THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 *^-^-^^v.w '^- - 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 Lady Merton, Colonist 
 
 Marriage a la Mode 
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 MiLLY AND OlLY 
 
 Agatha 
 
 The Marriage of William Ashe 
 
 Lady Rose's Daughter 
 
 Eleanor 
 
 Helbeck of Bannisdale 
 
 Sir George Tressady 
 
 Marcella 
 
 The History of David Grieve 
 
 Robert Elsmere 
 
 Miss Bretherton 
 
 Amiel's Journal (translated) 
 
 The Case of Richard Meynell 
 
What was the matter, Felicia ? " he said, ti:ently 
 

 ILIiUSTRAfED BY CHAaL.FS E. 3KC<CRl. 
 
 GARDEN CITV NEW YORK 
 DOUBLEDAY PAGE iT CO. 
 PUBLISHE IVS 
 
 1913 
 
Copyright, 1913, hy 
 Mrs. Humphry Ward 
 
 All rights reserved, including thai of 
 
 translation into foreign languages, 
 
 including the Scandinavian 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 191 2, BY AMERICAN HOME COMPANY 
 
TO 
 
 R. J. S 
 
 258058 
 
PACE 
 
 68 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 " WHAT WAS THE MATTER, FELICIA? " HE 
 
 SAID GENTLY . . • • • Frontispiece 
 
 THKY STOPPED TO TALK WHILE HE RESTED 
 A FEW MINUTES ... 
 
 "fAVERSHAM! don't be a fool! I HAVE 
 
 something to say to you, a deal 
 more important than this damned 
 nonsense! "...•• 
 
 he came to kneel down by her, and 
 took her in his arms . 
 
 274 
 
 490 
 
BOOK I 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 * ' AYE, it's a bit dampish," said Dixon, as he brought 
 
 /-% a couple more logs to replenish a fire that seemed 
 "^ to have no heart for burning. 
 
 The absurd moderation of the statement irritated the 
 person to whom it was addressed. 
 
 "What I'm thinkin' " — said Mrs. Dixon, impatiently, 
 as she moved to the window — "is that they'll mappen 
 not get here at all! The watter'U be over 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 speaker stood peering discontentedly into 
 the gloom without: "But you'll not trouble yoursen, 
 Tammas, I daursay." 
 
 " Well, I'm not Godamighty to mak' t' rain gie over," 
 was the man's cheerful reply, as he took the bellows to 
 the damp wood which lay feebly crackling and fizzing on 
 the wide hearth. His exertions produced a spasmodic 
 flame, which sent flickering tongues of light through the 
 wide spaces and shadows of the hall. Otherwise the deep- 
 
4 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 ening gloom oi the October evening was lightened only by 
 the rays of one feebly burning lamp standing apparently 
 in a corridor or gallery just visible beyond a richly pillared 
 archway which led from the hall to the interior of the 
 house. Through this archway could be seen the dim 
 ascending lines of a great double staircase; while here 
 and there a white carved doorway or cornice glimmered 
 from the darkness. 
 
 A stately Georgian house, built in a rich classical style, 
 and dating from 1740: so a trained eye would have 
 interpreted the architectural and decorative features 
 faintly disclosed by lamp and fire. But the house and its 
 contents — the house and its condition — were strangely 
 at war. Everywhere the seemly lines and lovely orna- 
 ment due to its original builders were spoilt or obliterated 
 by the sordid confusion to which some modern owner had 
 brought it. It was not a house apