhat she had seen and heard?

The mingled emotion which silenced her, warned her not to continue theconversation. She perceived the opening of a side-lane leading back tothe river and the Keswick road. 

"This is my best way, I think, " she said, pausing, and holding out herhand. "The pony-cart is waiting for me at Whitebeck. "

He looked at her in distress, yet also in anger. A friend might surelyhave stood by him more cordially, believed in him more simply. 

"You are at home again? I may come and see you. "

"Please! We shall want to hear. "

Her tone was embarrassed. They parted almost coldly. 

Lydia walked quickly home, down a sloping lane from which the ravines ofBlencathra, edge behind edge, chasm beyond chasm, were to be seen againstthe sunset, and all the intermediate landscape--wood, and stubble, andferny slope--steeped in stormy majesties of light. But for once the quickartist sense was shut against Nature's spectacles. She walked in a blindanguish of self-knowledge and self-scorn. She who had plumed herself onthe poised mind, the mastered senses!

She moaned to herself. 

"Why didn't he tell me--warn me! To sell himself to that man--to act forhim--defend him--apologize for him--and for those awful, awful things! Anagent must. "

And she thought of some indignant talk of Undershaw, which she had heardthat morning. 

Her moral self was full of repulsion; her heart was torn. Friend? Sheowned her weakness, and despised it. Turning aside, she leant a whileagainst a gate, hiding her face from the glory of the evening. Week byweek--she knew it now!--through that frank interchange of mind with mind, of heart with heart, represented by that earlier correspondence, stillmore perhaps through the checks and disappointments of its later phases, Claude Faversham had made his way into the citadel. 

The puny defences she had built about the freedom of her maiden life andwill lay in ruins. Her theories were scattered like the autumn leavesthat were scuddering over the fields. His voice, the very roughenedbitterness of it; his eyes, with their peremptory challenge, their soreaccusingness; the very contradictions of the man's personality, nowdelightful, now repellent, and, breathing through them all, the passionshe must needs divine--of these various impressions, small and great, shewas the struggling captive. Serenity, peace were gone. 

Meanwhile, as Faversham rode toward the Tower, absorbed at one moment ina misery of longing, and the next in a heat of self-defence, perhaps thestrongest feeling that finally emerged was one of dismay that herabrupt leave-taking had prevented him from telling her of that othermatter of which Tatham's visit had informed him. She must hear of itimmediately, and from those who would judge and perhaps denounce him. 

Nevertheless, as he dismounted at the Tower, neither the burden ofMainstairs, nor the fear of Lydia's disapproval, nor the agitation of thenews from Duddon, had moved him one jot from his purpose. A man surely isa coward and a weakling, he thought, who cannot grasp the "skirts ofhappy chance, " while they are there for the grasping; cannot take whatthe gods offer, while they offer it, lest they withdraw it forever. 

Yet, suppose, that by his own act, he raised a moral barrier betweenhimself and Lydia Penfold which such a personality would never permititself to pass?

His vanity, a touch of natural cynicism, refused, in the end, to let himbelieve it. His hope lay in a frank wrestle with her, a frank attack uponher intelligence. He promised himself to attempt it without delay. 

XV

The day following the interview between Tatham and Faversham was a day ofexpectation for the inmates of Duddon. On the evening before, Tatham withmuch toil had extracted a more or less, coherent statement from NettaMelrose, persuading her to throw it into the form of an appeal to herhusband. "If we can't do anything by reasoning, why then we must trypressure, " he had said to her, in his suavest County Council manner; "butwe won't talk law to begin with. " The statement when finished and writtenout in Netta's childish hand was sent by messenger, late in the evening, within a covering letter to Faversham, written by Tatham. 

Tatham afterward devoted himself till nearly midnight to composing aletter to Lydia. He had unaccountably missed her that afternoon, for whenhe arrived at the cottage from Pengarth she was out, and neither Mrs. Penfold nor Susy knew where she was. In fact she was at Mainstairs, andwith Faversham. She had mistaken a phrase in Tatham's note of themorning, and did not expect him till later. He had waited an hour forher, under the soft patter of Mrs. Penfold's embarrassed conversation;and had then ridden home, sorely disappointed, but never for one instantblaming the beloved. 

But later, in the night silence, he poured out to her all his budget: thearrival of the Melroses; their story; his interview with Faversham; andhis plans for helping them to their rights. To a "friend" it was onlyallowed, besides, to give restrained expression to his rapturous joy inbeing near her again, and his disappointment of the afternoon. He thoughtover every word, as he wrote it down, his eyes sometimes a little dim inthe lamp-light. The very reserve imposed upon him did but strengthen hispassion. Nor could young hopes believe in ultimate defeat. 

At the same time, the thought of Faversham held the background of hismind. Though by now he himself cordially disliked Faversham, he was quiteaware of the attraction the new agent's proud and melancholy personalitymight have for women. He had seen it working in Lydia's case, and he hadbeen uncomfortably aware at one time of the frequent references toFaversham in Lydia's letters. It was evident that Faversham had pushedthe acquaintance with the Penfolds as far as he could; that he wasLydia's familiar correspondent, and constantly appealing for help to herknowledge of the country folk. An excellent road to intimacy, as Tathamuneasily admitted, considering Lydia's love for the people of the dales, and her passionate sympathy with the victims of Melrose's ill-deeds. 

Ah! but the very causes which had been throwing her into an intimacy withFaversham must surely now be chilling and drawing her back? Tatham, theyoung reformer, felt an honest indignation with the failure of ClaudeFaversham to do the obvious and necessary work he had promised to do. Tatham, the lover, knew very well that if he had come back to findFaversham the hero of the piece, with a grateful countryside at his feet, his own jealous anxiety would have been even greater than it was. For itwas great, argue with himself as he might. A dread for which he could notaccount often overshadowed him. It was caused perhaps by his constantmemory of Faversham and Lydia on the terrace at Threlfall--of the twofaces turned to each other--of the sudden fusion as it were of the twopersonalities in a common rush of memories, interests, and sympathies, inwhich he himself had no part.... 

He put up his letter on the stroke of midnight, and then walked his rooma while longer, struggling with himself and the passion of his desire;praying that he might win her. Finally he took a well-worn Bible from alocked drawer, and read some verses from the Gospel of St. John, quietinghimself. He never went to sleep without reading either a psalm or someportion of the New Testament. The influence of his Eton tutor had madehim a Christian of a simple and convinced type; and his mother'sagnosticism had never affected him. But he and she never talked ofreligion. 

Nothing arrived from Threlfall the following day during the morning. After luncheon, Victoria announced her intention of going to call on thePenfolds. 

"You can follow me there in the motor, " she said to her son; "and if anynews comes, bring it on. "

They were in the drawing-room. Netta, white and silent, was stretched onthe sofa, where Victoria had just spread a shawl over her. Feliciaappeared to be turning over an illustrated paper, but was in realitywatching the mother and son out of the corners of her eyes. Everythingthat was said containing a mention of the Penfolds struck in her anattentive ear. The casual conversation of the house had shown her alreadythat there were three ladies--two of them young--who were living not farfrom Duddon, and were objects of interest to both Lady Tatham and herson. Flowers were sent them, and new books. They were not relations; andnot quite ordinary acquaintances. All this had excited a furiouscuriosity in Felicia. She wished--was determined indeed--to see theseladies for herself. 

"You will hardly want to go out, " said Victoria gently, standing byNetta's sofa, and looking down with kind eyes on the weary woman lyingthere. 

Netta shook her head; then putting out her hand she took Victoria's andpressed it. Victoria understood that she was waiting feverishly for theanswer from Threlfall, and could do nothing and think of nothing till itarrived. 

"And your daughter?" She looked round for Felicia. 

"I wish to drive in a motor, " said Felicia, rising and speaking with adecision which amused Victoria. Pending the arrival from London of somewinter costumes on approval, Victoria's maid had arranged for the littleItalian a picturesque dress of dark blue silk, from a gown of hermistress', by which the emaciation of the girl's small frame was somewhatdisguised; while the beauty of the material, and of the delicateembroideries on the collar and sleeves, strangely heightened the grace ofher curly head, and the effect of her astonishing eyes, so liquidlybright, in a face too slight for them. 

In forty-eight hours, even, of comfort and cosseting her elfish thinnesshad become a shade less ghastly; and the self-possession which hademerged from the state of collapse in which she had arrived amazedVictoria. A week before, so it appeared, she had been earning a franca day in the vineyard of a friendly _contadino_. And already one mighthave thought her bred in castles. She was not abashed or bewildered bythe luxuries of Duddon, as Netta clearly was. Rather, she seemed to seizegreedily and by a natural instinct upon all that came her way--motors, pretty frocks, warm baths in luxurious bathrooms, and the attentions ofVictoria's maid. Victoria believed that she had grasped the wholesituation with regard to Threlfall. She was quite aware, it seemed, ofthe magnitude of her father's wealth; of all that hung upon her ownchances of inheritance; and of the value, to her cause and her mother's, of the support of Duddon. Her likeness to her father came out hour byhour, and there were moments when the tiny creature carried herself likea Melrose in miniature. 

Victoria's advent was awaited at Green Cottage, she having telephoned toMrs. Penfold in the morning, with something of a flutter. Her visitsthere had not been frequent; and this was the first time she had calledsince Tatham's proposal to Lydia. That event had never been avowed byLydia, as we have seen, even to her mother; Lydia and Victoria had neverexchanged a word on the subject. But Lydia was aware of the shrewdguessing of her family, and she did not suppose for one moment that LadyTatham was ignorant of anything that had happened. 

Mrs. Penfold, scarcely kept in order by Susy, was in much agitation. Shefelt terribly guilty. Lady Tatham must think them all monsters ofingratitude, and she wondered how she could be so kind as to come and seethem at all. She became at last so incoherent and tearful that Lydiaprepared for the worst, while Susy, the professed psychologist, revelledin the prospect of new "notes. "

But when Victoria arrived, entering the cottage drawing-room with herfine mannish face, her stately bearing, and her shabby clothes, the newsshe brought seized at once on Mrs. Penfold's wandering wits, and for themoment held them fast. For Victoria, whose secret object was to discover, if she could, any facts about Lydia's doings and feelings during theinterval of separation, that might throw light upon her Harry'spredicament, made it cunningly appear that she had come expressly to tellher neighbours of the startling event which was now agitating Duddon, asit would soon be agitating the countryside. 

Mrs. Penfold--steeped in long years of three-decker fiction--satentranced. The cast-off and ill-treated wife returning to the scene ofher misery--with the heiress!--grown up--and beautiful: she saw it all;she threw it all into the moulds dear to the sentimentalist. Victoriademurred to the adjective "beautiful"; suggesting "pretty--when we havefed her!" But Mrs. Penfold, with soft, shining eyes, already beheld themother and child weeping at the knees of the Ogre, the softening of theOgre's heart, the opening of the grim Tower to its rightful heiress, thehappy ending, the marriage gown in the distance. 

"For suppose!"--she turned gayly to her daughters for sympathy--"supposeshe were to marry Mr. Faversham! And then Mr. Melrose can have a stroke, and everything will come right!"

Lydia and Susy smiled dutifully. Victoria sat silent. Her silence checkedMrs. Penfold's flow, and brought her back, bewildered to realities; tothe sad remembrance of Lydia's astonishing and inscrutable behaviour. Whereupon her manner and conversation became so dishevelled, in hereffort to propitiate Lady Tatham without betraying either herself orLydia, that the situation grew quickly unbearable. 

"May I see your garden?" said Victoria abruptly to Lydia. Lydia rose withalacrity, opened the glass door into the garden, and by a motion of thelips only visible to Susy appealed to her to keep their mother indoors. 

A misty October sun reigned over the garden. The river ran sparklingthrough the valley, and on the farther side the slopes and jutting cragsof the Helvellyn range showed ghostly through the sunlit haze. '

A few absent-minded praises were given to the phloxes and the begonias. Then Victoria said, turning a penetrating eye on Lydia:

"You heard from Harry of the Melroses' arrival?"

"Yes--this morning. "

Bright colour rushed into Lydia's cheeks. Tatham's letter of thatmorning, the longest perhaps ever written by a man who detestedletter-writing, had touched her profoundly, caused her an agonizedsearching of conscience. Did Lady Tatham blame and detest her? Hermanner was certainly cool. The girl's heart swelled as she walked alongbeside her guest. 

"Everything depends on Mr. Faversham, " said Victoria. "You are a friendof his?" She took the garden chair that Lydia offered her. 

"Yes; we have all come to know him pretty well. "

Lydia's face, as she sat on the grass at Lady Tatham's feet, lookingtoward the fells, was scarcely visible to her companion. Victoria couldonly admire the beauty of the girl's hair, as the wind played with it, and the grace of her young form. 

"I am afraid he is disappointing all his friends, " she said gravely. 

"Is it his fault?" exclaimed Lydia. "Mr. Melrose must be mad!"

"I wonder if that excuses Mr. Faversham?"

"It's horrible for him!" said Lydia in a low, smothered voice. "He_wants_ to put things right?"

It was on the tip of Victoria's tongue to say, "Does he too write to youevery day?" but she refrained. 

"If he really wants to put things right, why has he done nothing allthese seven weeks?" she asked severely. "I saw Colonel Barton thismorning. He and Mr. Andover are in despair. They felt such confidence inMr. Faversham. The state of the Mainstairs village is too terrible!Everybody is crying out. The Carlisle papers this week are full of it. But there are scores of other things almost as bad. Mr. Faversham rushesabout--here, there, and everywhere--but with no result, they tell us, asfar as any of the real grievances are concerned. Mr. Melrose seems to beinfatuated about him personally; will give him everything he wants; andpays no attention whatever to his advice. And you know the latestreport?"

"No. " Lydia's face was bent over the grass, as she tried to aid abumble-bee which was lying on its back. 

"It is generally believed that Mr. Melrose has made him his heir. "

Lydia lifted a face of amazement, at first touched strangely with relief. "Then--surely--he will be able to do what he wants!"

"On the contrary. His silence has been bought--that's what people say. Mr. Melrose has bribed him to do his work, and defend his iniquities. "

"_Oh!_ Is that fair?" The humble-bee was so hastily poked on to his legsthat he tumbled over again. 

"Well, now, we shall test him!" said Victoria quietly. "We shall see whathe does with regard to Mrs. Melrose and her daughter. Harry will havetold you how he went to him yesterday. We had a telephone message thismorning to say that a letter would reach us this afternoon from Mr. Faversham. Harry will bring it on here; and I asked him to bring FeliciaMelrose with him in the car. We thought you would be interested to seeher. "

There was a pause. At last Lydia said slowly:

"How will you test Mr. Faversham? I don't understand. "

"Unless the man is an adventurer, " said Victoria, straightening hershoulders, "he will, of course, do his best to put this girl--who is therightful heiress--into her proper place. What business has he with Mr. Melrose's estates?"

Lady Tatham spoke with imperious energy. 

Lydia's eyes showed an almost equal animation. 

"May he not share with her? Aren't they immense?"

"At present he takes everything--so they say. It looks ugly. A completestranger--worming himself in a few weeks or months into an old man'sconfidence--and carrying off the inheritance from a pair of helplesswomen! And making himself meanwhile the tool of a tyrant!--aiding andabetting him in all his oppressions!"

"Oh, Lady Tatham! no, no!" cried Lydia--the cry seemed wrung fromher--"I--we--have only known Mr. Faversham this short time--but _how_can one believe--"

She paused, her eyes under their vividly marked eyebrows painfullysearching the face of her companion. 

Victoria said to herself, "Heavens!--she _is_ in love with him--and sheis letting Harry sit up at nights to write to her!"

Her mother's heart beat fast with anger. But she held herself in hand. 

"Well; as I have said, we shall soon be able to test him, " she repeated, coldly; "we shall soon know what to think. His letter will show whetherhe is a man with feeling and conscience--a gentleman--or an adventurer!"

There was silence. Lydia was thinking passionately of Mainstairs andof the deep tones of a man's voice--"If _you_ condemn and misunderstandme--then indeed I shall lose heart!"

A humming sound could be heard in the far distance. 

"Here they are, " said Lady Tatham rising. Victoria's half-masculinebeauty had never been so formidable as it was this afternoon. Deep in herheart, she carried both pity for Harry, and scorn for this foolish girlwalking beside her, who could not recognize her good fortune when itcried out to her. 

They hastened back to the drawing-room; and at the same moment Tatham andFelicia walked in. 

Felicia advanced with perfect self-command, her small face flushed withpink by the motion of the car. In addition to the blue frock, Victoria'smaid had now provided her with a short cape of black silk, and a widestraw hat, to which the girl herself had given a kind of tilt, a touch ofaudacity, in keeping with all the rest of her personality. 

As she came in, she glanced round the room with her uncannily largeeyes--her mother's eyes--taking in all the company. She dropped a littlecurtsey to Mrs. Penfold, in whom the excitement of this sudden appearanceof Melrose's daughter had produced sheer and simple dumbness. She allowedher hand to be shaken by Lydia and Susy, looking sharply at the former;while Susy looked sharply at her. Then she subsided into a corner by LadyTatham. It was evident that she regarded herself as under that lady'sparticular protection. 

"Well?" said Lady Tatham in an eager aside to her son. She read hisaspect as that of a man preoccupied. 

Tatham shrugged his shoulders with a glance at Felicia. Victoriawhispered to Lydia: "Will you tell your mother I want to speak a fewwords to Harry on business?"

Mother and son passed into the garden together. 

"A declaration of war!" said Tatham, as he handed a letter to her. "Ipropose to instruct our solicitors at once. "

Victoria read hastily. The writing was Faversham's. But the mindexpressed was Melrose's. Victoria read him in every line. She believedthe letter to have been simply dictated. 

"DEAR LORD TATHAM:

"I have laid Mrs. Melrose's statement before Mr. Melrose. I regret to saythat he sees no cause to modify the arrangements made years ago withregard to his wife, except that, in consideration of the fact that MissMelrose is now grown up, he will add £20 yearly to Mrs. Melrose'sallowance, making it £100 a year. Provision will be made for thecontinuance of this allowance to Mrs. Melrose till her death, andafterward to the daughter for her lifetime; _on condition that_ Mr. Melrose is not further molested in any way. Otherwise Mr. Melroseacknowledges and will acknowledge no claim upon him whatever. 

"I am to add that if Mrs. Melrose is in difficulties, it is entirelyowing to the dishonest rapacity of her family who have been living uponher. Mr. Melrose is well acquainted with both the past and recent historyof Mr. Robert Smeath, who made a tool of Mrs. Melrose in the matter of adisgraceful theft of a valuable bronze from Mr. Melrose's collection--"

"The Hermes!" cried Victoria. "She has never said one word to me aboutit. "

"Miss Melrose has been telling me the story, " said Tatham, smiling at therecollection. "By George, that's a rum little girl! She glories in it. But she says her mother has been consumed with remorse ever since. Goon. "

"And if any attempt is made to blackmail or coerce Mr. Melrose, he willbe obliged, much against his will, to draw the attention of the Italianpolice to certain matters relating to Mr. Smeath, of which he has theevidence in his possession. He warns Mrs. Melrose that her father'scareer cannot possibly bear examination. 

"I regret that my reply cannot be more satisfactory to you. 

"Believe me, "Yours faithfully, "CLAUDE FAVERSHAM. "

Victoria had turned pale. 

"How _abominable_! Why, her father is bedridden and dying!"

"So I told Faversham--like a fool. For it only--apparently--gives Melrosea greater power of putting on the screw. Well, now look here--here'ssomething else. " He drew another letter from his pocket, and handed it toher. 

Victoria unfolded a second note from Faversham--marked "confidential, "and written in evident agitation. 

"MY DEAR TATHAM:

"I am powerless. Let me implore you to keep Mrs. Melrose quiet! Privatelya great deal may be done for her. If she will only trust herself to me, in my private capacity, I will see that she is properly supplied for thefuture. But she will simply bring disaster on herself if she attempts toforce Melrose. She--and you--know what he is. I beg of you to beguided--and to guide her--as I advise. "

"An attempt, you see, to buy us off, " said Tatham scornfully. "I proposeto take the night train from Pengarth this evening, and consult oldFledhow to-morrow morning. "

"Old Fledhow, " _alias_ James Morton Fledhow, solicitor, head of one ofthat small group of firms which, between them, have the great estates ofEngland in their pigeon-holes, had been the legal adviser of the Tathamfamily for two generations. Precipitation is not the badge of his tribe;but Victoria threw herself upon this very natural and youthful impulse, before even it could reach "old Fledhow. "

"My dear Harry, be cautious! What did Mrs. Melrose say? Of course youshowed her the letter?"

Tatham candidly admitted that he hardly knew what Mrs. Melrose had said. The letter had thrown her into a great state of agitation, and she hadcried a good deal. "Poor pápa, poor pápa!" pronounced with the accent onthe first syllable, seemed to have been all that she had been able toarticulate. 

"You know, Harry, there may be a great deal in it?" Victoria'scountenance showed her doubts. 

"In the threat about her father? Pure bluff, mother!--absolute bluff! Asfor the bronze--a wife can't steal from her husband. And under thesecircumstances!--I should like to see a British jury that would touchher!"

"But she admits that half the proceeds went to her father. "

"Twenty years ago?" Tatham's shrug was magnificent. "I tell you he'll getno change out of that!"

"But he hints at other things?"

"Bluff again! Why the man's helpless in his bed!"

"I suppose even dying can be made more unpleasant by the police, " saidVictoria. She pondered, walking thoughtfully beside a rather thwarted andimpatient youth, eager to play the champion of the distressed in his ownway; and that, possibly, from more motives than one. Suddenly her facecleared. 

"I will go myself!" she said, laying her hand on her son's arm. 

"Mother!"

"Yes! I'll go myself. Leave it to me, Harry. I will drive over toThrelfall to-morrow evening--quite alone and without notice. I had someinfluence with him once, " she said, with her eyes on the ground. 

Tatham protested warmly. The smallest allusion to any early relationbetween his mother and Melrose was almost intolerable to him. But LadyTatham fought for her idea. She pointed out again that Melrose might verywell have some information that could be used with ghastly effect evenupon a dying man; that Netta was much attached to her father, and wouldprobably not make up her mind to any drastic step whatever in face ofMelrose's threats. 

"I don't so much care about Mrs. Melrose, " exclaimed Tatham. "We cangive her money, and make her comfortable, if it comes to that. Butit's the girl--and the hideous injustice of that fellow there--thatFaversham--ousting her from her rights--getting the old man into hispower--boning his property--and then writing hypocritical notes likethat!"

He stood before her, flushed and excited; a broad-shouldered avenger ofthe sex, such as any distressed maiden might have been glad to lightupon. But again Victoria was aware that the case was not as simple as itsounded. However, she was no less angry than he. Mother and son were onthe brink of making common cause against a grasping impostor; who was notto be allowed to go off--either with money that did not belong to him, orwith angelic sympathies that still less belonged to him. Meanwhile onthis point, whatever may have been in their minds, they said on thisoccasion not a word. Victoria pressed her plan. And in the end Tathammost reluctantly consented that she should endeavour to force a surpriseinterview with Melrose the following day. 

They returned to the little drawing-room where Felicia Melrose, itseemed, had been giving the Penfolds a difficult half hour. For as soonas the Tathams had stepped into the garden, she had become entirelymonosyllabic; after a drive from Duddon at Harry Tatham's side, duringwhich, greatly to her host's surprise, she had suddenly and unexpectedlyfound her tongue, talking, in a torrent of questions, all the way, insatiably. 

Mrs. Penfold, on her side, could do little but stare at "the heiress ofThrelfall. " Susy, studying her with shining eyes, tried to make her talk, to little purpose. 

But Lydia in particular could get nothing out of her. It seemed to herthat Felicia looked at her as though she disliked her. And every now andthen the small stranger would try to see herself in the only mirror thatthe cottage drawing-room afforded; lengthening out her long, thin neck, and turning her curly head stealthily from side to side like a swanpreening. Once, when she thought no one was observing her, she took acarnation from a vase near her--it had been sent over from Duddon thatmorning!--and put it in her dress. And the next moment, having pulled offher glove, she looked with annoyance at her own roughened hand, and thenat Lydia's delicate fingers playing with a paper-knife. Frowning, shehastily slipped her glove on again. 

As soon as Tatham and his mother reappeared, she jumped up with alacrity, a smile breaking with sudden and sparkled beauty on her pinched face, andwent to stand by Victoria's side, looking up at her with eager docilityand admiration. 

Victoria, however, left her, in order to draw Lydia into a corner besidea farther window. 

"I am sorry to say Harry has received a very unsatisfactory letter fromMr. Faversham. "

"May I ask him about it?"

"He wants to tell you. I am carrying Miss Melrose back with me. But Harrywill stay. "

Words which cost Victoria a good deal. If what she now believed was thetruth, how monstrous that her Harry should be kept dangling here! Herpride was all on edge. But Harry ruled her. She could make no move tillhis eyes too were opened. 

Meanwhile, on all counts, Faversham was the enemy. To that _chasse_ firstand foremost, Victoria vowed herself. 

 * * * * *

"Well, what do you think of her?" said Tatham, good-humouredly, as heraised his hat to Felicia and his mother disappearing in the car. "She'smore alive to-day; but you can see she has been literally starved. That_brute_ Melrose!"

Lydia made some half audible reply, and with a view to prolonging his_tête-à-tête_ with her, he led her strolling along the road, through agolden dusk, touched with moonrise. She followed, but all her pleasantself-confidence with regard to him was gone; she walked beside him, miserable and self-condemned; a theorist defeated by the incalculableforces of things. How to begin with him--what line to take--how to undoher own work--she did not know; her mind was in confusion. 

As for him, he was no sooner alone with her than bliss descended on him. He forgot Faversham and the Melroses. He only wished to talk to her, andof himself. Surely, so much, "friendship" allowed. 

He began, accordingly, to comment eagerly on her letters to him, and histo her, explaining this, questioning that. Every word showed her afreshthat her letters had been the landmarks of his Scotch weeks, the chiefevents of his summer; and every word quickened a new remorse. At last shecould bear it no longer. She broke abruptly on his talk. 

"Mayn't I know what's happened at Threlfall? Your mother told me--you hadheard. "

He pulled himself together, while many things he would rather haveforgotten rushed back upon him. 

"We're no forrader!" he said impatiently. "I don't believe we shallget a brass farthing out of Melrose, if you ask me; at least withoutgoing to law and making a scandal; partly because he's Melrose, andthat sort--sooner die than climb down, and the rest of it--but mostly--"

He broke off. 

"Mostly?" repeated Lydia. 

"I don't know whether I'd better go on. Faversham's a friend of yours. "

Tatham looked down upon her, his blunt features reddening. 

"Not so much a friend that I can't hear the truth about him, " said Lydia, smiling rather faintly. "What do you accuse him of?"

He hesitated a moment; then the inner heat gathered, and flashed out. Wasn't it best to be frank?--best for her, best for himself?

"Don't you think it looks pretty black?" he asked her, breathingquick; "there he is, getting round an old man, and plotting for moneyhe's no right to! Wouldn't you have thought that any decent fellowwould sooner break stones than take the money that ought to have beenthat girl's--that at least he'd have said to Melrose 'provide for herfirst--your own child--and then do what you like for me. ' Wouldn't thathave been the honest thing to do? But I went to him yesterday--told himthe story--he promised to look into it--and to use his influence. We senthim a statement in proper form, a few hours later. It's horrible whatthose two have suffered! And then, to-day--it's too dark for you toread his precious letter, but if you really don't mind, I'lltell you the gist of it. "

He summarized it--quite fairly--yet with a contempt he did not try toconceal. The girl at his side, muffled in a blue cloak, with a dark hoodframing the pale gold of the hair, and the delicate curves of the face, listened in silence. At the end she said:

"Tell me on what grounds you think Mr. Melrose has left his property toMr. Faversham?"

"Everybody believes it! My Carlisle lawyers whom I saw this morning areconvinced of it. Melrose is said to have spoken quite frankly about it tomany persons. "

"Not very strong evidence on which to condemn a man so utterly as youcondemn him, " said Lydia, with sudden emotion. "Think of the difficultyof his position! May he not be honestly trying to steer his way? And maynot we all be doing our best to make his task impossible, putting theworst construction--the very worst!--on everything he does?"

There was silence a moment. Tatham and Lydia were looking into eachother's faces; the girl's soul, wounded and fluttering, was in hereyes. Tatham felt a sudden and choking sense of catastrophe. Theirhouse of cards had fallen about them, and his stubborn hopes with it. She, with her high standards, could not possibly defend--could notpossibly plead--for a man who was behaving so shabbily, so dishonourably, except--for one reason! He leapt indignantly at certainty; although itwas a certainty that tortured him. 

"There is evidence enough!" he said, in a changed voice. "I don'tunderstand how you can stick up for him. "

"I don't, " she said sadly, "not if it's true. But I don't want to believeit. Why should one want to believe the worst, you and I, about anybody?"

Tatham kept an explosive silence for a moment, and then broke outhoarsely:

"Do you remember, we promised we'd be real friends?--we'd be really frankwith each other? I've kept my bargain. Are you keeping it? Isn't theresomething you haven't told me!--something I ought to know?"

"No, nothing!" cried Lydia, with sudden energy. "You misunderstand--youoffend me. "

She drew her breath quickly. There were angry tears in her eyes, hiddenby the hood. 

A gust of passion swept through Tatham, revealing his manhood to itself. He stopped, caught her hands, and held them fiercely, imprisoned againsthis breast. She must needs look up at him; male strength compelled;they stood motionless a few seconds under the shadows of the trees. 

"If there _is_ nothing--if I _do_ misunderstand--if I'm wrong in what Ithink--for God's sake listen to me--give me back my promise. I can't--Ican't keep it!"

He stooped and kissed the fingers he held, once, twice, repeatedly; thenturned away, shading his eyes with his hand. 

Lydia said, with a little moan:

"Oh, Harry!--we've broken the spell. "

Tatham recovered himself with difficulty. 

"Can't you--can't you ever care for me?" The voicewas low, the eyes still hidden. 

"We oughtn't to have been writing and meeting!" cried Lydia, in despair. "It was foolish, wrong! I see it now. I ask your pardon. We must saygood-bye, Harry--and--oh!--oh!--I'm so sorry I let you--"

Her voice died away. 

In the distance of the lane, a labourer emerged whistling from a gate, with his dog. Tatham's hands dropped to his sides; they walked ontogether as before. The man passed them with a cheerful good-night. 

Tatham spoke slowly. 

"Yes--perhaps--we'd better not meet. I can't--control myself. And Ishould go on offending you. "

A chasm seemed to have opened between them. They turned and walked backto the gate of the cottage. When they reached it, Tatham crushed her handagain in his. 

"Good-bye! If ever I can do anything to serve you--let me know!Good-bye!--dearest--_dearest_ Lydia. " His voice sank and lingered onthe name. The lamp at the gate showed him that her eyes were swimmingin tears. 

"You'll forgive me?" she said, imploringly. 

He attempted a laugh, which ended in a sound of pain. Then he lifted herhand again, kissed it, and was gone; running--head down--through thedimness of the lane. 

Meanwhile, wrapped in the warm furs of the motor, Felicia and Lady Tathamsped toward Duddon. 

Felicia was impenetrably silent at first; and Victoria, who neverfound it easy to adapt herself to the young, made no effort to rouseher. Occasionally some passing light showed her the girl's pallidprofile--slightly frowning brow, and pinched lips--against the darklining of the car. And once or twice as she saw her thus, she wasstartled by the likeness to Melrose. 

When they were halfway home, a thin, high voice struck into the silence, deliberately clear:

"Who is the Signorina Penfold?"

"Her mother is a widow. They have lived here about two years. "

"She is not pretty. She is too pale. I do not like that hair, " saidFelicia, viciously. 

Victoria could not help an unseen smile. 

"Everybody here thinks her pretty. She is very clever, and a beautifulartist, " she said, with slight severity. 

The gesture beside her was scarcely discernible. But Victoria thought itwas a toss of the head. 

"Everybody in Italy can paint. It is as common--as common aslizards! There are dozens of people in Lucca who can paint--a wholevilla--ceilings, walls--what you like. Nobody thinks anything at allabout them. But Italian girls are very clever also! There were two girlsin Lucca--Marchesine--the best family in Lucca. They got all the prizesat the Licéo, and then they went to Pisa to the University; and one ofthem was a Doctor of Law; and when they came home, all the street inwhich they lived and their _palazzo_ were lit up. And they were verypretty too!"

"And you--did you go to the Licéo, Felicia?"

"No! I had never any education--none, none, _none_! But I could get it, if I wanted, " said the voice, defiantly. 

"Of course you could. I have asked your mother to stay with us tillChristmas. You might get some lessons in Carlisle. We could send you in. "

Felicia, however, made no response to this at all, and Victoria felt thather proposal had fallen flat. But, after a minute or two, she heard:

"I should like--to learn--to _ride_!"

Much emphasis on the last word; accompanied by nodding of the fantasticlittle head. 

"Well, we shall see!" laughed Victoria, indulgently. 

"And then--I would go out--with Lord Tatham!" said Felicia. "Oh, but heis too _divine_ on horseback! There were some Italian cavalry officers atLucca. I used to run to the window every time to see them pass by. But heis nobler--he is handsomer!"

Victoria, taken by surprise, wondered if it would not be well toadminister a little snubbing to compliments so unabashed. She tried. ButFelicia interrupted her:

"Do you not admire him--your son?" she said eagerly, slipping up close toVictoria. "Can he jump and swim rivers--on his horse--and come downmountains--on his haunches--like our _cavalleria_? I am certain he can!"

"He can do most things on a horse. When the hunting begins, you willsee, " said Victoria, smiling in spite of herself. 

"Tell me, please, what is the hunting? And about the shooting, too. LordTatham told me--this afternoon--some ladies shoot. Oh, but I will learnto shoot! I swear it--yes! Now tell me!"

Thus attacked, the formidable Victoria capitulated. She was soon in themidst of stories of her Harry, from his first pony upward. And she hadnot gone far before a tiny hand slipped itself into hers and nestledthere; moving and quivering occasionally, like a wild bird voluntarilytame. And when the drive ended, Victoria was quite sorry to lose itslithe softness. 

XVI

Victoria very soon perceived that a crisis had come and gone. She hadbeen accustomed for a while before they went to Scotland to send aboutonce a week a basket of flowers and fruit from the famous gardens ofDuddon, with her "kind regards" to Mrs. Penfold. The basket was generallybrought into the hall, and Tatham would slip into it the new books ormagazines that seemed to him likely to attract the cottage party. He hadalways taken a particular pleasure in the dispatch of the basket, and inthe contrivance of some new offering of which it might be the bearer. Victoria, on the other hand, though usually a lavish giver, had taken buta grudging part in the business, and merely to please her son. 

On the day following the visit to the cottage, the basket, in obedienceto a standing order, lay in the hall as usual, heaped with a gorgeousmass of the earliest chrysanthemums. Victoria observed it--with anunfriendly eye--as she passed through the hall on her way to breakfast. 

Harry came up behind her, and she turned to give him her morning kiss. 

"Please don't send it, " he said abruptly, pointing to the basket. "Itwouldn't be welcome. "

She started, but made no reply. They went into breakfast. Victoria gavethe butler directions that the flowers should be sent to the Rectory. 

After breakfast she followed Tatham into the library. He stood silent awhile by the window, looking out, his hands in his pockets; she besidehim, leaning her head against his arm. 

"It's all over, " he said at last; "we decided it last night. "

"What's over, dear old boy?"

"I broke our compact--I couldn't help it--and we saw it couldn't go on. "

"You--asked her again?"

He nodded. "It's no good. And now it only worries her that I should hangabout. We can't--even be friends. It's all my fault. "

"You poor darling!" cried his mother indignantly. "She has played withyou abominably. "

He flushed with anger. 

"You mustn't say that--you mustn't think it, mother! All these weeks havebeen--to the good. They haven't been the real thing. But I shall alwayshave them--to remember. Now it's done with. "

Silence fell upon them again, while their minds went back over thehistory of the preceding six months. Victoria felt very bitter. And so, apparently, in his own way, did he. For he presently said, with avehemence which startled her:

"I'd sooner be shot than see her marry that fellow!"

"Ah! you suspect that?"

"It looks like it, " he said reluctantly. "And unless I'm much mistaken, he's a mean cad! But--for her sake--we'll make sure--we'll give him everychance. "

"It is of course possible, " said Victoria grudgingly, "that he hashonestly tried to do something for the Melroses. "

"I daresay!" said Tatham, with a shrug. 

"And it is possible also that if he is the heir, he means to make it upto Felicia, when he comes into it all. "

Tatham laughed. 

"To throw her a spare bone? Very likely. But how are we to know thatMelrose won't bind him by all sorts of restrictions? A vindictiveold villain like that will do anything. Then we shall have Favershamcalmly saying, 'Very sorry I can't oblige you! But if I modify theterms of the will in your favour, I forfeit the estates. ' Besidesisn't it monstrous--damnable--that Melrose's daughter should owe to_charity_--the charity of a fellow who had never heard of Melrose orThrelfall six months ago--what is her _right_--her plain and simpleright?"

Victoria agreed. All these ancestral ideas of family maintenance, and thepractical rights dependent on family ties, which were implied in Harry'sattitude, were just as real to her as to his simpler mind. Yet she knewvery well that Netta and Felicia Melrose were fast becoming to him themere symbols and counters of a struggle that affected him moreintimately, more profoundly than any crusading effort for the legal andmoral rights of a couple of strangers could possibly have done. 

Lydia had broken with him, and his hopes were dashed. Why? Becauseanother man had come upon the scene whose influence upon her wasclear--disastrously clear. 

"If he were a decent fellow--I'd go out of her life--without a word. Buthe's a thievish intriguer!--and I don't intend to hold my hand till I'vebrought him out in his true colours before her and the world. Then--ifshe chooses--with her eyes open--let her take him!" It was thus hismother imagined his thought, and she was not far from the truth. Andmeanwhile the sombre changes in the boyish face made her own heart sore. For they told of an ill heat of blood, and an embittered soul. 

At luncheon he sat depressed and silent, doing his duty with an effort tohis mother's guests. Netta also was in the depths. She had lost the powerof rapid recuperation that youth gave to Felicia, and in spite of thecomforts of Threlfall her aspect was scarcely less deplorable than whenshe arrived. Moreover she had cried much since the delivery of theThrelfall letter the day before. Her eyes were red, and her small facedisfigured. Felicia, on the other hand, sat with her nose in the air, evidently despising her mother's tears, and as sharply observant as everof the sights about her--the quietly moving servants, the flowers, andsilver, the strange, nice things to eat. Tatham, absorbed in his ownthoughts, did not perceive how, in addition, she watched the master ofthe house; Victoria was uncomfortably aware of it. 

After luncheon Tatham took up a Bradshaw lying on a table in the panelledhall, where they generally drank coffee, and looked up the night mail toEuston. 

"I shall catch it at Carlisle, " he said to his mother, book in hand. "There will be time to hear your report before I go. "

She nodded. Her own intention was to start at dusk for Threlfall. 

"Why are you going away?" said Felicia suddenly. 

He turned to her courteously:

"To try to straighten your affairs!"

"That won't do us any good--to go away. " Her voice was shrill, her blackeyes frowned. "We shan't know what to do--by ourselves. "

"And it's precisely because I also don't know exactly what to do next, that I'm going to town. We must get some advice--from the lawyers. "

"I hate lawyers!" The girl flushed angrily. "I went to one in Luccaonce--we wanted a paper drawn up. Mamma was ill. I had to go by myself. He was a brute!"

"Oh, my old lawyer is not a brute, " said Tatham, laughing. "He's a jollyold chap. "

"The man in Lucca was a horrid brute!" repeated Felicia. "He wanted tokiss me! There was a vase of flowers standing on his desk. I threw themat him. It cut him. I was so glad! His forehead began to bleed, and thewater ran down from his hair. He looked so ugly and silly! I walked allthe way home up the mountains, and when I got home I fainted. We neverwent to that man again. "

"I should think not!" exclaimed Tatham, with disgust. For the first timehe looked at her attentively. An English girl would not have told himthat story in the same frank, upstanding way. But this little elfishcreature, with her blazing eyes, friendless and penniless in the world, had probably been exposed to experiences the English girl would knownothing of. He did not like to think of them. That beast, her father!

He was going away, when Felicia said, her curly head alittle on one side, her tone low and beguiling:

"When you come back, will you teach me to ride? Lady Tathamsaid--perhaps--"

Tatham was embarrassed--and bored--by the request. 

"I have no doubt we can find you a pony, " he said evasively, and takingup the Bradshaw he walked away. 

Felicia stood alone and motionless in the big hall, amid itsGainsboroughs and Romneys, its splendid cabinets and tapestries, achildish figure in a blue dress, with crimson cheeks, and compressedlips. Suddenly she ran up to a mirror on the wall, and looked at herselfvindictively. 

"It is because you are so ugly, " she said to the image in the glass. "Ugh, you are so ugly! And yet I can't have yellow hair like thatother girl. If I dyed it, he would know--he would laugh. And she is allround and soft; but my bones are all sticking out! I might be cut out ofwood. Ah"--her wild smile broke out--"I know what I'll do! I'll drink_panna_--cream they call it here. Every night at tea they bring in whatwould cost a _lira_ in Florence. I'll drink a whole cup of it!--I'll eatpounds of butter--and lots, lots of pudding--that's what makes Englishpeople fat. I'll be fat too. You'll see!" And she threw a threatening nodat the scarecrow reflected in the tortoise-shell mirror. 

The October evening had fallen when Tatham put his mother into the motor, and stood, his hands in his pockets--uncomfortable and disapproving--onthe steps of Duddon, watching the bright lights disappearing down thelong avenue. What could she do? He hated to think of her in the oldmiser's house, browbeaten and perhaps insulted, when he was not there toprotect her. 

However she was gone, on what he was certain would prove a futile errand, and he turned heavily back into the house. 

The head keeper was waiting in the inner hall, in search of orders for asmall "shoot" of neighbours on the morrow, planned some weeks before. 

"Arrange it as you like, Thurston!" said Tatham hurriedly, as he came insight of the man, a magnificent grizzled fellow in gaiters and a greenuniform. "I don't care where we go. "

"I thought perhaps the Colley Wood beat, my lord--"

"Yes, capital. That'll do. I leave it to you. Sorry I can't stay to talkit over. Good-night!"

"There's a pair of foxes, my lord, in the Nowers spinney that have beendoing a shocking amount of damage lately.... "

But the door of the library was already shut. Thurston went away, bothastonished and aggrieved. There were few things he liked better than achat with the young fellow whom he had taught to hold a gun; and Tathamwas generally the most accessible of masters and the keenest ofsportsmen, going into every detail of the shooting parties himself, withan unfailing spirit. 

Meanwhile Victoria was speeding eastward in her motor along the Pengarthroad. Darkness was fast rushing on. To her left she saw the spreadingwaste of Flitterdale Common, its great stretches of moss livid in thedusk: and beyond it, westward, the rounded tops and slopes of the rangethat runs from Great Dodd to Helvellyn. Presently she made out, in thedistance, looking southward from the high-level road on which the car wasrunning, the great enclosure of Threlfall Park, on either side of theriver which ran between her and Flitterdale; the dim line of its circlingwall; its scattered woods; and farther on, the square mass of the Toweritself, black above the trees. 

The car stopped at a gate, a dark and empty lodge beside it. The footmanjumped down. Was the gate locked?--and must she go round to Whitebeck, and make her attack from that side? No, the gate swung open, and in spedthe car. 

Victoria sat upright, her mood strung to an intensity which knew nofears. It was twenty years since she had last seen Edmund Melrose, and itwas thirty years and more since she had rescued her sister from hisgrasp, and the duel between herself and him had ended in her finalvictory. 

How dim they seemed, those far-off days!--when for some two or threeyears, either in London or in Paris, where her father was Ambassador, shehad been in frequent contact with a group of young men--of young"bloods"--conspicuous in family and wealth, among whom Edmund Melrose wasthe reckless leader of a dare-devil set. She thought of a famous pictureof the young Beckford, by Lawrence, to which Melrose on the youngerside of forty had been frequently compared. The same romantic beauty offeature, the same liquid depth of eye, the same splendid carriage; and, combined with these, the same insolence and selfishness. There had beenin Victoria's earlier youth moments when to see him enter a ballroom wasto feel her head swim with excitement; when to carry him off from a rivalwas a passionate delight; when she coveted his praise, and dreaded hissarcasm. And yet--it was perfectly true what she had said to Harry. Shehad never been in love with him. The imagination of an "unlessoned girl"had been fired; but when the glamour in which it had wrapped the man hadbeen torn away by the disclosure of some ugly facts concerning him; whenshe broke with him in disgust, and induced others to break with him; itwas not her feelings, not her heart, which had suffered. 

Nevertheless, so complex a thing is a woman, that as Victoria Tatham drewnearer to the Tower, and to Melrose, she felt herself strangely meltingtoward him--a prey to pity and the tears of things. She alone in thiscountryside had been a witness of his meteor like youth; she alone couldset it beside his sordid and dishonoured age. 

What did she hope to do with him? The plight of his wife and daughter hadroused her strongest and most indignant sympathy. The cry of wrong orinjustice had always found her fiercely responsive. Whatever an outsidercould do to help Melrose's local victims she had done, not once but manytimes. Her mind was permanently in revolt against him, both as a man anda landlord. She had watched and judged him for years. Yet, now thatyet another of his misdeeds was to bring her again into personal contactwith him, her pulse quickened; some memory of the old ascendencysurvived. 

It was a still and frosty evening. As the motor drew up in the walledenclosure before the Tower, the noise of its brakes echoed through theprofound silence in which the Tower was wrapped. No sign of life in thedark front; no ray of light anywhere from its shuttered windows. 

Yet, to her astonishment, as she alighted, and before she had rung thebell, the front door was thrown open, and Dixon with a couple of dogs athis heels ran down the steps. 

At sight however of the veiled and cloaked lady who had descended fromthe motor, the old man stopped short, evidently surprised. With anexclamation Victoria did not catch, he retreated to the threshold of thehouse. 

She mounted rapidly, not noticing that a telegraph boy on a bicycle hadcome wheeling into the forecourt behind her. 

"Is Mr. Melrose at home?"

As she threw back her veil, Dixon stared at her in dumb amazement. Thenshe suddenly perceived behind him a tall figure advancing. She made a fewsteps forward through the dimly lighted hall, and found herself within afoot of Edmund Melrose himself. 

He gave a start--checked himself--and stood staring at her. He worespectacles, and was leaning on a stick. She had a quick impression ofphysical weakness and decay. 

Without any visible embarrassment she held out her hand. 

"I am lucky to have found you at home, Mr. Melrose. Will you give metwenty minutes' conversation on some important business?"

"Excuse me!" he said with a profound bow, and a motion of the lefthand toward the stick on which he supported himself--"or rather myinfirmities. "

Victoria's hand dropped. 

His glittering eyes surveyed her. Dixon approached him holding out atelegram. 

"Allow me, " said Melrose, as he tore open the envelope and perusedthe message. "Ah! I thought so! You were mistaken, Lady Tatham--foranother visitor--one of those foreign fellows who waste so much ofmy time--coming to see a few little things of mine. Shut the door, Dixon--the man has missed his train. Now, Lady Tatham!--you have somebusiness to discuss with me. Kindly step this way. "

He turned toward the gallery. Victoria followed, and Dixon was left inthe hall, staring after them in a helpless astonishment. 

The gallery lit by hanging lamps made a swift impression of splendidspace and colour on Lady Tatham as she passed through it in Melrose'swake. He led the way without a word, till he reached the door of his ownroom. 

She passed into the panelled library which has been already described inthe course of this narrative. On this October evening, however, itsaspect was not that generally presented by Melrose's "den. " Its ordinaryhugger-mugger had been cleared away--pushed back into corners and out ofsight. But on the splendid French bureau, and on various other tables andcabinets of scarcely less beauty, there stood ranged in careful ordera wealth of glorious things. The light of a blazing fire, and of manylamps played on some fifty or sixty dishes and vases from the great daysof Italian majolica--specimens of Gubbio, Faenza, Caffagiolo, of therarest and costliest quality. The room glowed and sparkled with colour. The gold of Italian sunshine, the azure of Italian skies, the purple ofItalian grapes seemed to have been poured into it, and to have takenshape in these lustrous ewers and plaques, in their glistering greens andyellows, their pale opalescence, their superb orange and blue. While as abackground to the show, a couple of curtains--Venetian cut-velvet of theseventeenth century, of faded but still gorgeous blue and rose--had beenhung over a tall screen. 

"What marvellous things!" cried Victoria, throwing up her hands andforgetting everything else for the moment but the pleasure of a trainedeye. 

Melrose smiled. 

"Pray take that chair!" he said, with exaggerated deference. "Yourvisits are rare, Lady Tatham! Is it--twenty years? I regret I have nodrawing-room in which to receive you. But Mr. Faversham and I talk offurnishing it before long. You are, I believe, acquainted with Mr. Faversham?"

He waved his hand, and suddenly Victoria became aware of another personin the room. Faversham standing tall and silent, amid the show ofmajolica, bowed to her formally, and Victoria slightly acknowledged thegreeting. It seemed to her that Melrose's foraging eyes travelledmaliciously between her and the agent. 

"Mr. Faversham and I only unpacked a great part of this stuff yesterday, "said Melrose, with much apparent good humour. "It has been shut up in oneof the north rooms ever since a sale in Paris at which I bought most ofthe pieces. Crockett wished to see it" (he named the most famous Americancollector of the day). "He shall see it. I understand he will be hereto-morrow, having missed his train to-day. He will come no doubt with hischeck-book. It amuses me to lead these fellows on, and then bid them goodmorning. They have the most infernal assumptions. One has to teach themthat an Englishman is a match for any American!"

Victoria sat passive. Faversham took up a pile of letters and movedtoward the door. As he opened it, he turned and his eyes met Victoria's. She wavered a moment under the passionate and haughty resentment theyseemed to express, no doubt a reflection of the reply to his letter senthim by Harry that morning. Then the door shut and she was alone withMelrose. 

That gentleman leant back in his chair observing her. He wore the curiouscloaklike garment of thin black stuff, in which for some years past hehad been accustomed to dress when indoors; and the skullcap on hissilvery white hair gave added force to the still splendid head andaquiline features. A kind of mocking satisfaction seemed to flickerthrough the wrinkled face; and the general aspect of the man was stillformidable indeed. And yet it was the phantom of a man that she beheld. He had paled to the diaphanous whiteness of the Catholic ascetic; hishand shook upon his stick; the folds of the cloak barely concealed theemaciation of his body. Victoria, gazing at him, seemed to perceivestrange intimations and presages, and, in the deep harsh eyes, a spiritat bay. 

She began quietly, bending forward:

"Mr. Melrose, I have come to speak to you on behalf of your wife. "

"So I imagined. I should not allow any one else, Lady Tatham, to addressme on the subject. "

"Thank you. I resolved--as you see--to appeal once more to our old--"

"Friendship?" he suggested. 

"Yes--friendship, " she repeated, slowly. "It might have been calledso--once. "

"Long ago! So long ago that--I do not see how anything practical can comeof appealing to it, " he said, pointedly. "Moreover, the manner in whichthe friendship was trampled on--by you--not once, but twice, not onlydestroyed it, but--if I may say so--replaced it. "

His hollow eyes burned upon her. Wrapped in his cloak, his white hairgleamimg amid the wonderful ewers and dishes, he had the aspect of somewizard or alchemist, of whom a woman might ask poison for her rival, or aphilter for her lover. Victoria, fascinated, was held partly by theapparition before her, partly by an image--a visualization in the mind. She saw the ballroom in that splendid house, now the British Embassy inParis, and once the home of Pauline Borghese. She saw herself in white, awreath of forget-me-nots in her hair. She has just heard, and from awoman friend, a story of lust and cruelty in which Edmund Melrose was theprincipal actor. He comes to claim her for a dance; she dismisses him, inpublic, with a manner and in words that scathe--that brand. She sees hislook of rage, as of one struck in the face--she feels again the shudderpassing through her--a shudder of release, horror passing intothanksgiving. 

But--what long tracts of life since then!--what happiness for her!--whatdecay and degeneracy for him! A pang of sheer pity, not so much for himas for the human lot, shot through her, as she realized afresh to whatevening of life he had come, from what a morning. 

At any rate her manner in reply showed no resentment of his tone. 

"All these things are dead for both of us, " she said quietly. 

He interrupted her. 

"You are right--or partly right. Edith is dead--that makes it easier foryou and me to meet. "

"Yes. Edith is dead, " she said, with sudden emotion. "And in her lastdays she spoke to me kindly of you. "

He made no comment. She resumed:

"I desire, if I can--and if you will allow me--to recall to you the yearswhen we were cousins and friends together--blotting out all that hashappened since. If you remember--twenty years ago, when you and your wifearrived to settle here, I then came to ask you to bury the feud betweenus, and to let us meet again at least as neighbours and acquaintances. You refused. Then came the breakdown of your marriage. I was honestlysorry for it. "

He smiled. She was quite conscious of the mockery in the smile; but shepersevered. 

"And now, for many years, I have not known--nobody here has known, whether your wife was alive or dead. Suddenly, a few days ago, she andyour daughter arrived at Duddon, to ask me to help them. "

"Precisely. To make use of you, in order to bring pressure to bear on me!I do not mean to lend myself to the proceeding!"

Victoria flushed. 

"In attempting to influence me, Mrs. Melrose, I assure you, had no weaponwhatever but her story. And to look at her was to see that it was true. She admits--most penitently--that she was wrong to leave you--""And to rob me! You forget that. "

Victoria threw back her head. He remembered that scornful gesture in heryouth. 

"What did that matter to you? In this house!"

She looked round the room, with its contents. 

"It did matter to me, " he said stubbornly. "My collections are the onlysatisfaction left to me--by you, Lady Tatham--and others. They are to mein the place of children. I love my bronzes--and my marbles--as you--Isuppose--love your son. It sounds incredible to you, no doubt"--the sneerwas audible--"but it is so. "

"Even if it were so--it is twenty years ago. You have replaced what youlost a hundred times. "

"I have never replaced it. And it is now out of my reach--in the BerlinMuseum--bought by that fellow Jensen, their head man, who goes nosinglike a hound all over Europe--and is always poaching in my preserves. "

Victoria looked at him in puzzled amazement. Was this mad, this childishbitterness, a pose?--or was there really some breakdown of the oncepowerful brain? She began again--less confidently. 

"I have told you--I repeat--how sorry she is--how fully she admits shewas wrong. But just consider how she has paid for it! Your allowance toher--you must let me speak plainly--could not keep her and her childdecently. Her family have been unfortunate; she has had to keep them aswell as herself. And the end of it is that she--and your child--your ownchild--have come pretty near to starvation. "

He sat immovable. But Victoria rose to her task. Her veil thrown backfrom the pale austerity of her beauty, she poured out the story of Nettaand Felicia, from a heart sincerely touched. The sordid years inFlorence, the death of Netta's mother, the bankruptcy of her father, thebitter struggle amid the Apuan Alps to keep themselves and their wretchedinvalid alive--she described them, as they had been told to her, notrhetorically, for neither she nor Netta Melrose was capable of rhetoric, but with the touches and plain details that bring conviction. 

"They have been _hungry_--for the peasants' food. Your wife and childhave had to be content day after day with a handful of bread and a_salata_ gathered from the roadside; while every franc they could earnwas spent upon a sick man. Mrs. Melrose is a shadow. I suspect incurableillness. Your little daughter arrived fainting and emaciated at my house. But with a few days' rest and proper food she has revived. She is young. She has not suffered irreparably. One sees what a lovely little creatureshe might be--and how full of vivacity and charm. Mr. Melrose--you wouldbe proud of her! She is like you--like what you were, in your youth. WhenI think of what other people would give for such a daughter! Can youpossibly deny yourself the pleasure of taking her back into your life?"

"Very easily! Your sentimentalism will resent it; I assure you, nevertheless, that it would give me no pleasure whatever. "

"Ah, but consider it again, " she pleaded, earnestly. "You do not knowwhat you are refusing--how much, and how little. All that is asked isthat you should acknowledge them--provide for them. Let them stay here afew weeks in the year--what could it matter to you in this immensehouse?--or if that is impossible, at least give your wife a properallowance--you would spend it three times over in a day on things likethese"--her eye glanced toward a superb ewer and dish, of _verreéglomisée_, standing between her and Melrose--"and let your daughter takeher place as your heiress! She ought to marry early--and marrybrilliantly. And later--perhaps--in her children--"

Melrose stood up. 

"I shall not follow you into these dreams, " he said fiercely. "She is notmy heiress--and she never will be. The whole of my property"--he spokewith hammered emphasis--"will pass at my death to my friend and agent andadopted son--Claude Faversham. "

He spoke with an excitement his physical state no longer allowed him toconceal. At last--he was defeating this woman who had once defeated him;he was denying and scorning her, as she had once denied and scorned him. That her cause was an impersonal and an unselfish one made no difference. He knew the strength of her character and her sympathies. It was sweet tohim to refuse her something she desired. She had never yet given him theopportunity! In the twenty years since they had last faced each other, hewas perfectly conscious that he had lost mentally, morally, physically;whereas she--his enemy--bore about with her, even in her changed beauty, the signs of a life lived fruitfully--a life that had been worth while. His bitter perception of it, his hidden consciousness that he hadprobably but a short time, a couple of years at most, to live, onlyincreased his satisfaction in the "No"--the contemptuous and final "No!"that he had opposed, and would oppose, to her impertinent interferencewith his affairs. 

Victoria sat regarding him silently, as he walked to themantelpiece, rearranged a few silver objects standing upon it, andthen turned--confronting her again. 

"You have made Mr. Faversham your heir?" she asked him after a pause. 

"I have. And I shall take good care that he does nothing with my propertywhen he inherits it so as to undo my wishes with regard to it. "

"That is to say--you will not even allow him to make--himself--provisionfor your wife and daughter?"

"Beyond what was indicated in the letter to your son? No! certainly not. I shall take measures against anything of the sort. "

Victoria rose. 

"And he accepts your condition--your bequest to him, on these terms?"

Melrose smiled. 

"Certainly. Why not?"

"I am sorry for Mr. Faversham!" said Victoria, in a different voice, thecolour sparkling on her cheek. 

"Because you think there will be a public opinion against him--that hewill be boycotted in this precious county? Make yourself easy, LadyTatham. A fortune such as he will inherit provides an easy cure for suchwounds. "

Victoria's self-control began to break down. 

"I venture to think he will not find it so, " she said, with quickenedbreath. "In these days it is not so simple to defy the commonconscience--as it once was. I fear indeed that Mr. Faversham has alreadylost the respect of decent men!"

"By becoming my agent?"

"Your tool--for actions--cruel, inhuman things--degrading to both you andhim. "

She had failed. She knew it! And all that remained was to speak the truthto him, to defy and denounce him. 

Melrose surveyed her. 

"The ejectment order has been served at Mainstairs to-day, I believe; andthe police have at last plucked up their courage to turn those shiftlesspeople out. There, too, I understand, Lady Tatham, you have beenmeddling. "

"I have been trying to undo some of your wrong-doing, " she said, withemotion. "And now--before I go--you shall not prevent me from saying thatI regard it perhaps as your last and worst crime to have perverted theconscience of this young man! He has been well thought of till now: adecent fellow sprung from decent people. You are making an outcast--apariah of him. And you think _money_ will compensate him! When you and Iknew each other, Edmund"--the name slipped out--"you had a _mind_--one ofthe shrewdest I ever knew. I appeal to that. It is not so much now thatyou are wicked or cruel--you are playing the _fool_! And you are teachingthis young man to do the same. "

She stood confronting him, holding herself tensely erect--a pale, imperious figure--the embodiment of all the higher ideals and traditionsof the class to which they both belonged. 

In her agitation she had dropped her glove. Melrose picked it up. 

"On that I think, Lady Tatham, we will say farewell. I regret I have notbeen able to oblige you. My wife comes from a needy class--accustomed tomanage on a little. My daughter has not been brought up to luxury. Hadshe remained with me, of course, the case would have been different. Butyou will find they will do very well on what I have provided for them. Iadvise you not to waste your pity. And as for Mr. Faversham, he will takegood care of himself. He frames excellently. And I hope before long tosee him married--to a very suitable young lady. "

They remained looking at each other, for a few seconds, in silence. ThenVictoria said quietly, with a forward step:

"I bid you good evening. "

He stood at the door, his fingers on the handle, his eyes glittering andmalicious. 

"I should have liked to have shown you some of my little collections, "he said, smiling. "That _verre églomisée_, for instance"--he pointed toit--"it's magnificent, though rather decadent. They have nothing like itin London or Paris. Really--you must go?"

He threw the door open, bowing profoundly. 

"Dixon!"

A voice responded from the farther end of the corridor. 

"Tell her ladyship's car to come round. Excuse my coming to the door, Lady Tatham. I am an old man. "

The car sped once more through the gloom of the park. Victoria sat withhands locked on her knee, possessed by the after tremors of battle. 

In Melrose's inhuman will there was something demonic, which appalled. The impotence of justice, of compassion, in the presence of certainshameless and insolent forces of the human spirit--the lesson goes deep!Victoria quivered under it. 

But there were other elements besides in her tumult of feeling. The tone, the taunting look, with which Melrose had spoken of Faversham's possiblemarriage--did he, did all the world know, that Harry had been played withand jilted? For that, in plain English, was what it came to. Her heartburnt with anger--with a desire to punish. 

The car passed out of the lodge gates. Its brilliant lamps under thetrees seemed to strike into the very heart of night. And suddenly, in themidst of the light they made, two figures emerged, an old man carrying asack, a youth beside him, with a gun over his shoulder. 

They were the Brands--father, and younger son. Victoria bent forward witha hasty gesture of greeting. But they never turned to look at the motor. They passed out of the darkness, and into the darkness again, theirfrowning, unlovely faces, their ragged clothes and stooping gait, illuminated for an instant. 

Victoria had tried that very week, at her son's instance, to try andpersuade the father to take a small farm on the Duddon estate, Tathamoffering to lend him capital. And Brand had refused. Independence, responsibility, could no longer be faced by a spirit so crushed. "Idarena' my lady, " he had said to her. "I'm worth nobbut my weekly wage. Icanna' tak' risks--no more. Thank yo' kindly; but yo' mun let us be!"

XVII

On the morning following her vain interview with Melrose, Victoria, sorely conscious of defeat, conveyed the news of it to the depressed anddisprited Netta. 

They were in Victoria's sitting-room. Netta sat, a lamentable figure, onthe edge of the sofa, twisting her disfigured hands, her black eyesglancing restlessly about her. Ever since she had read Faversham's letterto Tatham she had been an altered being. The threats as to her father, which it contained, seemed to have withered her afresh. All that smalland desperate flicker of hope in which she had arrived had died away, andher determination with it. Her consent to Victoria's interview withMelrose had been only obtained from her with difficulty. And now she wasall for retreat--precipitate retreat. 

"It's no use. I was a fool to come. We must go back. I always toldFelicia it would be no use. We'd better not have come. I'll not have papatormented!"

While she was speaking a footman entered, bringing a telegram forVictoria. It was from Tatham in London. 

"Have just seen lawyers. They are of opinion we could not fail inapplication for proper allowance and provision for both mother anddaughter. Hope you will persuade Mrs. Melrose to let us begin proceedingsat once. Very sorry for your telegram this morning, but only what Iexpected. "

Victoria read the message to her guest, and then did her best to urgeboldness--an immediate stroke. But Netta shook her head despairingly. Shecould not and would not have her father harassed. Mr. Melrose would doanything--bribe anybody--to get his way. They would have the policecoming, and dragging her father to prison. It was not to be thought of. 

Victoria tried gently to investigate what skeleton might be lying in theSmeath closet, whereof Mr. Melrose possessed such very usefulinformation. But Netta held her tongue. "Papa had been very unfortunate, and the Government would like to put him in prison if they could. Edmundhad been always so cruel to him. " Beyond this Victoria could not get. 

But the determination of the frail, faded woman was unshakable, althoughshe glanced nervously at her daughter from time to time, as if much morein dread of her opinion than of Victoria's. 

Felicia, who had listened in silence to the conversation between hermother and Victoria, turned round from the window in which she wasstaring, as soon as Lady Tatham seemed to be finally worsted. 

"Mother, you promised to stay here till Christmas!"

The voice was imperious. Felicia's manner to her mother indeed was oftenof an unfilial sharpness, and Victoria was already meditating some gentlediscipline on the point. 

"Oh, no, Felicia!" said Netta, helplessly, "not till Christmas. " Then, remembering herself, she turned toward her hostess: "It's so kind of you, I'm sure. "

"Yes, till Christmas!" repeated Felicia. "You know grandpapa's no worse. You know, " the girl flushed suddenly a bright crimson, "Lord Tatham senthim money--and he's quite comfortable. _I_ am not going home just yet! Iam not going back to Italy--till--I have seen my father!"

She faced round upon Victoria and her mother, her hands on her hips, herbreath fluttering. 

"Felicia!" cried her mother, "you can't. I tell you--you can't! I shouldnever allow it!"

"Yes, you would, mother! What are you afraid of? He can't kill me. It'sridiculous. I must see my father. I will! He is getting old--he may die. I will see him before I leave England. I don't care whether he gives usthe money or not!"

Victoria's bright eyes showed her sympathy; though she did not interfere. But Netta shrank into herself. 

"You are always such a wilful child, Felicia! You mustn't do anythingwithout my leave. You'll kill me if you do. "

And ashen-pale, she got up and left the room. Victoria glanced atFelicia. 

"Don't do anything against your mother's will, " she said gently. "You aretoo young to decide these things for yourself. But, if you can, persuadeher to follow Lord Tatham's advice. He is most anxious to help you in thebest way. And he does not believe that Mr. Melrose could hurt yourgrandfather. "

Felicia shook her curly head, frowning. 

"One cannot persuade mother--one cannot. She is obstinate--oh, soobstinate! If it were me, I would do anything Lord Tatham askedme!--anything in the world. "

She stood with her hands behind her back, her slight figure drawn up, herlook glowing. 

Victoria bent over her embroidery, smiling a little, unseen, and, intruth, not ill pleased. Yet there was something disturbing in theseoccasional outbursts. For the little Southerner's own sake, one must takecare they led to nothing serious. For really--quite apart from any otherconsideration--Harry never took the smallest notice of her. And who couldknow better than his mother that his thoughts were still held, stilltormented by the vision of Lydia?

Felicia slipped out of a glass door that led to the columned verandaoutside. Victoria, mindful of the girl's delicate look, hurried after herwith a fur wrap. Felicia gratefully but absently kissed her hand, andVictoria left her to her own thoughts. 

It was a sunny day, and although November was well in, there was almostan Italian warmth in this southern loggia where roses were stillblooming. Felicia walked up and down, her gaze wandering over themountain landscape to the south--the spreading flanks and slopes ofthe high fells, scarlet with withered fern, and capped with new-fallensnow. Through the distant landscape she perceived the line of the streamwhich ran under Flitterdale Common with its high cliff-banks, and hangingwoods, now dressed in the last richness of autumn. That distant wall oftrees--behind it, she knew, was Threlfall Tower. Her father--her unkind, miserly father, who hated both her and her mother--lived there. 

How far was it? A long way! But she would get there somehow. 

"It is my right to see my father!" she said to herself passionately;adding with a laugh which swept away heroics, "After all, he might take afancy to me in these clothes!"

And she looked down complacently on the pretty tailor-made skirt andthe new shoes that showed beneath Victoria's fur cloak. In less thana fortnight her own ambition and the devotion of Victoria's maid, Hesketh, only too delighted to dress somebody so eager to be dressed, forwhom the mere operations of the toilette possessed a kind of religiousjoy, on whom, moreover, "clothes" in the proper and civilized sense ofthe word, sat so amazingly well--had turned the forlorn little drudgeinto a figure more than creditable to the pains lavished upon her. Felicia aimed high. The thought and trouble which the young lady hadspent, since her arrival, on her hair, her hands, and the minor points ofEnglish manners, not to mention the padding and plumping of her smallperson--which in spite of all her efforts, however, remained of a mostsylphlike slimness--by a generous diet of cream and butter, only she andHesketh knew. Victoria guessed, and felt a new and most womanish pleasurein the details of her transformation. She realized, poignantly, howpleasant it would have been to dress and spoil a daughter. 

All the more, as Felicia, after a first eager grasping at pretty things, as a child holds out covetous hands for toys and sweets, had shown suddenscruples, an unexpected and pretty recoil. 

"Don't give me so many things!" she had said, almost with a stamp, thesudden, astonishing tears in her great eyes; when, after the first week, the new clothes began to shower upon her. "I can't help wanting them! Iadore them! But I won't be a beggar--no! You will think we only came herefor this--to get things out of you. We didn't--we _didn't_. '"

"My dear, won't you give me the pleasure?" Victoria had said, shamefacedly, putting out a hand to stroke the girl's hair. WhereuponFelicia had thrown herself impulsively on her knees, with her arms roundthe speaker, and there had been a mingled moment of laughter and emotionwhich had left Victoria very much astonished at herself, and givenHesketh a free hand. Victoria's solitary pursuits, the awkward or statelyreserve of her ordinary manner, were deplorably interfered with, indeed, by the advent of this lovely, neglected child, who on her side had fallenpassionately in love with Victoria at first sight and seemed to be nowrarely happy out of her company. 

After which digression we may return for a moment to Felicia on theloggia, admiring her new shoes. 

From that passing ecstasy, she emerged resolved. 

"We will stay here till Christmas--and--"

But on the rest of her purpose she shut her small lips firmly. Beforeshe turned indoors, however, she gave some attention to the course of awhite road in the middle distance, on which she had travelled with LordTatham the day he had taken her to Green Cottage. The cottage where theyellow-haired girl lived lay beyond that nearer hill. Ah! but nobodyspoke of that yellow-haired girl now. Nobody sent flowers or books. Nobody so much as mentioned her name. It was strange--but singularlypleasing. Felicia raised herself triumphantly on tiptoe, as though shewould peer over the hill into the cottage; and so see for herself how theSignorina Penfold took this sudden and complete neglect. 

Tatham returned from London the following day, bringing Cyril Boden--whowas again on the sick list--with him. 

He arrived full of plans for the discomfiture of Melrose, only to bebrought up irrevocably against the stubborn resolve which Netta, wrappedin an irritable and tearful melancholy, opposed to them all. She wouldnot hear of the legal proceedings he urged upon her; and it was only onan assurance that nothing could or would be done without her consent, coupled with a good report of her father, that she at last consented tostay at Duddon till the New Year, so that further ways of helping hermight be discussed. 

Felicia, when the thing was settled, danced about Victoria's room, kissedher mother and ran off at once, with Victoria's permission, to ask theold coachman who ruled the Duddon stables to give her riding-lessons. Victoria noticed that she carefully avoided consulting Tatham in any wayabout her lessons. Indeed the earlier, half-childish, half-audaciousefforts she had made to attract his attention entirely ceased about thistime. 

And he, as soon as it was evident that Mrs. Melrose would not takehis advice, and that legal proceedings must be renounced, felt anatural slackening of interest in his mother's guests. He was perfectlykind and polite to them but Netta's cowardice disgusted him; and it was apersonal disappointment to be thus balked of that public campaign againstMelrose's enormities which would have satisfied the just and long-baffledfeelings of a whole county; and--incidentally--would surely have unmaskeda greedy and unscrupulous adventurer. 

Meanwhile the whole story of Mrs. Melrose and her daughter had spreadrapidly through the neighbourhood. The local papers, now teeming withattacks on Melrose, and the management of the Melrose property, hadfastened with avidity on the news of their arrival. "Mrs. Edmund Melroseand her daughter, after an absence of twenty years have arrived inCumbria. They are now staying at Duddon Castle with Countess Tatham. Mr. Claude Faversham is at Threlfall Tower. " These few sentences served assymbols of a dramatic situation which was being discussed in every houseof the district, in the farms and cottages no less eagerly than by theAndovers and the Bartons. The heiress of Threlfall was not dead! Aftertwenty years she and her mother had returned to claim their rights fromthe Ogre; and Duddon Castle, the headquarters of all that was powerfuland respected in the county, had taken up their cause. Meanwhile thelittle heiress had been, it seemed, supplanted. Claude Faversham was inpossession at Threlfall, and was being treated as the heir. Mr. Melrosehad flatly refused even to see his wife and daughter whom he had left inpoverty and starvation for twenty years. 

Upon these facts the twin spirit of romance and hatred swoopedvulturelike. Any story of inheritance, especially when charm and youthare mixed up with it, kindles the popular mind. It was soon known thatMiss Melrose was pretty, and small; though, said report, worn to askeleton by paternal ill-usage. Romance likes its heroines small. Thecountryside adopted the unconscious Felicia, and promptly married her toHarry Tatham. What could be more appropriate? Duddon could afford to riska dowry; and what maiden in distress could wish for a better Perseus thanthe splendid young man who was the general favourite of theneighbourhood?

As to the hatred of Melrose which gave zest to the tale of his daughter, it was becoming a fury. The whole Mainstairs village had now beenejected, by the help of a large body of police requisitioned fromCarlisle for the purpose. Of the able-bodied, some had migrated to theneighbouring towns, some were camped on Duddon land, in some wood andiron huts hastily run up for their accommodation. And thus a villagewhich might be traced in Doomsday Book had been wiped out. For the sickTatham had offered a vacant farmhouse as a hospital; and Victoria, Mrs. Andover, and other ladies had furnished and equipped it. Some twentycases of enteric and diphtheria, were housed there, a few of them doomedbeyond hope. Melrose had been peremptorily asked for a subscription tothe fund raised, and had replied in his own handwriting that owing to theheavy expenses he had been put to by the behaviour of his Mainstairstenants, as reported to him by his agent, Mr. Faversham, he mustrespectfully decline. The letter was published in the two local paperswith appropriate comments, and a week later an indignation meeting toprotest against the state of the Threlfall property, and to petition theLocal Government Board to hold an inquiry on the spot, was held inCarlisle, with Tatham in the chair. And everywhere the public indignationwhich could not get at Melrose, who now, except for railway journeys, never showed himself outside the wall of his park, was beginning to fallupon the "adventurer" who was his tool and accomplice, and had become thesupplanter of his young and helpless daughter. Men who four months beforehad been eager to welcome Faversham to his new office now passed him inthe street without recognition. At the County Club to which he had beeneasily elected, Colonel Barton proposing him, he was conspicuously cut byBarton himself, Squire Andover and many others following suit. "Animpostor, and a cad!" said Barton fiercely to Undershaw. "He took mein--and I can't forgive him. He is doing all Melrose's dirty work forhim, better than Melrose could do it himself. His letters, for instance, to our Council Committee about the allotments we are trying to get out ofthe old villain have been devilish clever, and devilish impudent! Melrosecouldn't have written them. And now this business of the girl!--and thefortune!--sickening!"

"He is a queer chap, " said Undershaw thoughtfully. "I've been as mad withhim as anybody--but somehow--don't know. Suppose we wait a bit. Melrose'slife is a bad one. "

But Barton refused to wait, and went off storming. The facts, he vowed, were more than enough. 

The weeks passed on. Duddon knew no longer what Green Cottage wasdoing. Victoria, at any rate, was ignorant, and forbore to ask--byword of mouth; though her thoughts were one long interrogation on thesubject of Lydia, both as to the present and the past. Was she still incorrespondence with Faversham, as Victoria now understood from Tatham shehad been all the summer? Was she still defending him? Perhaps engaged tohim? For a fair-minded and sensible woman, Victoria fell into strangebogs of prejudice and injustice in the course of these ponderings. 

In her drives and walks at this time, Victoria generally avoided theneighbourhood of the cottage. But one afternoon at the very end ofOctober, she overtook--walking--a slight, muffled figure in the Whitebeckroad, and recognized Susy Penfold. A constrained greeting passed betweenthem, and Lady Tatham learnt that Lydia was away--had been away, indeed, since the day following her last interview with Harry. The very nextmorning she and her mother had been summoned to London by the graveillness of Mrs. Penfold's elder sister. And there they were still; thoughLydia was expected home shortly. 

Victoria walked on, with relieved feelings, she scarcely knew why. At anyrate there had been no personal contact between Faversham and a charmingthough foolish girl, during these weeks of popular indignation. 

By what shabby arts had the mean and grasping fellow now installed atThrelfall ever succeeded in obtaining a hold over a being so refined, sofastidious and--to all appearances--so high-minded, as Lydia Penfold?To refuse Harry and decline on Claude Faversham! Victoria acknowledgedindeed a certain pseudo-Byronic charm in the man. She could not forgetthe handsome head as she had seen it last at the door of Melrose'slibrary; or the melodramatic black and white of the face, of the small, peaked beard, the dark brows, pale lantern cheeks, and heavy-lidded eyes. All the picturesque adventurers of the world betray something, shethought, of a common stamp. 

At last one evening, when Tatham was away on county business, and Feliciahad gone to bed, Victoria suddenly unburdened herself to Cyril Boden, asthey sat one on either side of a November fire, while a southwesterlygale from the high fells blustered and raged outside. 

Boden was the confessor of a good many people. Not that he was by anymeans an orthodox Christian; his ascetic ways had very little to do withany accepted form of doctrine. But there was in him the natural priestlypower, which the priest by ordination may have or miss. It was becausemen and women realized in himself the presence of a travailing, questioning, suffering soul, together with an iron self-repression, thatthose who suffered and questioned came to him, and threw themselves uponhim; often getting more buffeting than balm for their pains; but alwaysconscious of some mysterious attractions in him, as of one who, like SirBoris, had seen the Grail, but might never tell of the vision. 

Victoria was truly attached to him. He had been with her during the daysof her husband's sudden illness and death; he had advised her with regardto the passing difficulties of Tatham's school and college days andpointed a way for her through many perplexities of her own. Duddon was asmuch of a home to him, as he probably possessed in the world. When he hadworn himself out with some one or other of the many causes he pursued inSouth London, working with a sombre passion which had in it very littleof the mystical joy or hope which sustain others in similar efforts; whenhe had scarcely a coat to his back, or a shoe to his feet; when hisdoctor began to talk of tuberculin tests and the high Alps; then he wouldwire to Duddon, and come and vegetate under Victoria's wing, for just asmany weeks as were necessary to send him back to London restored to acertain physical standard. To watch Harry Tatham's wholesome, kindly, prosperous life, untroubled by any of the nightmares that weighed uponhis own, was an unfailing pleasure to a weary man. He loved both Harryand his mother. Nevertheless, as soon as he arrived, both felt him thegadfly in the house. His mind was nothing if not critical. Andundoubtedly the sight of easy wealth was an irritation to him. Hestruggled against it; but sometimes it would out. 

As he sat this evening crouched over the fire, his hands spread tothe blaze, he looked more frail than usual; a fact which perhaps, half-consciously, affected Victoria and drew out her confidence. Hisdress suit, primevally old, would scarcely, she reflected, hold togetheranother winter. But how it was to be replaced had already cost her andHarry much thought. There was nobody more personally, fanatically proudthan Boden toward his well-to-do friends. His clothes indeed were amatter of tender anxiety in the Duddon household, and Tatham's valetand Victoria's maids did him many small services, some of which he repaidwith a smile and a word--priceless to the recipient; and some he wasnever aware of. When his visits to Duddon first began, the contents ofhis Gladstone bag used to provide merriment in the servants' hall, andlegend said that a young footman had once dared to be insolent to him. Had any one ventured the same conduct now he would have been sent toCoventry by every servant in the house. 

It was to this austere, incalculable, yet always attractive listener, that Victoria told the story of Harry and Lydia, of the Favershamadventure, and the Melrose inheritance. If she wanted advice, a littlemoral guidance for herself--and indeed she did want it--she did not getany; but of comment there was plenty. 

"That's the girl I saw here last time, " mused Boden, nursing hisknee--"lovely creature--with some mind in her face. So she's refusedHarry--and Duddon?"

"Which no doubt will commend her to you!" said Victoria, not without acertain bristling of her feathers. 

"It does, " said Boden quietly. "Upon my word, it was a fine thing to do. "

"Just because we happen to be rich?" Victoria's eyelids fluttered alittle. 

"No! but because it throws a little light on what we choose to call thesoul. It brings one back to a faint belief in the existence of the thing. Here is one of the great fortunes, and one of the splendid houses of theworld, and a little painting girl who makes a few pounds by her drawingssays 'No, thank you!' when they are laid at her feet--because--of alittle trifle called love which she can't bring to the bargain. I confessthat bucks one up. 'The day-star doth his beams restore. '"

He took up the tongs, and began absently to rebuild the fire. Victoriawaited on his remarks with heightened colour. 

"Of course I'm sorry for Harry, " he said, after a moment, with his queersmile. "I saw there was something wrong when I arrived. But it'ssalutary--very salutary! Hasn't he had everything in the world he wantedfrom his cradle? And isn't it as certain as anything can be that he'llfind some other charming girl, who'll faint with joy, when he asks her, and give you all the grandchildren you want? And meanwhile we have thisbit of the heroic--this defiance of a miry world, cropping up--to help usout of our mud-holes. I'm awfully sorry for Harry--but I take off my hatto the girl. "

Victoria's expression became sarcastic. 

"Who will ultimately marry, " she said, "according to _my_ interpretationof the business, a first-class adventurer--possessed of a million ofmoney--stolen from its proper owners. "

"I don't believe it. I've seen her! But, upon my word, what a queerparable it all is! Shall I tell you how it shapes itself to me?" Helooked, tongs in hand, at Victoria, his greenish eyes all alive. "I seeyou all--you, Harry, Faversham, and Melrose, Miss Lydia--grouped round acentral point. The point is wealth. You are all in different relations towealth. You and Harry are indifferent to wealth, because you have alwayshad it. It has come to you without toiling and spinning--can you imaginebeing without it?--but it has not spoilt you. You sit loose to it;because you have never _struggled_ for it. But I doubt whether theRecording Angel, when it comes to reckoning up, will give you very highmarks for your indifference! Dear friend!"--he put out a sudden handand touched Victoria's--"bear with me! There's one thing you'll hear, ifany one does, at the last day--'I was a stranger and ye took me in. '" Hiseyes shone upon her. 

After which, he resumed in his former tone: "Then take Melrose. He too isdetermined by his relation to wealth. Wealth has just ruined him--burnthim up--made out of him so much refuse for the nether fires. Favershamagain! Wealth, the crucial, deciding factor! The testing with him isstill going on. He seems, from your account, to be coming out badly. Andlastly, the girl--who, like you, is indifferent to wealth, but fordifferent reasons; who probably hates and shrinks from it; like a wildbird that fears the cage. You, my dear lady--you and Harry--have got soused to wealth, its trammels no longer gall you. You carry the weight ofit, as the horse of the Middle Ages carried his trappings; it's secondnature. And you can enjoy, you can move, you can feel, in spite of it. You have risked your soul, without knowing it; but you have kept yoursoul! This girl, I take it, is afraid to risk her soul. She is not inlove with Harry--worse luck for Harry!--she is in love--remember I havetalked to her a little!--with something she calls beauty, with liberty, with an unfettered course for the spirit, with all the lovely, intangible, priceless _best_, which the world holds for its true lovers. Wealth grasping at that best has a way of killing it--as the child killsthe butterfly. _That's_ what she's afraid of. As to Faversham"--he got upfrom his seat, and with his thumbs in his waistcoat began to pace theroom--"Faversham no doubt is in a bad way. He's on the road to damnation. Melrose of course is damned and done with. But Faversham? I reservejudgment. If he's in love with that girl, and she with him--I can't makeout, however, that you have much reason to think it--but suppose he is, she'll have the handling of him. Shan't we back her?"

He turned with vivacity to his hostess. 

Victoria laughed indignantly. 

"You may if you like. The odds are too doubtful for me. "

"That's because you're Harry's mother!" he said with his sly, but mostwinning, smile. "Well--there's the parable--writ large. _Mammon!_--howyou get it--how you use it--whether you dominate it--or it dominatesyou. Whether it is the greater curse, or the greater blessing to men--itwas the question in Christ's day--it's the question now. But it has neverbeen put with such intensity, as to this generation! As to yourparticular version of the parable--I wait to see! The tale's not throughyet. "

XVIII

A few days later, Lady Tatham received a letter, which she opened withsome agitation. It was from Lydia in London:

"DEAR LADY TATHAM:

"I have waited some weeks before writing to you, partly because, as SusyI hear has told you, I have been busy nursing my mother's sister, butstill more because my heart failed me--again and again. 

"And yet I feel I ought to write--partly in justice to myself--partly toask you to forgive the pain I fear I may have caused you. I know--for hehas told me--that Lord Tatham never concealed from you all that haspassed between us; and so I feel sure that you know what happened about amonth ago, when we agreed that it would be wiser not to meet again forthe present. 

"I don't exactly want to defend myself. It still seems to me true that, in the future, men and women will find it much more possible to becomrades and friends, without any thought of falling in love or marrying, than they do now; and that it will be a good thing for both. And if itis true, are not some of us justified in making experiments now? LordTatham I know will have told you I was quite frank from the beginning. Idid not wish to marry; but I meant to be a very true friend; and I wantedto be allowed to love you both, as one loves one's friends, and to shareyour life a little. And the thing I most wished was that Lord Tathamshould marry--some one quite different from myself. 

"So we agreed that we would write, and share each other's feelings andthoughts as far as we could. And I hoped that any other idea with regardto me would soon pass out of Lord Tatham's mind. I did--most sincerely;and I think he believes that I did. How good and dear he always was tome!--how much I have learnt from him! And yet I am afraid it was all veryblind, and ill-considered--perhaps very selfish--on my part. I did notunderstand what harm I _might_ do; though I hope with all my heart--andbelieve--that I have not done anything irreparable. It is very hardfor me to regret it; because all my life I shall be the richer and thewiser for having known so good a man; one so true, so unselfish, sohigh-minded. Women so rarely come to know men, except in marriage, orthrough books; and your son's character has sweetened and ennobled wholesides of life for me--forever. 

"But if--in return--I have given him pain--and you, who love him! I wasalways afraid of you--but I would have done anything in the world toserve you. Will you let me have a little word--just to tell me that youforgive, and understand. I ask it with a very sore heart--full, full ofgratitude to him and to you, for all your goodness. "

 * * * * *

Victoria was oddly affected by this letter. It both touched and angeredher. She was touched by what it said, deeply touched; and angered by whatit omitted. And yet how could the writer have said anything more!--oranything else! Victoria admitted that her thoughts had run far beyondwhat she knew--in any true sense--or had any right to conjecture. Nevertheless the fact in her belief remained a fact, that but forFaversham and some disastrous influence he had gained over her almost atonce, Harry would have had his chance with Lydia Penfold. As it was, shehad been allowing Harry to offer her his most intimate thoughts andfeelings, while she was actually falling in love with his inferior. Thiswas what enraged Victoria. Whatever Cyril Boden might say, it seemed toher maternal jealousy something equivalent to the betrayal of a sacredconfidence. 

Yet clearly she could not say so to Lydia Penfold--nor could Lydiaconfess it! She wrote as follows:

"MY DEAR MISS PENFOLD:

"It was very kind of you to write to me, I am sure you meant no harm, and I do not pretend to judge another person's conduct by what I mightmyself have thought wisest or best. But I think we all have to learnthat the deepest feelings in life are very sensitive, and veryincalculable things; and that the old traditions and conventionsrespecting them have probably much more to say for themselves than welike to admit--especially in our youth. Men and women in middle life mayhave true and intimate friendships without any thought of marriage. Idoubt whether this is possible for young people, though I know it is thefashion nowadays to behave as though it were. And especially is itdifficult--or impossible--where there has been any thought of love--oneither side. For love is the great, unmanageable, explosive thing, whichcannot be tamed down, at a word, into friendship--not in youth at anyrate. The attempt to treat it as a negligible quantity can only bringsuffering and misunderstanding. 

"But I must not preach to you like this. I am sure you know--now--thatwhat I say has truth in it. Thank you again for the feeling that dictatedyour letter. Harry is very well and very busy. We hoped to go to Londonbefore Christmas, but this most difficult and unhappy affair of Mrs. Melrose and her daughter detains us. Whether we shall obtain justice forthem in the end I do not know. At present the adverse influences are verystrong--and the indignation of all decent people seems to make nodifference. Mr. Faversham's position is indeed difficult to understand. 

"Please remember me kindly to your mother and sister. Next year I hope weshall be able to meet as usual. But for the present, as you and Harryhave agreed, it is better not. "

 * * * * *

Victoria was extremely dissatisfied with this letter when she had doneit. But she knew very well that Harry would have resented a single harshword from her toward the misguided Lydia; and she did not know how betterto convey the warning that burnt on her lips with regard to Faversham. 

 * * * * *

Lydia received Victoria's letter on the day of her return to the cottage. Her mother remained in London. 

Susy welcomed her sister affectionately, but with the sidelong looks ofthe observer. Ever since the evening of Lady Tatham's visit when Lydiahad come back with white face and red eyes from her walk with HarryTatham, and when the following night had been broken for Susy by thesound of her sister's weeping in the room next to her, it had beenrecognized by the family that the Tatham affair had ended in disaster, and that Duddon was henceforth closed to them. Lydia told her motherenough to plunge that poor lady into even greater wonder than before atthe hopeless divergence of young people to-day from the ways and customsof their grandmothers; and then begged piteously that nothing more mightbe said to her. Mrs. Penfold cried and kissed her; and for many daystears fell on the maternal knitting needles, as the fading vision ofLydia, in a countess' coronet, curtesying to her sovereign, floatedmockingly through the maternal mind. To Susy Lydia was a little moreexplicit; but she showed herself so sunk in grief and self-abasement, that Susy had not the heart for either probing or sarcasm. It was not abroken heart, but a sore conscience--a warm, natural penitence, that shebeheld. Lydia was not yet "splendid, " and Susy could not make anythingtragic out of her. 

At least, on what appeared. And not even Susy's impatience couldpenetrate beyond appearance. She longed to say, "Enough of the Tathamaffair--now let us come to business. How do you stand with ClaudeFaversham?" A number of small indications pointed her subtly, irresistibly in that direction. But the strength of Lydia's personalitystood guard over her secret--if she had one. 

All Susy could do was to give Lydia the gossip of the neighbourhood, which she did--copiously, including the "cutting" of Faversham at theCounty Club, by Colonel Barton and others. Lydia said nothing. 

In the course of the evening, however, a letter arrived for Lydia, brought by messenger from Threlfall Tower. Lydia was alone in thesitting-room; Susy was writing upstairs. The letter ran:

"I hear you have returned to-day. May I come and see you to-morrowafternoon--late?"

To which Lydia replied in her firmest handwriting, "Come by all means. Ishall be here between five and six to-morrow. " After which she went aboutwith head erect and shining eyes, like one who has secretly received andaccepted a challenge. She was going to sift this matter for herself. Since a hurried note reporting the latest news of the Mainstairs victims, which had reached her from Faversham on the morning of her departure forLondon, she had heard nothing from him; and during her weeks of nursingin a darkened room, she had sounded the dim and perilous ways of her ownheart as best she could. 

She spent the following day in sketching the Helvellyn range, stillradiant under its first snow-cap; sitting warmly sheltered on a southernside of a wall, within sound of the same stream beside which she andFaversham had met for the first time in the spring, amid the splendidlight and colour of the May sunset. 

And now it was already winter. The fell-sides were red with witheredfern; their round or craggy tops showed white against a steely sky; downthe withered copses by the stream, the north wind swept; a golden oakshowered its dead leaf upon her. Gray walls, purple fells, the brown andsilver of the stream, all the mountain detail that she loved--she drew itpassionately into her soul. Nature and art--why had she been so faithlessto them--she "the earth's unwearied lover?" She was miserably, ironicallyconscious of her weakness; of the gap between her spring and her autumn. 

On her return, she told Susy quietly of her expected visitor. Susy raisedher eyebrows. 

"I shall give him tea, " said Susan, "just to save the proprieties withSarah. " Sarah was the house parlour-maid. "But _then_ you won't need togive me hints. "

Susy had departed. Lydia and Faversham sat opposite each other in thelittle drawing-room. 

Lydia's first impression on seeing him had been one of dismay. He lookedmuch older; and a certain remoteness, a cold and nervous manner seemed tohave taken the place of the responsive ease she remembered. It began tocost her an effort to remember the emotion of their last meeting in theMainstairs lane. 

But when they were alone together, he drew a long breath, and leaningforward over the table before them, his face propped on his hand, helooked at her earnestly. 

"I wonder what you have been hearing about me?"

Lydia made a brave effort, and told him. She repeated to himthe gist of what Susan had reported the night before, putting itlightly--apologetically--as though statements so extravagant had onlyto be made to be disproved. His mind meanwhile was divided betweenstrained attention, and irrepressible delight in the spectacle of Lydiaenthroned in her mother's chair, of the pale golden hair rippling backfrom the broad forehead, and the clear eyes beneath the thin dark arch ofthe brows, so delicately traced on the white skin; of all the play ofgesture and expression that made up her beauty. Existence for him duringthese weeks of her absence had largely meant expectation of this moment. He had discounted all that she would probably say to him; his replieswere ready. 

And she no sooner paused than he began an eager and considered defence ofhimself. A defence which, as he explained, he had intended to make weeksbefore. He had called the very day after their hurried departure forLondon; and having missed them, had then decided to wait till they couldtalk face to face. _Le papier est bête!_ "I had too much to say!"

Well, when he had said it, to what did it amount? He claimed the right totell the whole story; and began therefore by tracing the steps by whichhe had become necessary to Melrose; by describing his astonishment whenthe offer of the agency was made to him; and the sudden rush of plans andhopes for the future. Then, by a swift and effective digression hesketched the character of Melrose, as he had come to know it; theferocity of the old man's will; his mad obstinacy, in which there wasalways a touch of fantastic imagination; and those alternations ofsolitude and excitement, with the inevitable, accompanying defiance ofall laws of health, physical and moral, which for years had made up hislife. 

"Let us remember that he is undoubtedly a sick man. He will tell menothing of what his doctors say to him. But I put two and two together. Idon't believe he can possibly live long. A year or two at most; perhapsmuch less. When I accepted the agency, I confess I thought his physicalweakness would oblige him to put the whole management of the estate intomy hands. It has not been so. The mind, the will are iron, whatever thephysical weakness may be. He conceives himself as a rock in the Socialisttorrent, bound to oppose reforms, and concessions, and innovations, justbecause they are asked of him by a revolutionary society. He reckons thathis life will last out his resistance--his successful resistance--andthat he will go down with the flag flying. So that he takes an insanepleasure in disappointing and thwarting the public opinion about him. Forit _is_ insane--remember that! The moral state, the moral judgments, areall abnormal; the will and the brain are, so far as his main pursuits areconcerned, still superb. "

He paused. Her gaze--half-shrinking--was fixed on the face so near toher; on the profound and resolute changes which had passed over thefeatures which when she first saw them had still the flexibility ofyouth. The very curls and black hair lying piled above the foreheadin which there were already two distinct transverse lines, seemed to havegrown harsher and stronger. 

"This, of course, is what I discovered as soon as I had taken the agency. I did not know my man when I accepted. I began to know him, as soon as wereally came to business. I found him opposed to all reform--incapableeven of decent humanity. Very well! Was I to throw up?"

His eyes pierced into hers. Lydia could only murmur: "Go on. "

"Suppose I had thrown up!--what would have happened? The estate wouldhave sunk, more and more lamentably, into the power of a certain lowattorney who has been Melrose's instrument in all his worst doings foryears--and of a pair of corrupt clerks in the local office. Who wouldhave gained? Not a soul! On the contrary, much would have been lost. Heaven knows I have been able to do little enough. But I have donesomething!--I have done _something_!--that is what people forget. "

He looked at her passionately; a distress rising in his eyes, which hecould not hide. Was it her silence--the absence of any cheering, approving sound from her?

She lifted her hand, and let it drop. 

"Mainstairs!" she said. It was just breathed--a cry of pain. 

"Yes--Mainstairs! I know--let us tackle Mainstairs. Mainstairs is ahorror--a tragedy. If I had been allowed, I should have set the wholething right a couple of months ago; I should have re-housed some of thepeople, closed some of the cottages, repaired others. Mr. Melrose stoppedeverything. There again--what good could I do by throwing up? I hadplenty of humdrum work elsewhere that was not being interfered with--workthat will tell in the long run. I left Mainstairs to Melrose; theresponsibility was his, not mine. I went on with what I was doing. He andthe police--thank heaven!--cleared the place. "

"And in the clearing, Mr. Melrose, they say, never lifted a finger tohelp--did not even give money, " said Lydia in the same low, restrainedvoice, as she looked away from her guest into the fire. "And one sitsthinking--of all the _dead_--that might have been saved!"

His frowning distress was evident. 

"Do I not feel it as much as any one?" he said, with emotion. "I washelpless!"

There was silence. Then Lydia turned sharply toward him. 

"Mr. Faversham! Is it true that Mr. Melrose has made you his heir?"

His face changed. 

"Yes--it is true. "

"And he has refused to make any provision for his wife and daughter?"

"He has. And more than that"--he looked at her with a defiantcandour--"he has tried to bind me in his will to do nothing for them. "

"And you have allowed it?"

"I shall soon get round that, " he said, scornfully. "There are a thousandways. Such restrictions are not worth the paper they are written on. "

"And meanwhile they are living on charity? And Mr. Melrose, as you say, may last some years. I saw Mrs. Melrose pass this morning in a carriage. She looked like a dying woman. "

"I have done my best, " he said doggedly. "I have argued--and entreated. To no avail!"

"But you are taking the money"--the quiet intensity of the tone affectedhim strangely--"the money, that should be theirs--the money which hasbeen wrung--partly--from this wretched estate. You are accepting giftsand benefits from a man you must loathe and despise!"

She was trembling all over. Her eyes avoided his as she sat downcast; herhead bent under the weight of her own words. 

There was silence. But a silence that spoke. For what was in truth themeaning of this interview--of his pleading--and her agonized, reluctantjudgment? No ordinary acquaintance, no ordinary friendship could havebrought it about. Things unspoken, feelings sprung from the flying seedsof love, falling invisible on yielding soil, and growing up a man knowethnot how--at once troubled and united them. The fear of separation hadgrown, step by step, with the sense of attraction and of yearning. It wasbecause their hearts reached out to each other that they dreaded so tofind some impassable gulf between them. 

He mastered himself with difficulty. 

"That is one way of putting it. Now let me put it my way. I am a man whohas had few chances in life--and great ambitions--which I have never hadthe smallest means of satisfying. I may be the mere intriguer that Tathamand his mother evidently think me. But I am inclined to believe inmyself. Most men are. I feel that I have never had my opportunity. Whatis this wealth that is offered me, but an opportunity? There never was somuch to be done with wealth--so much sheer _living_ to be got out of it, as there is to-day. Luxury and self-indulgence are the mere abuse ofwealth. Wealth means everything nowadays that a man is most justifiedin desiring!--supposing he has the brains to use it. That at any rate ismy belief. It always has been my belief. Trust me--that is all I ask ofmy friends. Give me time. If Mr. Melrose were to die soon--immediately--Ishould be able all the quicker to put everything to rights. But if hisdeath is delayed a year or two--my life indeed will be a dog's life"--hespoke with sudden emotion--"but the people on the estate will not be theworse, but the better, for my being there; and in the end the power willcome to me--and I shall use it. So long as Melrose lives his wife anddaughter can get nothing out of him, whether I am there or not. Hisobstinacy is immovable, as Lady Tatham has found, and when he dies, theirinterests will be safe with me. "

Lydia had grown very pale. The man before her seemed to her Faversham, yet not Faversham. Some other personality, compounded of all those ugly, sophistic things that lurk in every human character, seemed to bewrestling with, obscuring the real man. 

"And the years till this stage comes to an end?" she askedhim. "When every day you have to do what you feel to bewrong?--to obey--to be at the beck and call of such a man as Mr. Melrose?--hateful--cruel--tyrannical!--when you must silence allthat is generous and noble--"

Her voice failed her. 

Faversham's lips tightened. They remained looking at each other. ThenFaversham rose suddenly. He stooped over her. She heard his voice, hoarseand broken in her ears:

"Lydia--I love you!--I _love you_--with all my heart!--and all mystrength! Don't, for God's sake, let us make believe with each other!And--I believe, " he added, after a moment, in a lower tone, "Ibelieve--that you love me!"

His attitude, his manner were masterful--violent. She trembled under it. He tried to take her hand. 

"Speak to me!" he said, peremptorily. "Oh, my darling--speak to me! Ionly ask you to trust to me--to be guided by me--"

She withdrew her hand. He could see her heart fluttering under the softcurves of the breast. 

"I can't--I can't!"

The words were said with anguish. She covered her face with her hands. 

"Because I won't do what you wish? What is it you wish?"

They had come to the deciding moment. 

She looked up, recovering self-control, her heart rushing to her lips. 

"Give it up!" she said, stretching out her hands to him, her head thrownback, all her delicate beauty one prayer. "Don't touch this money! It isstained--it is corrupt. You lose your honour in taking it--and honour--islife. What does money matter? The great things that make one happy havenothing to do with money. They can be had for so little! And if one losesthem--honour and self-respect--and a clear conscience--how can _money_make up! If I were to marry you--and we had to live on Mr. Melrose'smoney--everything in life would be poisoned for me. I should always seethe faces--of those dead people--whom I loved. I should hear theirvoices--accusing. We should be in slavery--slavery to a bad man--and oursouls would die--"

Her voice dropped--drowned in the passion of its own entreaty. 

Faversham pressed her hands, released them, and slowly straightenedhimself to his full height, as he stood beside her on the hearthrug. A vision rose and spread through the mind. In place of the littlesitting-room, the modest home of refined women living on a slenderincome, he saw the great gallery at Threlfall with its wonderfulcontents, and the series of marvellous rooms he had now examined and setin order. Vividly, impressively the great house presented itself to himin memory, in all its recovered grace and splendour; a treasury of art, destined to be a place of pilgrimage for all who adore that lovely recordof itself in things subtle and exquisite which the human spirit haswritten on time. Often lately he had wrung permission from Melrose totake an English or foreign visitor through some of the rooms. He hadwatched their enthusiasm and their ardour. And mingled with suchexperience, there had been now for months the intoxicating sense thateverything in that marvellous house was potentially his--ClaudeFaversham's, and would all some day come into his hands, the hands of aman specially prepared by education and early circumstance to enjoy, toappreciate. 

And the estate. As in a map, he saw its green spreading acres, itsmultitude of farms, its possessions of all kind, spoilt and neglected byone man's caprice, but easily to be restored by the prudent care of hissuccessor. He realized himself in the future as its owner; the inevitableplace that it would give him in the political and social affairs of thenorth. And the estate was not all. Behind the estate lay the greatuntrammelled fortune drawn from quite other sources of wealth; how greathe was only now beginning to know. 

A great sigh shook him--a sigh of decision. What he had been listening tohad been the quixotism of a tender heart, ignorant of life and affairs, and all the wider possibilities open to man's will. He could not yield. In time she must be the one to yield. And she would yield. Let him wait, and be patient. There were many ways in which to propitiate, to work uponher. 

He looked down upon her gravely, his dark pointed face quivering alittle. Instinctively she drew back. Her expression changed. 

"I can't do that. " His voice was low but firm. "I feel the call to me. And after all, Melrose has claims on me. To me, personally, hisgenerosity--has been incredible. He is old--and ill. I must stay by him. "

Her mind cried out, "Yes--but on your own terms, not his!"

But she did not say it. Her pride came to her aid. She sprang up, aglittering animation flashing back into her face, transforming itssoftness, its tenderness. 

"I understand--I quite understand. Thank you for being so plain--andbearing with my--strange ideas. Now--I don't think we can be of anyfurther use to each other--though--" she clasped her handsinvoluntarily--"I shall always hope and pray--"

She did not finish. He broke into a cry. 

"Lydia! you send me away?"

"I don't accept your conditions--nor you mine. There is no more to besaid. "

He looked at her sombrely, remorse struggling with his will. But alsoanger--the anger of a naturally arrogant temperament--that he should findher so resistant. 

"If you loved me--"

"Ah--no, " she shook her head fiercely, the bright tears in her eyes;"don't let's talk of love! That has nothing to say to it. "

She turned, and took up a piece of embroidery lying on a table near. Heaccepted the indication, turning very white. But still he lingered. 

"Is there nothing I could say that would alter your mind?"

"I am afraid--nothing. "

She gave him her hand. He scarcely dared to press it; she had becomesuddenly so strong, so hostile. Her light beauty had turned as it were tofire; one saw the flame of the spirit. 

A tumult of thoughts and regrets rushed through him. But thingsinexorable held him. With a long, lingering look at her, he turned andwent. 

A little later, Susy entering timidly found Lydia sitting alone in a roomthat was nearly dark. Some instinct guided her. She came in, took a stoolbeside her sister, and leant her head against Lydia's knee. Lydia saidnothing, but their hands joined, and for long they sat in the firelight, the only sounds, Lydia's stifled sobbing, and the soft crackling of adying flame. 

BOOK IV

XIX

Tatham was returning alone from a run with the West Cumbrian hounds. TheDecember day was nearly done, and he saw the pageant of its going from apoint on the outskirts of his own park. The park, a great space of wildland extending some miles to the north through a sparsely peopled county, was bounded and intersected throughout its northerly section by varioushigh moorland roads. At a cross-road, leading to Duddon on the left, andto a remote valley running up the eastern side of Blencathra on theright, he reined up his horse to look for a moment at the sombre glowwhich held the western heaven; amid which the fells of Thirlmere andDerwentwater stood superbly ranged in threatening blacks and purples. Tothe east and over the waste of Flitterdale, that great flat "moss" inwhich the mountains die away, there was the prophecy of moonrise; apearly radiance in the air, a peculiar whiteness in the mists that hadgathered along the river, a silver message in the sky. But the wind wasrising, and the westerly clouds rushing up. The top of Blencathra wasalready hidden; it might be a wild night. 

Only one luminous point was to be seen, at first, in all the wide andsplendid landscape. It shone from Threlfall Tower, a dark andindistinguishable mass amid its hanging woods. 

"Old Melrose--counting out his money!"

But as the scornful fancy crossed his mind, a few other dim and scatteredlights began to prick the gloom of the fast-darkening valley. Thattwinkle far away, in the direction of St. John's Vale, might it not bethe light of Green Cottage--of Lydia's lamp?

He sat his horse, motionless, consumed with longing and grief. Yet, hardexercise in the open air, always seemed to bring him a kind of physicalcomfort. "It _was_ a jolly _run_!" he thought, yet half ashamed. Hisyoung blood was in love with life, through all heartache. 

Suddenly, a whirring sound from the road on his right, and the flash ofmoving lamps. He saw that a small motor was approaching, and his marebegan to fidget. 

"Gently, old girl!"

The motor approached and slowed at the corner. 

"Hallo Undershaw! is that you?"

The motor stopped and Undershaw jumped out, and turned off his engine. Tatham's horse was pirouetting. 

"All right, " said Undershaw; "I'll walk by you a bit. Turn her up yourroad. "

The beautiful mare quieted down, and presently the two were in closetalk, while the motor left to itself blazed on the lonely moorland road. 

Undershaw was describing a visit he had paid that morning to old Brand, the bailiff, who was now quietly and uncomplainingly losing hold on life. 

"He may go any time--perhaps to-night. The elder son's departure hasfinished him. I told the lad that if he cared to stay till his father'sdeath, you would see that he got work meanwhile on the estate; but he waswild to go--not a scrap of filial affection that I could make out!--andthe poor old fellow has scarcely spoken since he left the house. So therehe is, left with the feeble old wife, and the half-witted son, who growsqueerer and madder than ever. I needn't say the woman was verygrateful--"

"Don't!" said Tatham; "it's a beastly world. "

They moved on in silence, till Undershaw resumed:

"Dixon came to the surgery this afternoon, and I understood from him thathe thinks Melrose is breaking up fast. He tries to live as usual; and histemper is appalling. But Dixon sees a great change. "

"Well, it'll scarcely be possible to say that his decease 'cast a gloomover the countryside. ' Will it?" laughed Tatham. 

"What'll Faversham do? That's what I keep asking myself. "

"Do? Why, go off with the shekels, and be damned to us! I understand thatjust at present he's paying rather high for them, which is somesatisfaction. That creature Nash told one of our men the other day thatMelrose now treats him like dirt, and finds his chief amusement instopping anything he wants to do. "

"Then he'd better look sharp after the will, " said Undershaw, with asmile. "Melrose is game for any number of tricks yet. But I don't judgeFaversham quite as you do. I believe he has all sorts of grand ideas inhis head about what he'll do when he comes in. "

"I daresay! You need 'em when you begin with taking soiled money. Mrs. Melrose got the quarterly payment of her allowance yesterday, from anItalian bank--twenty-five pounds minus ten pounds, which seems to bemortgaged in some way. Melrose's solicitors gracefully let her knowthat the allowance was raised by twenty pounds! On fifteen poundstherefore she and the girl are expected to exist for the quarter--_and_support the old father. And yesterday just after my mother had shown methe check, I saw Faversham in Pengarth, driving a Rolls-Royce car, brand-new, with a dark fellow beside him whom I know quite well as aBond Street dealer. I conclude Faversham was taking him to see thecollections--_his_ collections!"

"It looks ugly I grant. But I believe he'll provide for the girl as soonas he can. "

"And I hope she'll refuse it!" cried Tatham. "And I believe she will. She's a girl of spirit. She talks of going on the stage. My mother hasfound out that she's got a voice, and she dances divinely. My mother'sactually got a teacher for her from London, whom we put up in thevillage. "

"A lovely little girl!" said Undershaw. "And she's getting over herhardships. But the mother--" He shook his head. 

"You think she's in a bad way?"

"Send her back to Italy as soon as you can. She's pining for her ownpeople. Life's been a bit too hard for her, and she never was but a poorthing. Well, I must go. "

Tatham stayed his horse. Undershaw, added as though by an afterthought:

"I was at Green Cottage this morning. Mrs. Penfold's rather knocked upwith nursing her sister. She chattered to me about Faversham. He used tobe a good deal there but they've broken with him too; apparently, becauseof Mainstairs. Miss Lydia couldn't stand it. She was _so_ devoted to thepeople. "

The man on horseback made some inaudible reply, and they began to talk ofa couple of sworn inquiries about to be held on the Threlfall estate bythe officials of the Local Government Board, into the housing andsanitation of three of the chief villages on Melrose's property. Thedepartment had been induced to move by a committee of local gentlemen, inwhich Tatham had taken a leading part. The whole affair had reduceditself indeed so far to a correspondence duel between Tatham, asrepresenting a scandalized neighbourhood, and Faversham, as representingMelrose. 

Tatham's letters, in which a man, with no natural gift for the pen, haddeveloped a surprising amount of effective sarcasm, had all appeared inthe local press; with Faversham's ingenious and sophistical replies. Tatham discussed them now with Undershaw in a tone of passionatebitterness. The doctor said little. He had his own shrewd ideas on thesituation. 

 * * * * *

When Undershaw left him, Tatham rode on, up the forest lane, till againthe trees fell away, the wide valley with its boundary fells openedbefore him, and again his eye sought through the windy dusk for thefar-gleaming light that spoke to him of Lydia. His mind was full of freshagitation, stirred by Undershaw's remark about her. The idea of a breachbetween Lydia and Faversham was indeed most welcome, since it seemed torestore Lydia to that pedestal from which it had been so hard and strangeto see her descend. It gave him back the right to worship her! And yet, the notion did nothing--now--to revive any hope for himself. He kept thedistant light in view for long, his heart full of a tenderness which, though he did not know it, had already parted with much of the bitternessof unsatisfied passion. Unconsciously, the healing process was on itsway; the healing of the normal man, on whom a wound is no soonerinflicted than all the reparative powers of life rush together for itscure. 

 * * * *

But while Tatham, wrapped in thoughts of Lydia, was thus drawinghomeward, across the higher ground of the estate, down through the Duddonwoods, as they fell gently to the river, a little figure was hurrying, with the step of a fugitive, and half-nervous, half-exultant looksfrom side to side. The moon had risen. It was not dark in the woods, andFelicia, amid the _boschi_ of the Apuan Alps, had never been frightenedof the night or of any ill befalling her. In Lucca itself she might beinsulted; on the hills, never. She had the independence, and--generallyspeaking--the strength of the working girl. So that the enterprise onwhich she was launched--the quest of her father--presented itself to heras nothing particularly difficult. She had indeed to keep it from hermother and Lady Tatham, and to find means of escaping them. That shecalmly took steps to do, not bothering her head much about it. 

As to the rest of the business, there was a station on the Keswick lineclose to the gate of the park, and she had looked out a train which wouldtake her conveniently to Whitebeck, which was only half a mile fromThrelfall. From Duddon to Whitebeck took eight minutes in the train. Shewould be at Whitebeck a little after five; allowing an hour for heradventure at the Tower, and some little margin, she would catch a trainback between six and seven, which would allow of her slipping into Duddona little after seven, unnoticed, and in good time to dress for dinner. Her Italian blood betrayed itself throughout, alike in the keen pleasureshe took in the various devices of her small plot; in the entire absenceof any hampering scruples as to the disobedience and deceit which itinvolved; and in the practical intelligence with which she was ready tocarry it out. She had brooded over it for days; and this afternoon aconvenient opportunity had arisen. Her mother was in her room with aheadache; Lady Tatham had had to go to Carlisle on business. 

As she hastened, almost running, through the park, she was planning, byfits and starts, what she would say to her father. But still more was thethinking of Tatham--asking herself questions about him, with littlethrills of excitement, and little throbbings of delicious fear. 

Here she was, at the gate of the park. Just ten minutes to her train! Shehurried on. A few labourers were in the road coming home tired from theirwork; a few cottage doors were ajar, showing the bright fire, and thesprawling children within. Some of the men as they passed looked withcuriosity at the slim stranger; but she was well muffled up in her newfurs--Victoria's gift--and her large felt hat; they saw little more thanthe tips of her small nose and chin. 

The train came in just as she reached the station. She took her ticketfor Whitebeck, and as the train jogged along, she looked out of thewindow at the valley in the dim moonrise, her mind working tumultuously. Lady Tatham had told her much; Hesketh, Lady Tatham's maid, and the oldcoachman who had been teaching her to ride, had told her more. She knewthat before she reached Whitebeck she would have passed the boundarybetween the Duddon and Threlfall estates. She was now indeed on herfather's land, the land which in justice ought to be hers some day; whichin Italy would be hers by law, or part of it anyway, whatever pranks herfather might play. But here in England a man might rob his child of everypenny if he pleased. That was strange when England was such a greatcountry--such a splendid country. "I _love_ England!" she thoughtpassionately, as she leant back with folded arms and closed eyes. 

And straightway on the dusk rose the image of Tatham--Tatham onhorseback, as she had seen him set out for the hunt that morning; and shefelt her eyes grow a little wet. Why? Oh! because he was so tall andsplendid--and he sat his horse like a king--and everybody loved him--andshe was living in his house--and so, whether he would or no, he must takenotice of her sometimes. One evening had he not let her mend his glove?And another evening, when she was practising her dancing for Lady Tatham, had he not come in to look? Ah, well, wait till she could sing and danceproperly, till--perhaps--he saw her on the stage! Her newly discoveredsinging voice, which was the excitement of the moment for Lady Tatham andNetta, was to Felicia like some fairy force within her, struggling to beat large, which would some day carve out her fortunes, and bring her toTatham--on equal terms. 

For her pride had flourished and fed upon her love. She no longer talkedof Tatham to her mother or any one else. But deep in her heart lay thetenacious, pursuing instinct. 

And besides--suppose--she made an impression on her father--on his cruelold heart? Such things do happen. It's silly to say they don't. "I _am_pretty--and now my clothes are all right--and my hands have come nearlywhite. He'll see I'm not a girl to be ashamed of. And if my father didgive me a _dot_--why then I'd send my mother to _his_ mother! That's howwe'd do it in Italy. I'm as well-born as he--nearly--and if I had a_dot_--"

The yellow-haired girl at any rate was quite out of the way. No one spokeof her; no one mentioned her. That was all right. 

And as to Threlfall and her father, if she was able to soften him at allit would not be in the least necessary to drive that bad young man, Mr. Faversham, to despair. Compromise--bargaining--settle most things. Shefell to imagining--with a Latin clearness and realism--how it might behandled. Only it would have to be done before her father died. For if Mr. Faversham once took all the money and all the land, there would be no_dot_ for her, even if he were willing to give it her. For Lord Tathamwould never take a farthing from Mr. Faversham, not even through hiswife. "And so it would be no use to me, " thought Felicia, quietly, butregretfully. 

Whitebeck station. Out she tripped, asked her way to Threlfall, and hurried off into the dark, followed by the curious looks of thestation-master. 

She was soon at the park gate, and passed through it with a beatingheart. She had heard of the bloodhounds; and the sound of a bark in thedistance--though it was only the collie at the farm--gave her a start ofterror. 

The Whitebeck gate was but a short distance from the house, and asshe turned a corner, the Tower rose suddenly before her. She held herbreath; it looked so big, so darkly magnificent. She thought of all thetales that had been told her, the rooms full of silver and gold--the_arazzi_--the _stucchi_--the cabinets and sculpture. She had grown up inan atmosphere of perpetual bric-a-brac; she had seen the big Florentineshops; she could imagine what it was like. 

There were lights in two of the windows; and the smoke from severalchimneys rose wind-beaten against the woods behind. The moon stoodimmediately over the roof, and the shadow of the house stretched beyondthe forecourt almost to her feet. 

She lingered a few minutes, fascinated, gazing at this huge place whereher father lived--her father whom she had never seen since she was ababy. The moon lit up her tiny figure, and her small white face, as shestood in the open, alone in the wintry silence. 

Then, swiftly, and instead of going up to the front door, she turned tothe right along a narrow flagged path that skirted the forecourt and ledto the back of the house. 

She knew exactly what to do. She had planned it all with Hesketh, Hesketh, who was the daughter of a farmer on the Duddon estate, fiftyyears old, a born gossip, and acquainted with every man, woman andchild in the neighbourhood. Did not Hesketh go to the same chapel withThomas Dixon and his wife? And had she not a romantic soul, far abovefurbelows--a soul which had flung itself into the cause of the "heiress, "to the point of keeping the child's secret, even from her ladyship?Hesketh indeed had suffered sharply from qualms of conscience in thisrespect. But Felicia had spared her as much as possible, by keeping theprecise moment of her escapade to herself. 

She groped her way round, till she came to a side path leading to anentrance. The path indeed was that by which Faversham had been originallycarried into the Tower, across the foot-bridge. Peering over a low wallthat bounded the path, she looked startled into an abyss of leaflesstrees, with a bright gleam of moonlit water far below. In front of herwas a door and steps, and some rays of light penetrating through theshuttered windows beside the door, showed that there was life within. 

Felicia mounted the steps and knocked. No one came. At last she found abell and rang it--cautiously. Steps approached. The door was opened, anda gray-haired woman stood on the threshold. 

"Well, what's your business?" she said sharply. It was evident that shewas short-sighted, and did not clearly see the person outside. 

"Please, I want to speak to Mr. Melrose. "

The clear, low voice arrested the old woman. 

"Eh?" she said testily. "And who may you be? You cawn't see Mr. Melrose, anyways. "

"I want to see him particularly. Are you Mrs. Dixon?"

"Aye--a'am Mrs. Dixon. But aa've no time to goa chatterin' at doors wi'yoong women; soa if yo'll juist gie me yor business, I'll tell MusterFaversham, when he's got time to see to 't. "

"It's not Mr. Faversham I want to see--it's Mr. Melrose. Mrs. Dixon, don't you remember me?"

Mrs. Dixon stepped back in puzzled annoyance, so as to let a light fromthe passage shine upon the stranger's face. She stood motionless. 

Felicia stepped within. 

"I am Miss Melrose, " she said, with composure, "Felicia Melrose. You knewme when I was a child. And I wish to see my father. "

Mrs. Dixon's face seemed to have fallen into chaos under the shock. Shestood staring at the visitor, her mouth working. 

"Muster Melrose's däater!" she said, at last. "T' baby--as was! Aye--yo'feature him! An' yo're stayin' ower ta Duddon--wi' her ladyship. I know. Dixon towd me. Bit yo' shouldna' coom here, Missie! Yo' canno' see yourfeyther. "

"Why not?" said Felicia imperiously. "I mean to see him. Here I am in thehouse. Take me to him at once!"

And suddenly closing the entrance door behind her, she moved on toward aninner passage dimly lit, of which she had caught sight. 

Mrs. Dixon clung to her arm. 

"Noa, noa! Coom in here, Missie--coom in _here_! Dixon!--where are yo'?Dixon!"

She raised her voice. A chair was pushed back in the kitchen, on theother side of the passage. An old man who, to judge from his aspect, hadbeen roused by his wife's call from a nap after his tea, appeared in adoorway. 

Mrs. Dixon drew Felicia toward him, and into the kitchen, as he retreatedthither. Then she shut and bolted the door. 

"This is t' yoong lady!" she said in a breathless whisper to her husband. "Muster-Melrose's däater! She's coom fra Duddon. An' she's fer seein' herfeyther. "

Old Dixon had grown very pale. But otherwise he showed no surprise. Helooked frowning at Felicia. 

"Yo' canno' do that, Miss Melrose. Yo'r feyther wunna see yo'. He's anowd man noo, and we darena disturb him. "

Felicia argued with the pair, first quietly, then with a heaving breast, and some angry tears. Dixon soon dropped the struggle, so far as wordswent. He left that to his wife. But he stood firmly against the door, looking on. 

"You shan't keep me here!" said Felicia at last with a stamp. "I'll callsome one! I'll make a noise!"

A queer, humorous look twinkled over Dixon's face. Then--suddenly--hemoved from the door. His expression had grown hesitating--soft. 

"Varra well, then. Yo' shall goa--if you mun goa. "

His wife protested. He turned upon her. 

"She shall goa!" he repeated, striking the dresser beside him. "Herfeyther's an old man--an' sick. Mebbe he'll be meetin' his Mäaker face toface, before the year's oot; yo' canno' tell. He's weakenin' fasst. An'he's ben a hard mon to his awn flesh and blood. There'll be a reckonin'!An' the Lord's sent him this yan chance o' repentance. I'll not stan' i'the Lord's way--whativer. Coom along, Missie!"

And entirely regardless of his wife's entreaties, the old Methodistresolutely opened the kitchen door, and beckoned to Felicia. He was lamenow and walked with a stick, his shoulders bent. But he neither paused, nor spoke to her again. Murmuring to himself, he led her along the innerpassage, and opened the door into the great gallery. 

A blaze of light and colour, a rush of heated air. Felicia was dazzled bythe splendour of the great show within--the tapestries, the pictures, thegleaming reflections on lacquer and intarsia, on ebony or Sèvres. But theatmosphere was stifling. Melrose now could only live in the temperatureof a hothouse. 

Dixon threw open a door, and without a word beckoned to Felicia to enter. He hesitated a moment, evidently as to whether he should announce her;and then, stepping forward, he cleared his throat. 

"Muster Melrose, theer's soom one as wants to speak to you!"

"What do you mean, you old fool!" said a deep, angry voice on the otherside of a great lacquer screen; "didn't I tell you I wasn't to bedisturbed?"

Felicia walked round the screen. Dixon, with an excited look at her, retired through the door which he closed behind him. 

"Father!" said Felicia, in a low, trembling voice. 

An old man who was writing at a large inlaid table, in the midst of aconfusion of objects which the girl's eyes had no time to take in, turnedsharply at the sound. 

The two stared at each other. Melrose slowly revolved on his chair, penin hand. Felicia stood, with eyes downcast, her cheeks burning, her handslightly clasped. 

Melrose spoke first. 

"H'm--so they've sent _you_ here?"

She looked up. 

"No one sent me. I--I wished to see you--before we went away; because youare my father--and I mightn't ever see you--if I didn't now. And I wantedto ask you"--her voice quivered--"not to be angry any more with motherand me. We never meant to vex you--by coming. But we were so poor--andmother is ill. Yes, she _is_ ill!--she is--it's no shamming. Won't youforgive us?--won't you give mother a little more money?--and won'tyou"--she clasped her hands entreatingly--"won't you give me a _dot_? Imay want to be married--and you are so rich? And I wouldn't ever troubleyou again--I--"

She broke off, intimidated, paralyzed by the strange fixed look of theold wizard before her--his flowing hair, his skullcap, his white andsunken features. And yet mysteriously she recognized herself in him. Sherealized through every fibre that he was indeed her father. 

"You would have done better not to trouble me again!" said Melrose, withslow emphasis. "Your mother seems to pay no attention whatever to what Isay. We shall see. So you want a _dot_? And, pray, what do you want a_dot_ for? Who's going to marry you? Tatham?"

The tone was more mocking than fierce; but Felicia shrank under it. 

"Oh, no, _no_! But I _might_ want to marry, " she added piteously. "And inItaly--one can't marry--without a _dot_!"

"Your mother should have thought of these things when she ran away. "

Felicia was silent a moment. Then, without invitation, she seated herselfon the edge of a chair that stood near him. 

"That was so long ago, " she said timidly--yet confidingly. "And I was ababy. Couldn't you--couldn't you forget it now?"

Melrose surveyed her. 

"I suppose you like being at Duddon?" he asked her abruptly, withoutanswering her question. 

She clasped her hands fervently. 

"It's like heaven! They're so good to us. "

"No doubt!"--the tone was sarcastic. "Well, let them provide for you. Whogave you those clothes? Lady Tatham?"

She nodded. Her lip trembled. Her startled eyes looked at him piteously. 

"You've been living at Lucca?"

"Near Lucca--on the mountains. "

"H'm. Is that all true--about your grandfather?"

"That he's ill? Of course, it's true!" she said indignantly. "We don'ttell lies. He's had a stroke--he's dying. And we could hardly give himany food he could eat. You see--"

She edged a little closer, and began a voluble, confidential account oftheir life in the mountains. Her voice was thin and childish, but sweet;and every now and then she gave a half-frightened, half-excited laugh. Melrose watched her frowning; but he did not stop her. Her bright eyesand brows, with their touches of velvet black, the quick movement of herpink lips, the rose-leaf delicacy of her colour, seemed to hold him. Among the pretty things with which the room was crowded she was theprettiest; and he probably was conscious of it. Propped up against theFrench bureau stood a Watteau drawing in red chalk--a _sanguine_--he hadbought in Paris on a recent visit. The eyes of the old connoisseur wentfrom the living face to the drawing, comparing them. 

At last Felicia paused. Her smiles died away. She looked at himwistfully. 

"Mother's awfully sorry she--she offended you so. Won't you forgive hernow--and poor Babbo--about the little statue?"

She hardly dared breathe the last words, as she timidly dropped her eyes. 

There were tears in her voice, and yet she was not very far fromhysterical laughter. The whole scene was so fantastic--ridiculous! Theroom with its lumber; its confusion of glittering things; this old manfrowning at her--for no reason! For after all--what had she done? Eventhe _contadini_--they were rough often--they couldn't read or write--butthey loved their grandchildren. 

As he caught her reference to the bronze Hermes, Melrose's face changed. He rose, stretching out a hand toward a bell on the table. 

"You must go!" he said, sharply. "You ought never to have come. You'llget nothing by it. Tell your mother so. This is the second attack she hasmade on me--through her tools. If she attempts another, she may take theconsequences!"

Felicia too stood up. A rush of anger and despair choked her. 

"And you won't--you won't even say a kind word to me!" she said, panting. "You won't kiss me?"

For answer, he seized her by the hands, and drew her toward the light. There, for a few intolerable seconds he looked closely, with a kind ofsavage curiosity, into her face, studying her features, her hair, herlight form. Then pushing her from him, he opened that same drawer in theFrench cabinet that Undershaw had once seen him open, fumbled a little, and took out something that glittered. 

"Take that. But if you come here again it will be the worse for you, andfor your mother. When I say a thing I mean it. Now, go! Dixon shall takeyou to the train. "

Felicia glanced at the Renaissance jewel in her hand--delicate Venus ingold and pearl, set in a hoop of diamonds. "I won't have it!" she said, dashing it from her with a sob of passion. "And we won't take your moneyeither--not a farthing! We've got friends who'll help us. And I'll keepmy mother myself. You shan't give her anything--nor my grandfather. Soyou needn't threaten us! You can't do us any harm!"

She looked him scornfully over from head to foot, a little fury, withblazing eyes. 

Melrose laughed. 

"I thought you came to get a _dot_ out of me, " he said, with liftedbrows, admiring her in spite of himself. "You seem to have a good spiceof the Melrose temper in you. I'm sorry I can't treat you as you seem towish. Your mother settled that. Well--that'll do--that'll do! We can'tbandy words any more. Dixon!"

He touched the hand-bell beside him. 

Felicia hurried to the door, sobbing with excitement. As she reached itDixon entered. Melrose spoke a few peremptory words to him, and she foundherself walking through the gallery, Dixon's hand on her arm, while hemuttered and lamented beside her. 

"'And the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart. ' Aye, it's the Lord--it's theLord. Oh! Missie, Missie--I was a fool to let yo' in. Yo've been nowt buta new stone o' stumblin'; an' the Lord knows there's offences enoofalready!"

Meanwhile, in the room from which his daughter had been driven, Melrosehad risen from his seat, and was moving hither and thither, every now andthen taking up some object in the crowded tables, pretending to look atit, and putting it down again. He was pursued, tormented all the while byswarming thoughts--visualizations. That child would outlive him--herfather--perhaps by a half century. The flesh and blood sprung from hisown life, would go on enjoying and adventuring, for fifty years, perhaps, after he had been laid in his resented grave. And the mind which wouldhave had no existence had he not lived, would hold till death theremembrance of what he had just said and done--a child's only remembranceof her father. 

He stood, looking back upon his life, and quite conscious of some fatalelement in the moment which had just gone by. It struck him as a kind ofmoral tale. Some men would say that God had once more, and finally, offered him "a place of repentance"--through this strange and tardyapparition of his daughter. A ghostly smile flickered. The man of theworld knew best. "Let no man break with his own character. " That was thereal text which applied. And he had followed it. Circumstance and his ownwill had determined, twenty years earlier, that he had had enough ofwomen-kind. His dealings with them had been many and various! But at agiven moment he had put an end to them forever. And no falsesentimentalism should be allowed to tamper with the thing done. 

At this point he found himself sinking into his chair; and must needsconfess himself somewhat shaken by what had happened. He was angry withhis physical weakness, and haunted in spite of himself by the hue andfragrance of that youth he had just been watching--there--at the cornerof the table--beside the Watteau sketch. He sat staring at thedrawing.... 

Till the threatened vitality within again asserted itself; beat off thebesieging thoughts; and clutched fiercely at some new proof of its ownstrength. The old man raised himself, and laid his hand on the telephonewhich connected his room with that of Faversham. 

How, in Dixon's custody, Felicia reached the station, and stumbled intothe train, and how, at the other end, she groped her way into the gatesof Duddon and began the long woodland ascent to the castle, Felicia neverafterward knew. But when she had gone a few steps along the winding driveWhere the intermittent and stormy moonlight was barely enough to guideher, she felt her strength suddenly fail her. She could never climb thelong hill to the house--she could never fight the wind that was risingin her face. She must sit down, till some one came--to help. 

She sank down upon a couch of moss, at the foot of a great oak-tree whichwas still thick with withered leaf. The mental agitation, and the sheerphysical fatigue of her mad attempt had utterly worn out her barelyrecovered strength. "I shall faint, " she thought, "and no one will knowwhere I am!" She tried to concentrate her will on the resolution not tofaint. Straightening her back and head against the tree, she clasped herhands rigidly on her knee. From time to time a wave of passionaterecollection would rush through her; and her heart would beat so fast, that again the terror of sinking into some unknown infinite would stringup her will to resistance. In this alternate yielding and recoil, thisphysical and mental struggle, she passed minutes which seemed to herinterminable. At last resistance was all but overwhelmed. 

"Come to me!--oh, do come to me!"

She seemed to be pouring her very life into the cry. But, probably, thewords were only spoken in the mind. 

 * * * * *

A little later she woke up in bewilderment. She was no longer on themoss. She was being carried--carried firmly and speedily--in some one'sarms. She tried to open her eyes. 

"Where am I?"

A voice said:

"That's better! Don't be afraid. You'd fainted I think. I can carry youquite safely. "

Infinite bliss rushed in upon the girl's fluttering sense. She was toofeeble, too weak, to struggle. Instead she let her head sink on Tatham'sshoulder. Her right hand clung to his coat. 

The young man mounted the hill, marvelling at the lightness of the burdenhe held; touched, embarrassed, yet sometimes inclined to laugh or scold. What had she been about? He had come in from hunting to find her absencejust discovered, and the house roused. Victoria and Cyril Boden wereexploring other roads through the garden and park; he had run down thelong hill to the station lodge in case the theory started at once byVictoria that she had escaped, unknown to any one, in order to force aninterview with her father should turn out to be the right one. 

Presently a trembling voice said in the darkness, while some soft curlsof hair tickled his cheek:

"I've been to Threlfall. Will Lady Tatham be very angry?"

"Well, she was a bit worried, " said Tatham, wondering if the occasionought not to be improved. "She guessed--you might have gone there. There's bad weather coming--and she was anxious what might happen to you. Ah! there's the rain!"

Two or three large drops descended on Felicia's cheek as it lay upturnedon his shoulder; a pattering began on the oak-leaves overhead; themoonlight was blotted out, and when Felicia opened her eyes, it was on aheavy darkness. 

"Stupid!" cried Tatham. "Why didn't I think of bringing a mackintoshcape?"

"Mayn't I walk?" asked Felicia, meekly. "I think I could. "

"I expect you'd better not. You were pretty bad when I found you. It's notrouble to me to carry you, and I know every inch of these roads. "

And indeed by now he would have been very loath to quit his task. Therewas something tormentingly attractive in this warm softness of the girl'stiny form upon his breast. The thought darted across him--"If I had everheld Lydia so!" It was a pang; but it passed; and what remained was atenderness of soul, evoked by Lydia, but passing out now beyond Lydia. 

Poor little foolish thing! He supposed she had been trampled on, as hismother had been. But his mother could defend herself. What chance hadthis child against the old tyrant! An eager, protective sympathy--awarm pity--arose in him; greatly quickened by this hand and arm thatclung to him. 

The rain began to drive against them. 

"Do you mind getting wet?" he said laughing, almost in her ear. 

"Not a bit! I--I didn't mean to give any trouble. "

The tone was penitent. Tatham, forgetting all thoughts of admonition, reassured her. 

"You didn't give any. Except--Your mother of course was very anxiousabout you. "

"But I couldn't tell her!" sighed the voice on his shoulder. "She'd havestopped it. "

Tatham smiled unseen. 

"I'm afraid your father wasn't kind to you, " he said, after a pause. 

"It was horrible--horrible!" The little body he held shuddered closer tohim. "Why does he hate us so? and I lost my temper too--I stamped at him. But he looks so old--so old! I think he'll die soon. "

"That would be happiest, " said Tatham, gravely. 

"I told him we would never take any money from him again. I must earnit--I will! Your mother will lend me a little--for my training. I'll payit back. "

"You poor child!" he murmured. 

At that moment they emerged upon the last section of the broad avenueleading to the house. And the electric light in the pillared porch threwlong rays toward them. 

"Please put me down, " said Felicia, with decision. "I can walk quitewell. "

He obeyed her. But her weakness was still such, that she could only walkwith help. Guiding, supporting her, he half led, half carried her along. 

As they reached the lighted porch, she looked up, her face sparkling withrain, a touch of mischief in her hollow-ringed eyes. 

"How much will they scold?"

"Can't say, I am sure! I think you'll have to bear it. "

"Never mind!" Her white cheeks dimpled. "It's Duddon! I'd rather bescolded at Duddon, than petted anywhere else. "

Tatham flushed suddenly. So did she. And as the door opened Feliciawalked with composure past the stately butler. 

"Is Lady Tatham in the library?"

Netta Melrose, full of fears, wept that evening over her daughter's rashdisobedience. Victoria administered what reproof she could; and Feliciawas reduced to a heated defence of herself, sitting up in bed, with apair of hot cheeks and tearful eyes. But when all the lights were out, and she was alone, she thought no more of any such nips and pricks. Thenight was joy around her, and as she sank to sleep; Tatham, in dream, still held her, still carried her through the darkness and the rain. 

XX

While Felicia was making her vain attempt upon her father's pity, Faversham was sitting immersed in correspondence in his own room at thefarther end of the gallery. He heard nothing of the girl's arrival ordeparture. Sound travelled but little through the thick walls of theTower, and the gallery, muffled with rich carpets, with hangings andfurniture, deadened both step and voice. 

The agent was busy with some typewritten evidence that Melrose waspreparing wherewith to fight the Government officials now being sent downfrom London to inquire into the state of some portion of the property. The evidence had been collected by Nash, and Faversham read it withdisgust. He knew well that the great mass of it was perjured stuff, bought at a high price. Yet both in public and private he would have toback up all the lies and evasions that his master, and the pack ofobscure hangers-on who lived upon his pay, chose to put forward. 

He set his teeth as he read. The iron of his servitude was cutting itsway into life, deeper and deeper. Could he go on bearing it? For weeks hehad lived with Melrose on terms of sheer humiliation--rated, or mockedat, his advice spurned, the wretched Nash and his crew ostentatiouslypreferred to him, even put over him. "No one shall ever say I haven'tearned my money, " he would say to himself fiercely, as the intolerabledays went by. His only abiding hope and compensation lay in his intensebelief that Melrose was a dying man. All those feelings of naturalgratitude, with which six months before he had entered on his task, were long since rooted up. He hated his tyrant, and he wished him dead. But the more he dwelt for consolation on the prospect of Melrose'sdisappearance, the more attractive became to him the vision of his owncoming reign. Some day he would be his own master, and the master ofthese hoards. Some day he would emerge from the cloud of hatred andsuspicion in which he habitually walked; some day he would be able oncemore to follow the instincts of an honest man; some day he would be ableagain--perhaps--to look Lydia Penfold in the face! Endurance for a fewmore months, on the best terms he could secure, lest the old madmanshould even yet revoke his gifts; and then--a transformation scene--onthe details of which his thoughts dwelt perpetually, by way of relieffrom the present. Tatham and the rest of his enemies, who were nowhunting and reviling him, would be made to understand that if he hadstooped, he had stooped with a purpose; and that the end _did_ in thiscase justify the means. 

A countryside cleansed, comforted, remade; a great estate ideallymanaged; a great power to be greatly used; scope for experiment, forpublic service, for self-realization--he greedily, passionately, foresawthem all. Let him be patient. Nothing could interfere with his dream, but some foolish refusal of the conditions on which alone it could cometrue. 

Often, when this mood of self-assertion was on him, he would go back inthought to his boyish holidays in Oxford, and to his uncle. He saw thekind old fellow in his shepherd plaid suit, black tie, and wide-awake, taking his constitutional along the Woodstock road, or playing a mildgame of croquet in the professorial garden; or he recalled him among hisgems--those rare and beautiful things, bought with the savings of alifetime, loved, each of them, for its own sake, and bequeathed at death, with the tender expression of a wish--no tyrannical condition!--tothe orphan boy whom he had fathered. 

The thought of what would--what must be--Uncle Mackworth's judgment onhis present position, was perhaps the most tormenting element inFaversham's consciousness. He faced it, however, with frankness. Hisuncle would have condemned him--wholly. The notion of serving a bad man, for money, would have been simply inconceivable to that straight andinnocent soul. Are there not still herbs to be eaten under hedgerows, with the sauce of liberty and self-respect?

No doubt. But man is entitled to self-fulfilment; and men pursue vastlydifferent ways of obtaining it. The perplexities of practical ethics areinfinite; and mixed motives fit a mixed world. 

At least he had not bartered away his uncle's treasure. The gems stillstood to him as the symbol of something he had lost, and might some dayrecover. It was really time he got them out of Melrose's clutches... 

... The room was oppressively hot! It was a raw December night, but theheating system of the Tower was now so perfect, and to Faversham's mindso excessive, that every corner of the large house was bathed in atemperature which seemed to keep Melrose alive, while it half suffocatedevery other inmate. 

Suddenly the telephone bell on his writing-desk rang. His room was nowconnected with Melrose's room, at the other end of the house, as well aswith Pengarth. He put his ear to the receiver. 

"Yes?"

"I want to speak to you. "

He rose unwillingly. But at least he could air the room, which he wouldnot have ventured to do, if Melrose were coming to him as usual for theten minutes' hectoring, which now served as conversation between them, before bedtime. Going to the window which gave access to the terraceoutside, he unclosed the shutters, and threw open the glass doors. Heperceived that it had begun to rain, and that the night was darkening. Hestood drinking in the moist coolness of the air for a few seconds, andthen leaving the window open, and forgetting to extinguish the electriclight on his table he went out of the room. 

He found Melrose in his chair, his aspect thunderous and excited. 

"Was it by your plotting, sir, that that girl got in?" said the old man, as he entered. 

Faversham stood amazed. 

"What girl?"

Melrose angrily described Felicia's visit, adding that if Faversham knewnothing about it, it was his duty to know. Dixon deserved dismissal forhis abominable conduct; "and you, sir, are paid a large salary, not onlyto manage--or mismanage--my affairs, but also to protect your employerfrom annoyance. I expect you to do it!"

Faversham took the charge quietly. His whole relation to Melrosehad altered so rapidly for the worse during the preceding weeks thatno injustice or unreason surprised him. And yet there was somethingstrange--something monstrous--in the old man's venomous temper. Afterall his bribes, after all his tyranny, did he still feel somethingin Faversham escape him?--some deep-driven defiance, or hope, intangible? He seemed indeed to be always on the watch now for freshoccasions of attack that should test his own power, and Faversham'ssubmission. 

Presently, he abruptly left the subject of his daughter, and Favershamdid not pursue it. What was the good of inquiring into the details of thegirl's adventure? He guessed pretty accurately at what had happened; thescorn which had been poured on the suppliant; the careless indifferencewith which she had been dismissed--through the rain and the night. Yetanother scandal for a greedy neighbourhood!--another story to reach theears of the dwellers in a certain cottage, with the embellishments, nodoubt, which the popular hatred of both himself and Melrose was certainto supply. He felt himself buried a little deeper under the stoning ofhis fellows. But at the same time he was conscious--as of a dangerpoint--of a new and passionate exasperation in himself. His will mustcontrol it. 

Melrose, however, proceeded to give it fresh cause. He took up a letterfrom Nash containing various complaints of Faversham, which had reachedhim that evening. 

"You have been browbeating our witnesses, sir! Nash reports them asdiscouraged, and possibly no longer willing to come forward. Whatbusiness had you to jeopardize my interests by posing as the superiorperson? The evidence had been good enough for Nash--and myself. It mighthave been good enough for you. "

Faversham smiled, as he lit his cigarette. 

"The two men you refer to--whom you asked me to see yesterday--were acouple of the feeblest liars I ever had to do with. Tatham's counselwould have turned them inside out in five minutes. You seem to forget theother side are employing counsel. "

"I forgot nothing!" said Melrose hotly. "But I expect you to follow yourinstructions. "

"The point is--am I advising you in this matter, or am I merely youragent? You seem to expect me to act in both capacities. And I confess Ifind it difficult. "

Melrose fretted and fumed. He raised one point after another, criticisingFaversham's action and advice in regard to the housing inquiries, asthough he were determined to pick a quarrel. Faversham met him on thewhole with wonderful composure, often yielding in appearance, but inreality getting the best of it throughout. Under the mask of thediscussion, however, the temper of both men was rising fast. It was asthough two deep-sea currents, converging far down, were struggling unseentoward the still calm surface, there to meet in storm and convulsion. 

Again, Melrose changed the conversation. He was by now extraordinarilypale. All the flushed excitement in which Faversham had found him haddisappeared. He was more spectral, more ghostly--and ghastly--thanFaversham had ever seen him. His pincerlike fingers played with the jewelwhich Felicia had thrown down upon the table. He took it up, put on hiseyeglass, peered at it, put it down again. Then he turned an intent andevil eye on Faversham. 

"I have now something of a quite different nature to say to you. Youhave, I imagine, expected it. You will, perhaps, guess at it. And Icannot imagine for one moment that you will make any difficulty aboutit. "

Faversham's pulse began to race. 

He suspended his cigarette. 

"What is it?"

"I am asked to send a selection of antique gems to the Loan Exhibitionwhich is being got up by the 'Amis du Louvre' in Paris, after Christmas. I desire to send both the Arconati Bacchus and the Medusa--in fact allthose now in the case committed to my keeping. "

"I have no objection, " said Faversham. But he had suddenly lost colour. 

"I can only send them in my own name, " said Melrose slowly. 

"That difficulty is not insurmountable. I can lend them to you. "

Melrose's composure gave way. He brought his hand heavily down on thetable. 

"I shall send them in--as my own property--in my own name!"

Faversham eyed him. 

"But they are not--they will not be--your property. "

"I offer you three thousand pounds for them!--four thousand--fivethousand--if you want more you can have it. Drive the best bargain youcan!" sneered Melrose, trying to smile. 

"I refuse your offer--your very generous offer--with great regret--but Irefuse!" Faversham had risen to his feet. 

"And your reason?--for a behaviour so--so vilely ungrateful!"

"Simply, that the gems were left to me--by an uncle I loved--who was asecond father to me--who asked me not to sell them. I have warned you notonce, or twice, that I should never sell them. "

"No! You expected both to get hold of my property--and to keep your own!"

"Insult me as you like, " said Faversham, quietly. "I probably deserve it. But you will not alter my determination. "

He stood leaning on the back of a chair, looking down on Melrose. Somebondage had broken in his soul! A tide of some beneficent force seemed tobe flooding its dry wastes. 

Melrose paused. In the silence each measured the other. Then Melrose saidin a voice which had grown husky:

"So--the first return you are asked to make, for all that has beenlavished upon you, you meet with--this refusal. That throws a new lightupon your character. I never proposed to leave my fortune to anadventurer! I proposed to leave it to a gentleman, capable ofunderstanding an obligation. We have mistaken each other--and ourarrangement--drops. Unless you consent to the very small request--thevery advantageous proposal rather--which I have just made you--you willleave this room--as penniless--except for any savings you may have madeout of your preposterous salary--as penniless--as you came into it!"

Faversham raised himself. He drew a long breath, as of a man delivered. 

"Do what you like, Mr. Melrose. There was a time when it seemed as ifour cooperation might have been of service to both. But some devil inyou--and a greedy mind in me--the temptation of your money--oh, Iconfess it, frankly--have ruined our partnership--and indeed--muchelse! I resume my freedom--I leave your house to-morrow. And now, please--return me my gems!"

He peremptorily held out his hand. Melrose glared upon him. Then slowlythe old man reopened the little drawer at his elbow, took thence theshagreen case, and pushed it toward Faversham. 

Faversham replaced it in his breast pocket. 

"Thank you. Now, Mr. Melrose, I should advise you to go to bed. Yourhealth is not strong enough to stand these disputes. Shall I call Dixon?As soon as possible my accounts shall be in your hands. "

"Leave the room, sir!" cried Melrose, choking with rage, and motioningtoward the door. 

On the threshold Faversham turned, and gave one last look at the darkfigure of Melrose, and the medley of objects surrounding it; at MadameElisabeth's Sèvres vases, on the upper shelf of the Riesener table; atthe Louis Seize clock, on the panelled wall, which was at that momentstriking eight. 

As he closed the door behind him, he was aware of Dixon who had justentered the gallery from the servants' quarters. The old butler hurriedtoward him to ask if he should announce dinner. "Not for me, " saidFaversham; "you had better ask Mr. Melrose. To-morrow, Dixon, I shall beleaving this house--for good. "

Dixon stared, his face working:

"I thowt--I heard yo'--" he said, and paused. 

"You heard us disputing. Mr. Melrose and I have had a quarrel. Bring mesomething to my room, when you have looked after him. I will come andspeak to you later. "

Faversham walked down the gallery to his own door. He had to pass on theway a splendid Nattier portrait of Marie Leczinska which had arrived onlythat morning from Paris, and was standing on the floor, leaning sidewaysagainst a chair, as Melrose had placed it himself, so as to get a goodlight on it. The picture was large. Faversham picked his way round it. Ifhis thoughts had not been so entirely preoccupied, he would probably havenoticed a slight movement of something behind the portrait as he passed. But exultation held him; he walked on air. 

He returned to his own room, where the window was still wide open. As heentered, he mechanically turned on the central light, not noticing thatthe reading lamp upon his table was not in its place. But he saw thatsome papers which had been on his desk when he left the room were now onthe floor. He supposed the wind which was rising had dislodged them. Stooping to lift them up, he was surprised to see a large mud-stain onthe topmost sheet. It looked like a footprint, as though some one hadfirst knocked the papers off the table, and then trodden on them. Heturned on a fresh switch. There was another mark on the floor just beyondthe table--and another--nearer the door. They were certainly footprints!But who could have entered the room during his absence? And where was theinvader? At the same time he perceived that his reading lamp had beenoverturned and was lying on the floor, broken. 

Filled with a vague anxiety, he returned to the door he had just closed. As he laid his hand upon it, a shot rang through the house--a cry--thesound of a fierce voice--a fall. 

And the next minute the door he held was violently burst open in hisface, he himself was knocked backward over a chair, and a man carrying agun, whose face was muffled in some dark material, rushed across theroom, leapt through the window, and disappeared into the night. 

 * * * * *

Faversham ran into the gallery. The first thing he saw was the Nattierportrait lying on its face beside a chair overturned. Beyond it, a darkobject on the floor. At the same moment, he perceived Dixon standinghorror-struck, at the farther end of the gallery, with the handle of thedoor leading to the servants' quarters still in his grasp. Then the oldman too ran. 

The two men were brought up by the same obstacle. The body of EdmundMelrose lay between them. 

Melrose had fallen on his face. As Faversham and Dixon lifted him, theysaw that he was still breathing, though _in extremis_. He had been shotthrough the breast, and a pool of blood lay beneath him, blotting out thefaded blues and yellow greens of a Persian carpet. 

At the command of her husband, Mrs. Dixon, who had hurried after him, ranfor brandy, crying also for help. Faversham snatched a cushion, put itunder the dying man's head, and loosened his clothing. Melrose's eyelidsfluttered once or twice, then sank. With a low groan, a gush of bloodfrom the mouth, he passed away while Dixon prayed. 

"May the Lord have mercy--mercy!"

The old man rocked to and fro beside the corpse in an anguish. Mrs. Dixoncoming with the brandy in her hand was stopped by a gesture fromFaversham. 

"No use!" He touched Dixon on the shoulder. "Dixon--this is murder! Youmust go at once for Doctor Undershaw and the police. Take the motor. Mrs. Dixon and I will stay here. But first--tell me--after I spoke to youhere--did you go in to Mr. Melrose?"

"I knocked, sir. But he shouted to me--angry like--to go away--till herang. I went back to t' kitchen, and I had nobbut closed yon door behindme--when I heard t' firin'. I brast it open again--an' saw a man--wi'summat roun' his head--fleein' doon t' gallery. My God!--my God!--"

"The man who did it was in the gallery while you and I were speaking toeach other, " said Faversham, calmly, as he rose; "and he got in throughmy window, while I was with Mr. Melrose. " He described briefly thepassage of the murderer through his own room. "Tell the police to havethe main line stations watched without a moment's delay. The man's gamewould be to get to one or other of them across country. There'll be nomarks on him--he fired from a distance--but his boots are muddy. Aboutfive foot ten I should think--a weedy kind of fellow. Go and wake Tonson, and be back as quick as you possibly can. And listen!--on your way to thestables call the gardener. Send him for the farm men, and tell them tosearch the garden, and the woods by the river. They'll find me there. Orstay--one of them can come here, and remain with Mrs. Dixon, while I'mgone. Let them bring lanterns--quick!"

In less than fifteen minutes the motor, with Dixon and the new chauffeur, Tonson, had left the Tower, and was rushing at forty miles an hour alongthe Pengarth road. 

Meanwhile, Faversham and the farm-labourers were searching the garden, the hanging woods, and the river banks. Footprints were found all alongthe terrace, and it was plain that the murderer had climbed the lowenclosing wall. But beyond, and all in the darkness, nothing could betraced. 

Faversham returned to the house, and began to examine the gallery. Thehiding-place of Melrose's assailant was soon discovered. Behind theNattier portrait, and the carved and gilt chair which Melrose had himselfmoved from its place in the morning, there were muddy marks on the floorand the wainscotting, which showed that a man had been crouching there. The picture, a large and imposing canvas--Marie Leczinska, sitting ona blue sofa, in a gala dress of rose-pink velvet with trimming of blackfur--had been more than sufficient to conceal him. Then--had he knockedto attract Melrose's attention, having ascertained from Dixon's shortcolloquy at the library door, after Faversham had left the room, that themaster of the Tower was still within?--or had Melrose suddenly come outinto the gallery, perhaps to give some order to Dixon?

Faversham thought the latter more probable. As Melrose appeared, themurderer had risen hastily from his hiding-place, upsetting the pictureand the chair. Melrose had received a charge of duck shot full in thebreast, with fatal effect. The range was so short that the shot hadscattered but little. A few pellets, however, could be traced in thewooden frames of the tapestries; and one had broken a majolica dishstanding on a cabinet. 

A man of the people then--using probably some old muzzle-loader, beggedor borrowed? Faversham's thought ran to the young fellow who haddenounced Melrose with such fervour at Mainstairs the day of LydiaPenfold's visit to the stricken village. But, good heavens!--there were ascore of men on Melrose's estate, with at least as good reason--orbetter--for shooting, as that man. Take the Brands! But old Brand wasgone to his rest, the elder son had sailed for Canada, and the youngerseemed to be a harmless, half-witted chap, of no account. 

Yet, clearly the motive had been revenge, not burglary. There were plentyof costly trifles on the tables and cabinets of the gallery. Not one ofthem had been touched. 

Faversham moved to and fro in the silence, while Mrs. Dixon sat moaningto herself beside the dead man, whose face she had covered. The lavishelectric light in the gallery, which had been Melrose's latest whim, shone upon its splendid contents; on the nymphs and cupids, the wreathsand temples of the Boucher tapestries, on the gleaming surfaces of thechina, the dull gold of the _ormolu_. The show represented the desires, the huntings, the bargains of a lifetime; and in its midst lay Melrose, tripped at last, silenced at last, the stain of his life-blood spreadinground him. 

Faversham looked down upon him, shuddering. Then perceiving that the doorinto the library stood ajar, he entered the room. There stood the chairon which he had leant, when the chains of his slavery fell from him. There--on the table--was the jewel--the little Venus with flutteringenamel drapery, standing tiptoe within her hoop of diamonds, which he hadseen Melrose take up and handle during their dispute. Why was it there?Faversham had no idea. 

And there on the writing-desk lay a large sheet of paper with a singleline written upon it in Melrose's big and sprawling handwriting. That wasnew. It had not been there, when Faversham last stood beside the table. The pen was thrown down upon it, and a cigar lay in the ashtray, asthough the writer had been disturbed either by a sudden sound, or by theirruption of some thought which had led him into the gallery to callDixon. 

Faversham stooped to look at it:

"I hereby revoke all the provisions of the will executed by me on ... "

No more. The paper was worthless. The will would stand. Faversham stoodmotionless, the silence booming in his ears. 

"A fool would put that in his pocket, " he said to himself, contemptuously. Then conscious of a new swarm of ideas assailing him, of new dangers, and a new wariness, he returned to the gallery, pacingit till the police appeared. They came in force, within the hour, accompanied by Undershaw. 

 * * * * *

The old chiming clock set in the garden-front of Duddon had not longstruck ten. Cyril Boden had just gone to bed. Victoria sat with her feeton the fender in Tatham's study still discussing with him Felicia'sastonishing performance of the afternoon. She found him eagerlyinterested in it, to a degree which surprised her; and they passed fromit only to go zealously together into various plans for the future ofmother and daughter--plans as intelligent as they were generous. The buzzof a motor coming up the drive surprised them. There were no visitors inthe house, and none expected. Victoria rose in amazement as Undershawwalked into the room. 

"A horrible thing has happened. I felt that you must know beforeanybody--with those two poor things in your house. Dixon has told me thatMiss Melrose saw her father this afternoon. I have come to bring you thesequel. "

He told his story. Mother and son turned pale looks upon each other. Within a couple of hours of the moment when he had turned his daughterfrom his doors! Seldom indeed do the strokes of the gods fall so fitly. There was an awful satisfaction in the grim story to some of the deepestinstincts of the soul. 

"Some poor devil he has ruined, I suppose!" said Tatham, his grave youngface lifted to the tragic height of the event. "Any clue?"

"None--except that, as I have told you, Faversham himself saw themurderer, except his face, and Dixon saw his back. A slight man incorduroys--that's all Dixon can say. Faversham and the Dixons were alonein the house, except for a couple of maids. Perhaps"--he hesitated--"Ihad better tell you some other facts that Faversham told me--and theSuperintendent of Police. They will of course come out at the inquest. He and Melrose had had a violent quarrel immediately before the murder. Melrose threatened to revoke his will, and Faversham left him, understanding that all dispositions in his favour would be cancelled. Hecame out of the room, spoke to Dixon in the gallery and walked tohis own sitting-room. Melrose apparently sat down at once to write acodicil revoking the will. He was disturbed, came out into the gallery, and was shot dead. The few lines he wrote are of course of no validity. The will holds, and Faversham is the heir--to everything. You see"--hepaused again--"some awkward suggestions might be made. "

"But, " cried Tatham, "you say Dixon saw the man? And the muddyfootmarks--in the house--and on the terrace!"

 * * * * *

"Don't mistake me, for heaven's sake, " said Undershaw, quickly. "It isimpossible that Faversham should have fired the shot! But in the presentstate of public opinion you will easily imagine what else may be said. There is a whole tribe of Melrose's hangers-on who hate Faversham likepoison; who have been plotting to pull him down, and will be furious tofind him after all in secure possession of the estate and the money. Ifeel tolerably certain they will put up some charge or other. "

"What--of procuring the thing?"

Undershaw nodded. 

Tatham considered a moment. Then he rang, and when Hurst appeared, allwhite and disorganized under the stress of the news just communicated tohim by Undershaw's chauffeur, he ordered his horse for eight o'clock inthe morning. Victoria looked at him puzzled; then it seemed sheunderstood. 

But every other thought was soon swallowed up in the remembrance of thewidow and daughter. 

"Not to-night--not to-night, " pleaded Undershaw who had seen NettaMelrose professionally, only that morning. "I dread the mere shock forMrs. Melrose. Let them have their sleep! I will be over early to-morrow. "

XXI

By the first dawn of the new day Tatham was in the saddle. Just as he wasstarting from the house, there arrived a messenger, and a letter wasput into his hand. It was from Undershaw, who, on leaving Duddon thenight before, had motored back to the Tower, and taken Faversham incharge. The act bore testimony to the little doctor's buffeted but stillsurviving regard for this man, whom he had pulled from the jaws of death. He reported in his morning letter that he had passed some of the night inconversation with Faversham, and wished immediately to pass on certainfacts learnt from it, first of all to Tatham, and then to any friend ofFaversham's they might concern. 

He told, accordingly, the full story of the gems, leading up to thequarrel between the two men, as Faversham had told it to him. 

"Faversham, " he wrote, "left the old man, convinced that all was at anend as to the will and the inheritance. And now he is as much the heir asever! I find him bewildered; for his _mind_, in that tragic half-hour, had absolutely renounced. What he will do, no one can say. As to themurderer, we have discussed all possible clues--with little light. Butthe morning will doubtless bring some new facts. That Faversham has notthe smallest fraction of responsibility for the murder is clear to anysane man who talks with him. But that there will be a buzz of slanderoustongues as soon as ever the story is public property, I am convinced. SoI send you these fresh particulars as quickly as possible--for yourguidance. "

Tatham thrust the letter into his pocket, and rode away through theDecember dawn. His mother would soon be in the thick of her own task withthe two unconscious ones at Duddon. _His_ duty lay--with Lydia! The"friend" was all alive in him, reaching out to her in a manly andgenerous emotion. 

The winter sunrise was a thing of beauty. It chimed with the intensity offeeling in the young man's breast. The sky was a light saffron over theeastern fells, and the mountains rose into it indistinguishably blue, thelight mists wrapped about their feet. Among the mists, plane behindplane, the hedgerow trees, still faintly afire with their last leaf, stood patterned on the azure of the fells. And as he rode on, the firstrays of the light mounting a gap in the Helvellyn range struck upon thevalleys below. The shadows ran blue along the frosty grass; here andthere the withered leaf began to blaze; the streams rejoiced. Under theirsycamores and yews, the white-walled farms sent up their morning smoke;the cocks were crowing; and as he mounted the upland on which the cottagestood, from a height in front of him, a tiny church--one of the smallestand loneliest in the fells--sent forth a summoning bell. The sound, withall its weight of association, sank and echoed through the morningstillness; the fells repeated it, a voice of worship toward God, ofappeal toward man. 

In Tatham, fashioned to the appeal by all the accidents of blood andnurture, the sound made for a deepened spirit and a steadied mood. Hepressed on toward the little house and garden that now began to showthrough the trees. 

Lydia had not long come downstairs when she heard the horse at the gate. The cottage breakfast was nominally at half-past eight. But Mrs. Penfoldnever appeared, and Susy was always professionally late, it beingunderstood that inspiration--when it alights--is a midnight visitant, andmust be wooed at suitable hours. 

Lydia was generally down to the minute, and read prayers to their twomaids. Mrs. Penfold made a great point of family prayers, but rarely ornever attended them. Susy did not like to be read to by anybody. Lydiatherefore had the little function to herself. She chose her favouritepsalms, and prayers from the most various sources. The maids liked itbecause they loved Lydia; and Lydia, having once begun, would notwillingly have given it up. 

But the ceremony was over; and she had just opened the casement to seewho their visitor might be, when Tatham rode up to the porch. 

"May I speak to you for ten minutes?"

His aspect warned her of things unusual. He tied up his horse, and shetook him into their little sitting-room, and closed the door. 

"You haven't seen a newspaper?"

She assured him their post would not arrive from Keswick for anotherhour, and stood expectant. 

"I wanted to tell you before any one else, because there are things toexplain. We're friends--Lydia?"

He approached her eagerly. His colour had leapt; but his eyes reassured. 

"Always, " she said simply, and she put her hand in his. 

Then he told her. He saw her waver, and sink, ghost-like, on a chair. Itwas clear enough that the news had for her no ordinary significance. Hisheart knew pain--the reflex of a past anguish; only to be lost at once inthe desire to soothe and shield her. 

"Mr. Faversham was there?" she asked him, trembling. 

"He did not see the shot fired. The murderer rushing from the gallerybrushed past him as he was coming out of his room, and escaped. "

"There had been a quarrel?"

He gave her in outline the contents of Undershaw's letter. 

"He still inherits?" Her eyes, shone as he came to the climax of thestory--Faversham's refusal of the gems--Melrose's threat. The tremblingof her delicate mouth urged him for more--and yet more--light. 

"Everything--land, money, collections--under the will made in August. Yousee"--he added, sorely against his will, yet compelled, by the need ofprotecting her from shock--"the opportuneness of the murder. Theirrelations had been very bad for some time. "

"Opportuneness?" She just breathed it. He put out his hand again, andtook hers. 

"You know--Faversham has enemies?"

She nodded. 

"I've been one myself, " he said frankly. "I believe you knew it. But thisthing's brought me up sharp. One may think as one likes of Faversham'sconduct--but you knew--and I know--that he's not the man to pay anotherman to commit murder!"

"And that's what they'll say?" The colour had rushed back into hercheeks. 

"That's what some fool _might_ say, because of the grudge against him. Well, now, we've got to find the murderer!" He rose, speaking in his mostcheerful and practical voice, "I'm going on to see what the police havebeen doing. The inquest will probably begin to-morrow. But I wanted toprevent your being startled by this horrible news. Trust me to let youknow--and to help--all I can. "

Then for a moment, he seemed to lose his self-possession. He stood beforeher awkwardly conscious--a moral trespasser--who might have been passingbounds. But it was her turn to be frank. She came and put both her handson his arm--looking up--drawing her breath with difficulty. 

"Harry, I'm going to tell you. I ought to have told you more thatnight--but how could I? It was only just then I knew--that I cared. A little later Mr. Faversham asked me to marry him, and I refused, because--because of this money. I couldn't take it--I begged him notto. Never mind!" She threw her head back, gulping down tears. "Hethought me unreasonable. But--"

"He refused--and left you!" cried Tatham, drinking in the sweetness ofher pale beauty, as Orpheus might have watched the vanishing Eurydice. 

"He had such great ambitions--as to what he'd do--with this money, " shesaid, lightly brushing her wet eyes, and trying to smile. "It wasn't themere fortune! Oh, I knew that!"

Tatham was silent. But he gently touched her hand with his own. 

"You'll stand by him?--if he needs it?" she asked piteously. 

He assured her. Then, suddenly, raising herself on tiptoe, shekissed him on the cheek. The blood flew into his face, and bendingforward--timidly--he laid his lips on her soft brow. There was apledge in it--and a farewell. She drew herself away. 

"The first--and the last, " she said, smiling, and sighing. "Now we'recomrades. I await your news. Tell me if I can help--throw light? I knowthe people--the neighbourhood, well. And when you see Mr. Faversham, greet him from me. Tell him his friends here feel with him--and for him. And as to what you say--ah, no!--I'm not going to believe--I can'tbelieve--that any one can have such--such vile thoughts! The truthwill soon come out!"

She held herself steadily. 

"We must find the-murderer, " Tatham repeated, and took up his cap. 

 * * * * *

Lydia was left alone in the little breakfast-room. Susy could be heardmoving about overhead; she would be down directly. Meanwhile the wintersunshine came broadly in; the singing of the tea-kettle, the crackle ofthe fire made domestic music. But Lydia's soul was far away. It stoodbeside Faversham, exulting. 

"Free!"--she said to herself, passionately--"free!" and then with thehyperbole of love--"I talked and moralized--he _did it_!"

A splendid pride in him possessed her; so that for long shescarcely realized the tragedy of the murder, or the horror of theslanderous suspicion now starting through the dales. But yet, longbefore the day was over, she was conquered by grief and fear--a verymiserable and restless Lydia. No word came from him; and she could notwrite. These were men's affairs, and women must hold their peace. Yet, in spirit, as the hours passed, she gave herself wholly to the man sheloved; she glorified him; she trampled on her own past doubts; sheprotected him against a world in arms. The plant of love grew fast andfuriously--watered by pity--by indignation. 

Meanwhile Susy treated her sister very kindly. She specially insisted onordering dinner, and writing various business letters; though Lydia wouldhave been thankful to do both. And when the evening came on, Mrs. Penfoldtrembling with excitement and horror, chattered endlessly about themurder, as each visitor to the cottage brought some fresh detail. Lydiaseldom answered her. She sat on the floor, with her face against hermother's knee, while the soft, silly voice above her head rambled andrambled on. 

 * * * * *

Tatham rode back to Pengarth. As he approached one of the lodge gates ofDuddon, a man came toward him on a bicycle. Boden, hot and dishevelled, dismounted as he saw Tatham. 

"I thought I should just meet you. Lady Tatham has had a telephonemessage from the Chief Constable, Colonel Marvell. There is a manmissing--and a gun. Brand's younger son has not been seen for thirty-sixhours. He has been helping Andover's head keeper for part of the year, asa watcher; and this man, Simpson, had let him have an old gun of his--amuzzle-loader--some months ago. That gun can't be found. "

Tatham sat thunderstruck, lights breaking on his face. 

"Well--there was cause enough. "

Boden's eyes shone. 

"Cause? It smelled to heaven! Wild justice--if you like! I was in thehouse yesterday afternoon, " he added quietly, "just before the old mandied. "

"You were?" cried Tatham, amazed. Yet he knew well that whenever Bodencame to recruit at Duddon, he spent half of his time among the fell-farmsand cottages. His mind was invincibly human, greedy of common life andincident, whether in London or among the dales. He said little of hisexperiences at Duddon; not a word, for instance, to Tatham or Victoria, the night before, had revealed his own share in the old farmer's deathscene; but, casually, often, some story would drop out, some unsuspectedfacts about their next-door neighbours, their very own people, whichwould set Victoria and Tatham looking at each other, and wondering. 

He turned now to walk beside Tatham's horse. His plain face with itsbeautiful eyes, and lanky straying hair, spoke of a ruminating mind. 

Tatham asked if there was any news from the railway. 

"No trace so far, anywhere. All the main line stations have been closelywatched. But Marvell is of opinion that if young Brand had anything to dowith it he would certainly give the railway a wide berth. He is much morelikely to take to the fells. They tell the most extraordinary tales ofhis knowledge of the mountains--especially in snow and wild weather. Theysay that shepherds who have lost sheep constantly go to him for help!"

"--You know him?"

"I have talked to him sometimes. A queer sulky fellow with one or twofixed ideas. He certainly hated Melrose. Whether he hated him enough tomurder him is another question. When I visited them, the mother told methat Will had rushed out of the house the night before, because he couldnot endure the sight of his father's sufferings. The jury I suppose willhave to know that. Well!--You were going on to Pengarth?"

Tatham assented. Boden paused, leaning on his bicycle. 

"Take Threlfall on your way. I think Faversham would like to see you. There are some strange things being said. Preposterous things! The hatredis extraordinary. "

The two men eyed each other gravely. Boden added:

"I have been telling your mother that I think I shall go over toThrelfall for a bit, if Faversham will have me. "

Tatham wondered again. Faversham, prosperous, had been, it seemed to him, a special target for Boden's scorn, expressed with a fine range ofrevolutionary epithet. 

But calamity of any kind--for this queer saint--was apt to change all thevalues of things. 

They were just separating when Tatham, with sudden compunction, asked fornews of Mrs. Melrose, and Felicia. 

"I had almost forgotten them!"

"Your mother did not tell me much. They were troubled about Mrs. Melrose, I think, and Undershaw was coming. The poor little girl turned verywhite--no tears--but she was clinging to your mother. "

Tatham's face softened, but he said nothing. The road to Threlfallpresented itself, and he turned his horse toward it. 

"And Miss Penfold?" said Boden, quietly. "You arrived before thenewspapers? Good. I think, before I return, I shall go and have a talkwith Miss Penfold. "

And mounting his bicycle he rode off. Tatham looking after him, feltuncomfortably certain that Boden knew pretty well all there was to knowabout Lydia--Faversham--and himself. But he did not resent it. 

Tatham found Threlfall a beleaguered place, police at the gates and inthe house; the chief constable and the Superintendent of policeestablished in the dining-room, as the only room tolerably free from theall encumbering collections, and interviewing one person after another. 

Tatham asked to see the chief constable. He made his way into thegallery, which was guarded by police, for although the body of Melrosehad been removed to an upper room, the blood-stain on the Persian carpet, the overturned chair and picture, the mud-marks on the wall remaineduntouched, awaiting the coroner's jury, which was to meet in the housethat evening. 

As Tatham approached the room which was now the headquarters of thepolice, he met coming out of it a couple of men; one small and sinewy, with the air of a disreputable athlete, the other a tall pasty-faced manin a shabby frock coat, with furtive eyes. The first was Nash, Melrose'slegal factotum through many years; the other was one of the clerks in thePengarth office, who was popularly supposed to have made much money outof the Threlfall estate, through a long series of small peculations neverdiscovered by his miserly master. They passed Tatham with downcast eyesand an air of suppressed excitement which did not escape him. He foundthe chief constable pacing up and down, talking in subdued tones, andwith a furrowed brow, to the Superintendent of police. 

"Come in, come in, " said Marvell heartily, at sight of the young man, whowas the chief landowner of the district, and likely within a couple ofyears to be its lord lieutenant. "We want your help. Everything points toyoung Brand, and there is much reason to think he is still in theneighbourhood. What assistance can you give us?"

Tatham promised a band of searchers from the estate. The Duddon estateitself included a great deal of mountain ground, some of the loneliestand remotest in the district, where a man who knew the fells might verywell take hiding. Marvell brought out a map, and they pored over it. 

The superintendent of police departed. 

Then Marvell, with a glance at the door to see that it was safely shut, said abruptly:

"You know, Faversham has done some unlucky things!"

Tatham eyed him interrogatively. 

"It has come out that he was in the Brands' cottage about a week ago, and that he left money with the family. He says he never saw the youngerson, and did not in fact know him by sight. He offered the elder onesome money in order to help him with his Canadian start. The lad refused, not being willing, so his mother says--I have seen her myself thismorning--to accept anything from Melrose's agent. But she, not knowingwhere to look for the expenses of her husband's illness, took five poundsfrom Faversham, and never dared tell either of her sons. "

"All perfectly straightforward and natural, " said Tatham. 

Marvell looked worried. 

"Yes. But you see how the thing may be twisted by men like thosetwo--curs!--who have just been here. You saw them? They came, ostensibly, to answer my questions as to whether they could point us to any onewith a particular grudge against Mr. Melrose. "

"They could have named you a hundred!" interrupted Tatham. 

"No doubt. But what their information in the end amounted to"--the chiefconstable came to stand immediately in front of Tatham, lowering hisvoice--"was that the only person with a really serious motive fordestroying Melrose, was"--he jerked his thumb in the direction ofFaversham's sitting-room--"our friend! They claim--both of them--to havebeen spectators of the growing friction between the two men. Nash saysthat Melrose had spoken to him once or twice of revoking, or alteringhis will; and both of them declare that Faversham was quite aware of thepossibility. Of course these things were brought out apologetically--youunderstand!--with a view of 'giving Mr. Faversham the opportunityof meeting the reports in circulation, ' and so on--'calming publicopinion'--and the rest of it. But I see how they will work it up! Then, of course, that the man got access to the house through Faversham'sroom--Faversham's window left open, and the light left burning--by hisown story--is unfortunate. "

"But what absurdity, " cried Tatham, indignantly, as he rose. "As if theman to profit by the plot would have left that codicil on the table!"

Marvell shrugged his shoulders. 

"That too might be twisted. Why not a supremely clever stroke? Well, ofcourse the thing is absurd--but disagreeable--considering thecircumstances. The moral is--find the man! Good-day, Lord Tatham. Iunderstand you will have fifty men out by this evening, assisting thepolice in their search?"

"At least, " said Tatham, and departed. 

Outside, after a moment's hesitation, he inquired of the police in chargewhether Faversham was in his room. Being told that he was, he asked leaveto pass along the gallery. An officer took him in charge, and he stepped, not without a shudder, past the blood-stained spot, where a cruel spirithad paid its debt. The man who led him pointed out the picture, thechair, the marks of the muddy soles on the wainscotting, and along thegallery--reconstructing the murder, in low tones, as though the dead manstill lay there. A hideous oppression indeed hung over the house. Melrose's ghost held it. 

The police officer knocked at Faversham's door. "Would Mr. Favershamreceive Lord Tatham?"

Faversham, risen from his writing-table, looked at his visitor in a dullastonishment. 

"I have come to bring you a message, " said Tatham advancing, neither manoffering to shake hands. "I saw Miss Penfold early this morning--beforeshe got the newspapers. She wished me to bring you her--her sympathy. Shewas very much shocked. " He spoke with a certain boyish embarrassment. Buthis blue eyes looked very straight at Faversham. 

Faversham changed colour a little, and thanked him. But his aspect wasthat of a man worn out, incapable for the time of the normal responses offeeling. He showed no sense of strangeness, with regard to Tatham'svisit, though for weeks they had not been on speaking terms. Absentlyoffering his visitor a chair, he talked a little--disjointedly--ofthe events of the preceding evening, with frequent pauses forrecollection. 

Tatham eyed him askance. 

"I say! I suppose you had no sleep?"

Faversham smiled. 

"Look here--hadn't you better come to us to-night?--get out of thishorrible place?" exclaimed Tatham, on a sudden but imperative impulse. 

"To Duddon?" Faversham shook his head. "Thank you--impossible. " Then helooked up. "Undershaw told you what I told him?"

Tatham assented. There was an awkward pause--broken at last by Faversham. 

"How did Miss Melrose get home?"

"Luckily I came across her at the foot of the Duddon hill, and I helpedher home. She's all right--though of course it's a ghastly shock forthem. "

"I never knew she was here--till she had gone, " exclaimed Faversham, withsudden animation, "Otherwise--I should have helped her. "

He stood erect, his pale look fixed threateningly on Tatham. 

"I'm sure you would, " said Tatham, heartily. "Well now, I must be off. Ihave promised Marvell to put as many men as possible to work in with thepolice. You have no idea at all as to the identity of the man who ranpast you?"

"None!" Faversham repeated the word, as though groping in his memory. "None. I never saw Will Brand that I can recollect. But the descriptionof him seems to tally with the man who knocked me over. "

"Well, we'll find him, " said Tatham briskly. "Any message for GreenCottage?"

"My best thanks. I am very grateful to them. "

The words were formal. He sank heavily into his chair, as though wishingto end the interview. Tatham departed. 

 * * * * *

The inquest opened in the evening. Faversham and the Dixons gave theirevidence. So did Undershaw and the police. The jury viewed the body, andleave to bury was granted. Then the inquiry adjourned. 

For some ten days afterward, the whole of the Lake district hung upon thesearch for Brand. From the Scawfell and Buttermere group on its westernverge, to the Ullswater mountains on the east; from Skiddaw andBlencathra on the north, southward through all the shoulders and edges, the tarns and ghylls of the Helvellyn range; through the craggy fells ofThirlmere, Watendlath, Easedale; over the high plateaus that run up tothe Pikes, and fall in precipice to Stickle Tarn; through the wild cleftsand corries of Bowfell, the Crinkles, Wetherlam and the Old Man; over thedesolate backs and ridges that stretch from Kirkstone to Kentmere andLong Sleddale, the great man-hunt passed, enlisting ever fresh feet, andfresh eyes in its service. Every shepherd on the high fells became adetective, speeding news, or urging suggestions, by the old freemasonryof their tribe; while every farmhouse in certain dales, within reach ofthe scene of the murder, sent out its watchers by day and night, eagerlycontributing its men and its wits to the chase. 

For in this chase there was a hidden motive which found no expressionin the local papers; of which men spoke to each other under theirbreaths, when they spoke at all; but which none the less became in avery short time, by the lightning spread of a few evil reports, throughthe stubble of popular resentment, the animating passion at the heart ofit. The police and Faversham's few friends were searching for themurderer of Melrose; the public in general were soon hunting Faversham'saccomplice. The discovery of Will Brand meant, in the one case, thearrest of a poor crazy fellow who had avenged by murder his father'spersecution and ruin; in the other case, it meant the unmasking of aneducated and smooth-spoken villain, who, finding a vast fortune indanger, had taken ingenious means to secure it. In this black suspicionthere spoke the accumulated hatred of years, stored up originally, in themind of a whole countryside, against a man who had flouted every law ofgood citizenship, and strained every legal right of property to breakingpoint; and discharging itself now, with pent-up force, upon the tyrant'stool, conceived as the murderous plotter for his millions. To realize thestrength of the popular feeling, as it presently revealed itself, was tolook shuddering into things elemental. 

It was first made plain on the day of Melrose's funeral. In order toavoid the concourse which might attend a burial in Whitebeck parishchurch, lying near the main road, and accessible from many sides, itwas determined to bury him in the graveyard of the little mountainchapel on the fell above the Penfolds' cottage. The hour was sunrise; andall the preparations had been as secretly made as possible. But when thedark December morning arrived, with sleet showers whitening all theslopes of Helvellyn and the gashed breast of Blencathra, a dense crowdthronged all the exits of the Tower, and lined the steep lanes leading tothe chapel. Faversham, Cyril Boden, and a Carlisle solicitor occupied theonly carriage which followed the hearse. Tatham and his mother met thedoleful procession at the chapel. Lady Tatham, very pale and queenly, walked hand in hand with a slight girl in mourning. As the multitudeoutside the churchyard caught sight of the pair, a thrill ran through itsranks. Melrose's daughter, and rightful heiress--disinherited, andsupplanted--by the black-haired man standing bareheaded behind thecoffin. The crowd endured the mockery of the burial service in a sullensilence. Not a head uncovered. Not a voice joined in the responses. 

Felicia threw back her veil, and the onlookers pressed to the churchyardrailings to see the delicate face, with its strong likeness to herfather. She meanwhile saw only Tatham. Her eyes were fixed on him fromfirst to last. 

But there were two other ladies in the churchyard. After the hurriedceremony was over, one of them approached Faversham. He took her hand insilence, looking down into the eyes--the soul--of Lydia. With whatangelic courage and cheer that look was charged, only its recipient knew. 

"Come and see us, " she said, softly. 

He shook his head, with a look of pain. Then he pressed her hand and theyseparated. As he appeared at the churchyard gate, about to enter thecarriage which was waiting, a grim low groan ran through the throngwhich filled the lane. There was something in the sound to strike ashiver through the strongest. Faversham grew perhaps a little paler, butas he seated himself in the carriage he examined the scowling faces nearhim with a quiet indifference, which scarcely altered when Tatham cameconspicuously to the carriage-door to bid him farewell. 

The days that followed reminded some of the older dalesmen of the storiestold by their fathers of the great and famous hunt, a century ago, afterthe sheep-slaying "dog of Ennerdale, " who for five months held a wholedistrict at bay; appearing and disappearing phantom-like among the cragsand mists of the high fells, keeping shepherds and farming-folk inperpetual excitement, watched for by night and day, hunted by hounds andby men, yet never to be captured; frightening lovers from their trysts, and the children from school; a presence and a terror prevading men'sminds, and suspending the ordinary operations of life. So in some sortwas it with the hunt for Will Brand. It was firmly believed that in thecourse of it he was twice seen; once in the loneliness of Skiddaw Forest, not far from the gamekeeper's hut, the only habitation in that moorlandwaste; and once in a storm on the slopes of Great Dodd, when a shepherd, "latin" his sheep, had suddenly perceived a wild-looking fellow, with agun between his knees, watching him from the shelter of a rock. So farfrom making any effort to capture the man, the shepherd had fled interror; but both neighbours and police firmly believed that he had seenthe murderer. There were also various mysterious thefts of food reportedfrom mountain farms, indications hotly followed up but to no purpose. Would the culprit, starved out, be forced in time to surrender; or wouldhe die of privation and exposure among the high fells, in the snowdrifts, and leave the spring, when it came, to uncover his bones?

Toward the end of the month the snowstorms of its earlier days passedinto a chilly and continuous rain; there was still snow on the heights. The steady downpour presently flooded the rivers, and sent the streamsracing in torrents down the hills. 

Christmas was over. The new year was at hand. One afternoon, Boden, oppressed in spirit, sallied forth from the Tower into the floods andmists of St. John's Vale. He himself had taken no part in the greatpursuit. He believed now that the poor hunted creature would find hislonely end among the wintry mountains, and rejoiced to think it might beso. The adjourned inquest was to be resumed the following day, and nodoubt some verdict would be returned. It was improbable, in spite of themalice at work, that any attempt would be made--legally--to incriminateFaversham. 

It was of Faversham that he was chiefly thinking. When he had firstproposed his companionship, the day after the murder, it had been quietlyaccepted, with a softened look of surprise, and he and Undershaw hadsince kept watch over a bewildered man, protecting him as far as theycould from the hostile world at his gates. 

How he would emerge--what he meant to do with Melrose's vast heritage, Boden had no idea. His life seemed to have shrunk into a dumb, trancelikestate. He rarely or never left the house; he could not be induced togo either to Duddon or to the Cottage; nor would he receive visitors. Hehad indeed seen his solicitors, but had said not a word to Boden on thesubject. It was rumoured that Nash was already endeavouring to persuadea distant cousin of Melrose and Lady Tatham to dispute the will. 

Meanwhile, through Boden, Lydia Penfold had been kept in touch with a manwho could not apparently bring himself to reopen their relation. Bodensaw her nearly every day; they had become fast friends. Victoria too wasas often at the cottage as the state of Netta Melrose allowed, and sheand Lydia, born to understand each other, had at last arrived thereat. 

But Mrs. Melrose was dying; and her little daughter, a more romanticfigure than ever, in the public eye, was to find, it said, a secondmother in Lady Tatham. 

 The rain clouds were swirling through the dale, as Boden reached itsmiddle point, pushing his way against a cold westerly blast. The stream, which in summer chatters so gently to the travellers beside it, wasrushing in a brown swift flood, and drowning the low meadows on itswestern bank. He mounted a stone foot-bridge to look at it, when, of asudden, the curtain of cloud shrouding Blencathra was torn aside, andits high ridge, razor-sharp, appeared spectrally white, a seat of thestorm-god, in a far heaven. The livid lines of just-fallen snow, outlining the cliffs and ravines of the great mountain, stamped itsmajesty, visionlike, on the senses. Below it, some scattered woods, inkyblack, bent under the storm, and the crash and darkness of the lower airthrew into clear relief the pallid splendour of the mountain-top. 

Boden stood enthralled, when a voice said at his elbow:

"Yo're oot on a clashy night, Muster Boden!"

He turned. Beside him stood the fugitive!--grinning weakly. Boden behelda tottering and ghastly figure. Distress--mortal fatigue--breathed fromthe haggard emaciation of face and limbs. Round the shoulders was foldeda sack, from which the dregs of some red dipping mixture it had oncecontained had dripped over the youth's chest and legs, his tatteredclothes and broken boots, in streams of what, to Boden's startled sense, looked like blood. And under the slouched hat, a pair of sunken eyeslooked out, expressing the very uttermost of human despair. 

"Brand!--where have you been?"

"Don't touch me, sir! I'll go--don't touch me! There ha' been hunnerdsafter me--latin me on t' fells. They've not catcht me--an' they'd not ha'catcht me noo--but I'm wore oot. I ha' been followin yo' this half-hour, Muster Boden. I could ha' put yo' i' the river fasst enoof. "

A ghastly chuckle in the darkness. Boden considered. 

"Well, now--are you going to give yourself up? You see--I can do nothingto force you! But if you take my advice, you'll go quietly with me, tothe police--you'll make a clean breast of it. "

"Will they hang me, Muster Boden?"

"I don't think so, " said Boden slowly. "What made you do it?"

"I'd planned it for months--I've follered owd Melrose many times--I'vebeen close oop to 'im--when he had noa noshun whativver. I might ha'killt him--a doosen times over. He wor a devil--an' I paid him oot! I wascreepin' round t' hoose that night--and ov a suddent, there was a dooropenin', an' a light. It seemed to be God sayin', 'Theer's a way, mon!go in, and do't! So I went in. An' I saw Muster Faversham coom oot--an'Dixon. An' I knew that he wor there--alone--the owd fox!--an' Iwaited--an' oot he came. I shot 'un straight, Muster Boden! I shot 'unstraight!"

"You never told any one what you were going to do, Brand? Nobody helpedyou?"

"Not a soul! I'm not yo'r blabbin' sort! But now I'm done--I'm clemmed!"

And he tottered against the bridge as he spoke. Baden caught him. 

"Can you walk with my help? I have some brandy. "

And taking from his pocket the tiny flask that a man with a weak heart isapt to carry, he put it into a shaking hand. Brand drank it greedily. 

They stumbled on together, down the narrow road, through thestreaming rain. It was a mile to the Whitebeck police station. Brandgave a gasping, incoherent account of his doings during his ten daysof hiding--the various barns and outhouses he had sheltered in--thefood he had been able to steal--the narrow escapes he had run. And everynow and then, the frenzy of his hatred for the murdered man would breakin, and he would throw out hints of the various mad schemes he hadentertained at different times for the destruction of his enemy. 

But presently he ceased to talk. It was evident that his weakness wasgreat; he clung heavily to Boden's arm. 

They reached a point where a road branched to the left. A roar of furiouswater greeted their ears. 

"That's t' beck unner Wanthwaite Bridge, " said Brand feebly. "Wait a bit, sir. "

He sank down on a stone by the roadside. Through the trees on the leftthe foaming river glimmered in the departing light. Boden bent over him, encouraging him with the promise of shelter and food, murmuring also ofGod, the help of the sinner. Suddenly the lad leapt up. 

"Aye! that'll end it!--an' a good job!"

He began to run up the left-hand road. Boden pursued him, struggled withhim, but in vain. Brand threw him off, reached the bridge, mounted theparapet, and from there flung himself headlong into the spate rushingfuriously below. 

At the same moment a dog-cart driven by two young farmers appeared on themain road of the valley. Boden's shouts reached them, and they came tohis aid. But Brand had disappeared. The river swept him down like awithered branch; and it was many hours before the body was recovered, half a mile from the spot where he sank. 

XXII

Boden was just coming to the end of his evidence. The adjournedinquest on Melrose, held in the large parlour of the old Whitebeckinn, was densely crowded, and the tension of a charged moment might befelt. Men sat gaping, their eyes wandering from the jury to the witnessor the gray-haired coroner; to young Lord Tatham sitting beside the talldark man who had been Mr. Melrose's agent, and was now the inheritor ofhis goods; to the alert and clean-shaven face of Undershaw, listeningwith the concentration of the scientific habit to the voice from thewitness-box. And through the strained attention of the room there ran thestimulus of that gruesome new fact--the presence overhead of yet anotherdead man, dragged only some twenty-four hours earlier from the swollenwaters of the river. 

The murderer had been found--a comparatively simple proceeding. But, inthe finding him, the ulcer of a hideous suspicion, spread by popularmadness, and inflamed by popular hatred, had also been probed andcleansed. As Boden's evidence progressed, building up the story ofBrand's sleuth-hound pursuit of his victim, and silently verified frompoint to point by the local knowledge of the audience, the change in thecollective mind of this typical gathering of shepherds, farmers, andsmall tradesmen might have been compared to the sudden coming of softweather into the iron tension, the black silence, of a great frost. Galesof compunction blew; of self-interest also; and the common judgmentveered with them. 

After the inevitable verdict had been recorded, a fresh jury wasempanelled, and there was a stamping of sturdy Cumbrian feet up the innstairs to view the pitiful remains of another human being, botched byNature in the flesh, no less lamentably than Melrose in the spirit. Thelegal inquiry into Brand's flight and death was short and mostly formal;but the actual evidence--as compared with current gossip--of his lucklessmother, now left sonless and husbandless, and as to the relations of thefamily with Faversham, hastened the melting process in the public mind. It showed a man in bondage indeed to a tyrant; but doing what he could tolighten the hand of the tyrant on others; privately and ineffectivelygenerous; remorseful for the sins of another; and painfully aware of hismixed responsibility. 

Yet naturally there were counter currents. Andover, the old Cumbriansquire, whose personal friction with Faversham had been sharpest, leftthe inn with a much puzzled mind, but not prepared as yet to surrenderhis main opinion of a young man, who after all had feathered his nest souncommonly well. "They may say what they d--n please, " said the furiousand disappointed Nash, as he departed in company with his shabbyaccomplice, the sallow-faced clerk, "but he's walked off with the dibs, an' I suppose he thinks he'll jolly well keep 'em. The 'cutest youngscoundrel I ever came across!" which, considering the range of thespeaker's experience, was testimony indeed. 

Regret, on the one hand, for a monstrous and exposed surmise; on theother, instinctive resentment of the man's huge, unearned luck under thewill that Melrose would have revoked had he lived a few more hours, ascontrasted with the plight of Felicia Melrose; between these poles men'sminds went wavering. Colonel Barton stood at the door of the inn beforeFaversham emerged for a few undecided moments, and finally walked away, like Andover, with the irritable reflection that the grounds on which hehad originally cut the young man still largely stood; and he was notgoing to kow-tow to mere money. He would go and have tea with LadyTatham; she was a sensible woman. Harry's behaviour seemed to himsentimental. 

Faversham, Boden, and Harry Tatham left the inn together and were joinedby Undershaw outside. They walked silently through the irregular villagestreet where groups stood at the cottage doors to see them pass. As theyemerged upon the high road the three others perceived that they werealone. Faversham had disappeared. 

"Where is he?" said Tatham, standing amazed and looking back. They hadgained the crest of a hill whence, beyond the roofs of Whitebeck in thehollow, a section of the main road could be dimly seen, running west awhite streak piercing the wintry dusk. Along the white streak movedsomething black--the figure of a man. Boden pointed to it. 

"Where's he going?" The question fell involuntarily from Undershaw. 

Boden did not reply. But as Undershaw spoke there flashed out a distantlight on the rising ground beyond the streak of road. Above it, huddledshapes of mountains, dying fast into the darkness. They all knew it for alight in Green Cottage; the same that Tatham had watched from the Duddonmoorland on the evening of the murder. They turned and walked on silentlytoward the lower gate of Duddon. 

"What's he going to do about the money?" said Undershaw abruptly. 

Boden turned upon him, almost with rage. 

"For heaven's sake, give him time!--it's positively indecent to rush aman who's gone through what that man's gone through!"

Faversham pursued his way toward the swelling upland which looks southover St. John's Vale, and north toward Skiddaw. He went, led by apassionate impulse, sternly restrained till this moment. Led also by thevision of her face as it had been lifted to him beside the grave ofMelrose. Since then he had never seen her. But that Boden had written toher that morning, early, after the recovery of Brand's body, he knew. 

The moon shone suddenly behind him, across the waste of Flitterdale, andthe lower meadows of St. John's Vale. It struck upon the low white houseamid its trees. 

"Is Miss Penfold at home?"

The maid recognized him at once, and in her agitation almost lost herhead. As she led him in, a little figure in a white cap with streamersfluttered across the hall. 

"_Oh_, Mr. Faversham!" said a soft, breathless voice. 

But Mrs. Penfold did not stop to speak to him. Gathering up hervoluminous black skirts, and her shawls that were falling off hershoulders, she hurried upstairs. There followed a thin girl with darkhair piled above dark eyes. 

"Lydia is in the drawing-room, " said Susy, with dramatic depth of voice;and the two disappeared. 

When he entered, Lydia was standing by the fire. The light of someblazing wood, and of one small lamp, filled the pretty room with colourand soft shadows. Among them, the slender form in its black dress, thefair head thrown back, the outstretched hands were of a loveliness thatarrested him--almost unmanned him. 

She came forward. 

"You've been so long coming!"

The intonation of the words expressed the yearning of many days andnights. They were not a reproach; rather, an exquisite revelation. 

He took her hands, and slowly, irresistibly he drew her; and she cameto him. He bowed his face upon hers, and the world stood still! Throughthe emotion of that supreme moment, with its mingled cup of joy andremembered bitterness there ran for him a touch of triumph natural tohis temperament. She had asked no promise from him; reminded him of nocondition; made no reservation. There she was upon his breast. The malepride in him was appeased. Self-respect seemed once more possible. 

Hand in hand, they sat down together by the fire. He gave her an accountof the double inquest, and the result. 

"When we came out, " he added, calmly, "there were not quite so many readyto lynch me as before. "

Her hand trembled in his. The horror of his experience, the anguishedsympathy of hers, spoke in the slight movement, and the pressure thatanswered it. Some day, but not yet, it would be possible to put it intowords. 

"And I might do nothing!" she breathed. 

"Nothing!" He smiled upon her, but his tone brought a shudder--theshudder of the traveller who looks back upon the inch which has held himfrom the abyss. But for Cyril Boden's adventure of the night before, would she ever have seen him again?

"I was a long time with my solicitors this morning, " he said abruptly. 

"Yes?" She turned her face to his; but his morbid sense could detect init no sign of any special interest. 

"The will was opened on the day of the funeral. It was a great surprise. I had reason to suppose that it contained a distinct provisioninvalidating all bequests to me should I propose to hand over any of theproperty, or money derived from the property, to Felicia Melrose, orher mother. But it contained nothing of the kind. The first draft of thewill was sent to his solicitors at the end of July. They put it intoform, and it was signed the day after he communicated his intentions tome. There is no doubt whatever that he meant to insert such a clause. Hespoke of it to me and to others. I thought it was done But as a matter offact he never either drafted it himself, or gave final instructions forit. His Carlisle man--Hanson--thought it was because of his horror ofdeath. He had put off making his will as long as possible--got itdone--and then could not bring himself to touch it again! To send for itback--to finger and fuss with it--seemed to bring death nearer and he didnot mean to die. "

He paused, shading his eyes with his hand. The visualising sense, stimulated by the nerve strain of the preceding weeks, beheld withghastly clearness the face of Melrose in death, with the blood-stain onthe lips. 

"And so, " he resumed, "there was no short way out. By merely writing toMiss Melrose, to offer her a fortune, it was not possible to void thewill. "

He paused. The intensity of his look held her motionless. 

"You remember--how I refused--when you asked me--to take any steps towardvoiding it?"

Her lips made a dumb movement of assent. 

"But--at last--I took them. In the final interview I had with Melrose, hethreatened me with the cancelling of his will, unless I consented--Tathamhas told you--to sell him my uncle's gems. I refused. And so far as wordscould, he there and then stripped me of his property. It is by the mereaccident of his murder at that precise moment that it has come to me. Nowthen--what is to be done?"

Her hand slipped further into his. For a few minutes he seemed to beabsorbed in the silent reconstruction of past trains of thought, emergingwith a cry--though it was under his breath:

"If I took his money now--against his will--I should feel his yoke--hishateful yoke--again, on my neck! I should be his slave still. "

"You shall not take it!" she said with passion. 

He smiled at her suddenly. 

"It is nothing to Lydia, to be poor?"

"And free--and happy--and alive!--no, nothing!"

At that he could only draw her to him again. She herself must needs bringhim back to the point. 

"You have decided?"

"I could of course refuse the succession. That would throw the wholeproperty into Chancery; the personalty would go to the mother anddaughter, the real estate to whatever legal heirs could be discovered. There are same distant cousins of Lady Tatham, I believe. However--thatdid not attract me at all. "

He rose from his seat beside her, and stood looking down upon her. 

"You'll realize?--you'll understand?--that it seems to me just--anddesirable--that I should have some voice in the distribution of thismoney, this and land, rather than leave it all to the action of a court. Everything--as things are--is legally mine. The personalty is immense;there are about thirty thousand acres of land, here and elsewhere; andthe collections can't be worth much less than half a million. I declineto own them; but I intend to settle what becomes of them! Nash and otherssay they will dispute the will. They won't. There is no case. As to thepersonalty and the land--well, well, you'll see! As to the collections--Imean to make them, if I can, of some use to the community. And in thateffort"--he spoke slowly--"I want you to help me!"

Their eyes met; hers full of tears. She tried to speak, and could not. Hecame to kneel down by her and took her in his arms. 

"Did you think I had sold myself to the devil last time I was here?"

"I was so harsh!--forgive ... " she said brokenly. 

"No. You called things by their right names. "

There was silence till he murmured:

"Isn't it strange? I had quite given up prayer--till these last weeks. Topray for any definite physical or material thing would seem to me now--asit always has done--absurd. But to reach out--to the Power beyond ourweakness!"

He paused a moment and resumed:

"Boden did that for me. He came to me--at the worst. He never preached tome. He has his black times--like the rest of us. But something upholdshim--and--oh! so strangely--I don't think he knew--through him--I toolaid hold. But for that--I might have put an end to myself--more thanonce--these last weeks. "

She clung to him--whispering:

"Neither of us--can ever suffer--again--without the other--to help. "

They kissed once more, love and youth welling up in them, and drowningout of sight, for the moment at least, the shapes and images of pain. Then recovering his composure, hand fast in hand, Faversham began to talkmore calmly, drawing out for her as best he could, so that it need not bedone again--and up to the very evening of the murder--the history of thenine months which had, so to speak, thrown his whole being into themelting-pot, and through the fusing and bruising of an extraordinaryexperience, had remade a man. She listened in a happy bewilderment. Itstruck her newly--astonishingly. Her love for him had always included atenderly maternal, pitying element. She had felt herself the maturercharacter. Sympathy for his task, flattered pleasure in her Egeria rôle, deepening into something warmer and intenser with every letter from himand every meeting, even when she disputed with and condemned him; love inspite of herself; love with which conscience, taste, aspiration, allquarrelled; but love nevertheless, the love which good women feel for theman that is both weaker and stronger than themselves--it was so she mighthave read her own past, if the high passion of this ultimate moment hadnot blurred it. 

But "Life at her grindstone" had been busy with Faversham, and in thesifted and sharpened soul laid bare to her, the woman recognized hermate indeed. Face to face with cruelty and falsehood, in others, and withthe potentialities of them in his own nature; dazzled by money and power;and at last, delivered from the tyranny of the as though by some fiercegaol-delivering angel, Faversham had found himself; and such a self ascould never have been reasonably prophesied for the discontented idlerwho in the May meadows had first set eyes on Lydia Penfold. 

He sketched for her his dream of what might be done with the treasures ofthe Tower. 

Through all his ugly wrestle with Melrose, with its disappointments andhumiliations, his excavator's joy in the rescue and the setting in orderof Melrose's amazing possessions had steadily grown of late, the onlypleasure of his day had come from handling, cleaning and cataloguing thelovely forgotten things of which the house was full. These surfaces ofivory and silver, of stucco or marble, of wood or canvas, pottery orporcelain, on which the human mind, in love with some fraction of thebeauty interwoven with the world, had stamped an impress of itself, sometimes exquisite, sometimes whimsical, sometimes riotous--above all, _living_, life reaching to life, through the centuries: these, from arefuge or an amusement, had become an abiding delight, something, moreover, that seemed to point to a definite lifework--paid honourably bycash as well as pleasure. 

What would she think, he asked her, of a great Museum for the north--acentre for students--none of your brick and iron monstrosities, risingamid slums, but a beautiful house showing its beautiful possessions toall who came; and set amid the streams and hills? And in one wing of it, perhaps, curator's rooms--where Lydia, the dear lover of nature and art, might reign and work--fitly housed?... 

But his brow contracted before she could smile. 

"Some time perhaps--some time--not now! Let's forget--for a little. Lydia--come away with me--let's be alone. Oh, my dear!--let's be alone!"

She was in his arms again, calming the anguish that would recur--of thosenights in the Tower after the murder, when it had seemed to him that notBrand, but himself, was the prey that a whole world was hunting, withHate for the huntsman. 

But presently, as they clung to each other in the firelight, he rousedhimself to say:

"Now, let me see your mother; and then I must go. There is much to do. You will get a note from Lady Tatham to-night. "

She looked up startled. And then it came over her, that he had neverreally told her what he meant to do with Melrose's money. She had noprecise idea. Their minds jumped together, and she saw the first laugh inhis dark eyes. 

"I shan't tell you! Beloved--be good and wait! But you guess already. Wemeet to-morrow--at Duddon. "

She asked no question. The thin mystery--for her thoughts did indeeddrive through it--pleased her; especially because it seemed to pleasehim. 

Then Mrs. Penfold and Susy were brought down, and Mrs. Penfold sat amidexplanations and embraces, more feather-headed and inconsequent even thanusual, but happy, because Lydia caressed her, and this handsome thoughpale young man on the hearthrug kissed her hand and even, at command, herstill pink cheek; and it seemed there was to be a marriage--only not themarriage there should have been--a substitution, clearly, of Threlfallfor Duddon? Lydia would live at Threlfall; would be immensely rich; andthere would be no more bloodhounds in the park. 

But when Faversham was gone, and realities began to sink into the littlelady's mind, as Lydia sitting at her feet, and holding her hand, tried toinfuse them, dejection followed. No coronet!--and now, no fortune! Shedid not understand these high-stepping morals, and she went sadly to bed;though never had Lydia been so sweet to her, so ready to brush her hairby the fire as long as ever she chose, so full of daughterly promises. 

Susy kissed her sister when they were alone, tenderly but absently. 

"You're a rare case, Lydia--unique, I think. The Greeks would call yousomething--I forget! I should really like to understand the psychology ofit. It might be useful. "

Lydia bantered her a little--rather sorely. But the emotions of herfamily would always be so much "copy" to Susy; and the fact did not inthe least prevent her being a warm-hearted, and, in her own way, admirable little person. 

Finally, Lydia turned the tables on her, by throwing an arm round herneck, and inquiring whether Mr. Weston had not paid her a very longcall the day before. Susy quietly admitted it, and added: "But I toldhim not to call again. I'm afraid--I'm bored with him. There are nomysteries in his character--no lights and shades at all. He is toovirtuous--monotonously so. It would be of no technical advantage to mewhatever, to fall in love with him. "

That evening came a note from Lady Tatham:

"MY DEAR LYDIA:

"We expect you to-morrow at 11:30. Mr. Faversham has asked that we--andyou--Cyril Boden, Doctor Undershaw, old Dixon, and Felicia (her poormother is _very_ ill, and we hear news to-day of the sudden death of theold grandfather)--should meet him at that hour in Harry's library. Andafterward, you will stay to lunch? My dear, you have in this house twowarm friends who love you and long to see you. Each hour that passesgrows more thrilling than the last.... 

"I have been spending some time with old Mrs. Brand--and I told her Iknew you would go to her to-morrow. They have given her her dead son--andshe sits with his feet against her breast. She loved him best of all. Onethinks of Rizpah gathering the bones. "

 * * * * *

Next morning Tatham was in his library before eleven, making a pretenceof attending to some County Council business, but in truth restless withexpectation, and thinking of nothing but the events immediately ahead. 

What was going to happen?

Faversham no doubt was going to propose some division of the Melroseinheritance with Felicia, and some adequate provision for the mother. Only a few weeks before this date Tatham had been in a mood to loathe thenotion that Felicia should owe a fortune, small or great, to the charityof a greedy intruder. To-day he awaited Faversham's visit as a friend, prepared to welcome his proposals in the spirit of a friend, to put, thatis, the best and not the worst interpretation upon them. After all, thefortune was legally his; and if Melrose had died intestate, Felicia andher mother would only have shared with some remote heirs with far lessclaim than Faversham. 

He owed this change of temper--he knew--simply to the story whichUndershaw had brought him of the last scene between Faversham andMelrose. That final though tardy revolt had fired the young man'sfeelings and drowned his wraths. In his secret mind, he left Brand's shotuncondemned; and the knowledge that before that final _coup_ was given, the man whom Melrose had alternately bribed and bullied had at last foundstrength to turn upon him in defiance, flinging his money in his face, had given infinite satisfaction to Harry's own hatred of a tyrant. Faversham, even more than Brand, had avenged them all. The generous, pugnacious youth was ready to take Faversham to his heart. 

And yet, not without uneasiness, some dread of reaction in himself, if--by chance--they were all mistaken in their man! Neither Boden, norUndershaw, nor he had any definite idea of the conclusions to whichFaversham had come. He had not had a word to say to them on that head;although, during these ghastly weeks, when they had acted as buffersbetween him and an enraged populace, relations of intimacy had clearlygrown up between him and Boden, and both Undershaw and Tatham had beenincreasingly conscious of liking, even respect, for a much-abused man. 

Oh, it was--it would be--all right! Lydia would see to it!

Lydia! What a letter that was the post had brought him--what a letter, and what a woman! He sighed, thinking with a rueful though satiric spiritof all those protestations of hers in the summer, as to independence, a maiden life, and the rest. And now she confessed that, from thebeginning, it had been Faversham. Why? What had she seen in him? Theyoung man's vanity no less than his love had been sore smitten. But thepain was passing. And she was, and would always be, a dear woman, to whomhe was devoted. 

He had pushed aside his letters, and was pacing his library. Presently heturned and went into a small inner room, his own particular den, where hekept his college photographs, some stuffed and now decaying beasts, victims of his earliest sport, and many boxes of superb toy soldiers, thepassion of his childhood. There on the wall, screened from vulgar eyes, hung five water-colour drawings. He went to look at them--sentimentally. Had the buying of anything in the world ever given him so much pleasure?

As he stood there, he was suddenly aware of a voice--girl's voiceoverhead, singing. He turned and saw that the window was open to the mildDecember air. No doubt the window on the story above was open too. Itwas Felicia--and the sound ceased as suddenly as it had risen. Just aphrase, a stormy phrase, from an Italian folk-song which he had heardher sing to his mother. He caught the usual words--"_morte"_--"_amore. "_They were the staple of all her songs; to tell the truth he was oftenbored by them. But the harsh, penetrating note--as though it were a noteof anger--in the sudden sound, arrested him; and when it became silent, he still thought of it. It was a strange, big voice for so small acreature. 

He was glad to hear that she could sing again. Nobody imagined that shecould regret her father; but certainly the murder had sharply affectedher nerves and imagination. She had got hold of the local paper beforethey could keep it from her; and for nights afterward, according to hismother she had not been able to sleep. He himself had tried of late todistract her. He had asked her to ride with him; he had brought her booksand flowers. To no avail. She was very short and shy with him; onlyhappy, apparently, with his mother, to whom her devotion wasextraordinary. To her own mother, so Lady Tatham reported, she was asgood--as gentle even--as her temperament allowed. But there was a deepdiscrepancy between them. 

As to Mrs. Melrose, whose life, according to the doctor, was only amatter of weeks, possibly months, Victoria believed that the shock of herold father's death had affected her much more acutely than the murder ofher husband. She fretted perpetually that she had left her father tostrangers, and that she could not help to lay him in his grave. Feliciatoo had cried a little, but had soon consoled herself with the sensiblereflection--so it seemed to Tatham--that at least her poor old Babbo wasnow out of his troubles. 

His thoughts strayed on to the coming hour and Felicia's future. Itamused the young man's mere love of "eventful living" to imagine hersurprise, if what he shrewdly supposed was going to happen, did happen. But no one could say--little incalculable thing!--how she would take it. 

The handle of the door was turned, and some one entered. He looked round, and saw Felicia. Her black dress emphasized the fairylike delicacy of herface and hands; and something in her look--some sign of smothered miseryor revolt--touched Tatham sharply. He hurried to her, biding her goodmorning, for she had not appeared at breakfast. 

"And I wanted to see you before they all come. How is your mother?"

"Just the same. " She allowed him but the slightest touch of her smallfingers before she turned abruptly to the row of water-colours. "Whopainted those?"

"Miss Penfold. Don't you know what a charming artist she is?"

"They are not at all well done!" said Felicia. "Amateurs have no businessto paint. "

"She is not an amateur!" cried Tatham. "She--"

Then again he noticed that she was hollowed-eyed, and her lipwas twitching. Poor little girl!--in her black dress--soon to bemotherless--and with this critical moment in front of her!

He came nearer to her in the shy, courteous way that made a dissonance soattractive with his great height and strength. 

"Dear Felicia! I may, mayn't I? We're cousins. Don't be nervous--orafraid. I think it's all coming right. "

She looked at him angrily. 

"I'm not nervous--not the least bit! I don't care what happens. "

And holding her curly head absurdly high, she went back into the library, which Victoria, Undershaw, and Cyril Boden had just entered. Tathamregretted that he had not made more time to talk with her; to prepare hermind for alternatives. It might have been wiser. But Faversham's summonshad been sudden; and his own expectations were so vague!

However, there was no time now. Lydia arrived, and she and Tathamwithdrew into the inner room for a few minutes, deep in consultation. Felicia watched them with furious eyes. And when they came out again, asoft flush on Lydia's cheeks, it was all that Felicia could do to preventherself from rushing upstairs again, leaving them to have their horridmeeting to themselves. 

But flight was barred. Faversham entered, accompanied by the seniorsolicitor to the Threlfall estate and by old Dixon, shaking withnervousness, in a black Sunday suit. Chairs had been provided. They tooktheir seats. Tatham cleared his own table. 

"No need!" said the solicitor, a gentleman with a broad, benevolent faceslightly girdled by whiskers. "It's very short!"

And smiling, he took out of his pocket a document consisting apparentlyof two sheets of square letter paper, and amid the sudden silence, hebegan to read. 

The first and longer sheet was done. Felicia, sitting on the edge of astiff chair, her small feet dangling, was staring at the lawyer. Victoriawas looking at her son bewildered. Boden wore an odd sort of smile. Undershaw, impassive, was playing with his watch-chain. Lydia radiant anderect, in a dress of gray-blue tweed, a veil of the same tint fallingback from the harmonious fairness of her face, had her eyes on Felicia. There was a melting kindness in the eyes--as though the maternity deep inthe girl's nature spoke. 

A deed of gift, _inter vivos_, conveying the whole personality and realestate, recently bequeathed to Claude Faversham by Edmund Melrose, consisting of so-and-so, and so-and-so, --a long catalogue of shares andland which had taken some time to read--to Felicia Melrose, daughter ofthe late Edmund Melrose, subject only to an annuity to her mother, Antonetta Melrose, of £2, 000 a year, to a pension for Thomas Dixon andhis wife, and various other pensions and small annuities; Henry, EarlTatham, and Victoria, Countess Tatham, appointed trustees, and to act asguardians, till the said Felicia Melrose should attain the age oftwenty-four; no mention of any other person at all; the whole vastproperty, precisely as it had passed from Melrose to Faversham, justtaken up and dropped in the lap of this little creature with the danglingfeet without reservation, or deduction--now that it was done, and notmerely guessed at, it showed plain for what in truth it was--one of thoseacts wherein the energies of the human spirit, working behind thematerial veil, swing for a moment into view, arresting and stunning thespectator. 

"But the collections!" said Tatham, remembering them almost with relief, speaking in his mother's ear; "what about the collections?"

"We come now to the second part of the deed of gift, " said the silveryvoice of the lawyer. And again the astounded circle set itself to listen. 

"The collections of works of art now contained in Threlfall Tower, Ialso convey in full property and immediate possession to the said FeliciaMelrose, but on the following conditions:

"Threlfall Tower, or such portions of it as may be necessary, to bemaintained permanently as a museum in which to house the said collection:a proper museum staff to be appointed; a sum of money, to be agreed uponbetween Claude Faversham and Felicia Melrose, to be set aside for themaintenance of the building, the expenses of installation, and theendowment of the staff; and a set of rooms in the west wing to beappropriated to the private residence of a curator, who is to beappointed, after the first curatorship, by--"

Certain public officials were named, and a few other stipulations made. Then with a couple of legal phrases and a witnessed signature, the secondsheet came to an end. 

There was a silence that could be heard. In the midst of it Favershamrose. He was agitated and a little incoherent. 

"The rest of what has to be said is not a formal matter. If MissMelrose, or her guardians, choose to make me the first Curator of theThrelfall Tower Museum, I am willing to accept that office at theirhands, and--after, perhaps, a year--I should like to occupy the roomsI have mentioned in the west wing--with the lady who has now promised tobe my wife. I know perhaps better than any one else what the housecontains; and I could spend, if not my life, at any rate a term of years, in making the Tower a palace of art, a centre of design, of training, ofsuggestion--a House Beautiful, indeed, for the whole north of England. And my promised wife says she will help me. "

He looked at Lydia. She put her hand in his. The sight of most people inthe room had grown dim. 

But Felicia had jumped up. 

"I don't want it all! I won't have it all!" she said in a passionateexcitement. "My father hated me. I told him I would never take his money. Why didn't you tell me--why didn't you warn me?" She turned to Tatham, her little body shaking, and her face threatening tears. 

"Why should Mr. Faversham do such a thing? Don't let him!--don't let him!And I ought--I ought--to have been told!"

Faversham and Lydia approached her. But suddenly; putting her hands toher face, she ran to the French window of the library, opened it, andrushed into the garden. 

Tatham and his mother looked at each other aghast. 

"Run after her!" said Victoria in his ear. "Take this shawl!" She handedhim a wrap she had brought in upon her arm. 

"Yes--it's December, " said Boden, smiling, to Lady Tatham; "butperhaps"--the accent was ironical--"when she comes back the seasonswill have changed!"

The session broke up in excited conversation, of which Faversham was thecentre. 

"This is final?" said Undershaw, eying him keenly. "You intend to standby it?"

"'Fierce work it were to do again!'" said Faversham, in a quotationrecognized by Undershaw, who generally went to bed with a scientific bookon one side of him, and a volume of modern poets on the other. Favershamwas now radiant. He stood with his arm round Lydia. Victoria had herhand. 

 * * * * *

Meanwhile in the Italian garden and through the yew hedges, Daphne fled, and Apollo pursued. At last he caught her, and she sank upon a gardenseat. He put the shawl round her, and stood with his hands in his pocketssurveying her. 

"What was the matter, Felicia?" he asked her, gently. 

"It is ridiculous!" she said, sobbing. "Why wasn't I asked? I don't wanta guardian! I won't have you for a guardian!" And she beat her footangrily on the paved path. 

Tatham laughed. 

"You'll have to go back and behave nicely, Felicia. Haven't you anythanks for Faversham?"

"I never asked him to do it! How can I look after all that! It'll killme. I want to sing! I want to go on the stage!"

He sat down beside her. Her dark head covered with its silky curls, hervery black eyes and arched brows in her small pink face, the pointedchin, and tiny mouth, made a very winning figure of her, as she satthere, under a garden vase, and an overhanging yew. And that, althoughthe shawl was huddled round her shoulders, and the eyes were red withtears. 

"You will be able to do anything you like, Felicia. You will be terriblyrich. "

She gazed at him, the storm in her breast subsiding a little. 

"How rich?" she asked him, pouting. 

He tried to give her some idea. She sighed. "It's dreadful! What shall Ido with it all!"

Then as her eyes still searched him, he saw them change--first tosoft--then wild. Her colour flamed. She moved farther from him, and triedto put on a businesslike air. 

"I want to ask a question. "

"Ask it. "

"Am I--am I as rich as any girl you would be likely to marry?"

"What an odd question! Do you think I want money?"

"I know you don't!" she said, with a wail. "That's what's so horrid! Whycan't you all leave me alone?"

Then recovering herself fiercely, she began again:

"In my country--in Italy--when two people are about equally rich--a manand a girl--their relations go and talk to each other. They say, 'Will itsuit you?'--the man has so much--the girl has so much--they like eachother--and--wouldn't it do very well!"

She sprang up. Tatham had flushed. He looked at her in speechlessamazement. She stood opposite him, making herself as tall as she could, her hands behind her. 

"Lord Tatham--my mother is ill--my father is dead. You're not my guardianyet--and I don't think I'll ever let you be! So there's nobody but me todo it. I'm sorry--I know it's not quite right, quite--quite English. Well, any way! Lord Tatham, you say I have a _dot_! So that's all right. There's my hand. Will you marry me?"

She held it out. All her excitement had gone, and her colour. She wasvery pale, and quite calm. 

"My dear Felicia!" cried Tatham, in agitation, taking the hand, "what aposition to put your guardian in! You are a great heiress. I can't runoff with you like this--before you've had any other chances--beforeyou've seen anybody else. "

"If you don't, I won't take a farthing! What good would it be to me!"

She came closer, and put her little hands on his shoulders as he sat--thecentre of one of those sudden tumults of sense and spirit that sweep astrong man from his feet. 

"Oh, won't you take care of me? I love you so!"

It was a cry of Nature. Tatham gave a great gulp, put out his arms, andcaught her. There she was on the bench beside him, laughing and sobbing, gathered against his heart. 

The cheerful December day shone upon them: a robin sang in the yew treeoverhead.... 

Meanwhile the library was still full. Nobody had yet left it; andinstinctively everybody was watching the French window. 

Two figures appeared there, Felicia in front. She came in, her eyes castdown, a bright spot on either cheek. And while every one in the room heldtheir breath she crossed the floor and paused in front of Faversham. 

"Mr. Faversham, I ask your pardon, that I was so rude. I--" A sob rosein her throat, and she stopped a moment to control it. "Till the otherday--I was just a poor girl--who never had a _lira_ to spend. All that weate--my mother and I--we had to work for. And now--you have made me rich. It's--it's very wonderful. I only wish"--the sob rose again--"just thatlast time--my father had been kind to me. I thank you with all my heart. But I can't take it all, you know--I _can't!_"

She looked at him appealing--almost threatening. Faversham smiled at her. 

"That doesn't lie with you! One of your trustees has already signed thedeed--here comes the other. " He pointed to Tatham. 

"But he isn't my trustee!" insisted Felicia, the tears brimming over;"he's--"

Tatham came up to her, and gravely took her hand. 

Felicia looked at him, then at Victoria, then at the circle of amazedfaces. With a low cry of "Mother" she turned and fled from the room, drawing Lady Tatham with her. 

A little while later, Lydia, the lawyers and Faversham having departed, found herself alone a moment in the library. In the tumult of happyexcitement which possessed her, she could not sit still. Without anyclear notion of where she was going, she wandered through the open doorinto the farther room. There, with a start, and a flush, she recognizedher own drawings--five of them--in a row. So here, all the time, was herunknown friend; and she had never guessed!

At a sound in the room behind, she turned, hoping it was Lady Tatham whohad come back to her. But she saw that it was Tatham himself. He cameinto the little room, and stood silently beside her, as though wantingher to speak first. With deep emotion she held out her hand, and wishedhim joy; her gesture, her eyes, all tenderness. 

"She is so lovely--so touching! She will win everybody's heart!"

He looked down upon her oddly, like some one oppressed by feelings andthoughts beyond his own unravelling. 

"She has been very unhappy, " he said simply. "I think I can take care ofher. "

Lydia looked at him anxiously. A sudden slight darkening seemed tocome into the day; and for one terrified moment she seemed to seeTatham--dear, generous youth!--as the truly tragic figure in theirhigh mingled comedy. 

Not Melrose--but Tatham! Then, swiftly, the cloud passed, and she laughedat herself. 

"Take care of her! You will be the happiest people in the world--savetwo!"

He let her talk to him, the inner agitation whatever it was, disappearing. She soothed, she steadied him. Now, at last, they were tobe true friends--comrades in the tasks and difficulties of life. Withoutwords, her heart promised it--to him and Felicia. 

As they left the room, she pointed, smiling, to the drawings. 

"So you were the elderly solicitor, with a taste for art, I used to seein my dreams!"

His eyes lit up boyishly. 

"I had to keep them here, for fear you'd find out. Now, we'll hang themproperly. "

It was Victoria who broke the news to Netta Melrose. She, a little wastedghost among her pillows, received it calmly; yet with a certainbitterness mingled in the calm. What did the money matter to her? Andwhat had she to do with this English world, and this young lord Feliciawas to marry? Far within, she hungered, on the threshold of death, as shehad hungered twenty years before, for the Italian sun, and the oldItalian streets, with the deep eaves and the sculptured doorways, and thesmells of leather and macaroni. Her father had loved them, and she hadloved her father; all the more passionately the more the world disownedhim. She sat in spirit beside his crushed and miserable old age, findingher only comfort in the memory of how his feeble hands had clung to her, how she had worked and starved for him. 

Yet, when Felicia came to her, she cried and blessed her. And Felicia, softened by happiness, knelt down beside her, and begged and prayed herto get well. To please them all, Netta made her nurse do her hair, andput on a white jacket which Victoria had embroidered for her. And whenTatham came in to see her, she would have timidly kissed his hand had henot been so quick to see and prevent her. 

Meanwhile Victoria, still conscious of the clinging of Felicia's armsabout her, was comparing--secretly and inevitably--the daughter-in-lawthat might have been, with the daughter-in-law that was to be. Nowthat Fate's throw was irrevocably made, she found herself appreciatingLydia as she had never done while the chances were still open. Lydiahad refused her Harry; Felicia had captured him. Perhaps she resentedboth actions; and would always--secretly--resent them. But yet, inLydia--Lydia with her early maturity, her sweet poise and strength ofnature, she foresaw the companion; in Felicia, the child and darling ofher old age. And looking round on this crooked world, she acknowledged, now as always, that she had got more than she deserved, more--muchmore--than her share. 

A conviction that Cyril Boden did his best to sharpen in her. With theinvincible optimism of his kind, he scoffed at the misgivings which sheconfided to him, and to him only, on the score of Felicia's lack oftraining, her touchy and passionate temper, and the little unscrupulousways that offended a fastidious observer. 

"What does it matter?" he said to her--"she is in love--head over ears. You and he can make of her what you like. She will beat him if he looksat anybody else; but she will have ten children, and never have a thoughtor an interest that isn't his. And as to the money--"

"Yes--the money!" said Victoria, dejectedly. "What on earth will they dowith it all? Harry is so rich already. "

"Do with it!" Boden turned upon her. "Grow a few ideas in your landlordgarden! Turn the ground of it--enrich it--change it--try experiments!How long will this England leave the land to you landowners, unless youbring some mind to it--aye, and the best of your _souls_! you--thenation's servants! Here is a great tract left desolate by one man'swickedness. Restore the waste places--build--people--teach! Heavens, what a chance!" His eyes kindled. "And when Faversham and Lydia comeback--yoke them in too. Curator!--stuff! If he won't own that estate, make him govern it, and play the man. Disinterested power!--with such awife--and such a friend! Could a man ask better of the gods! Now is yourmoment. Rural England turns to you, its natural leaders, to shape itafresh. Shirk--refuse--at your peril!"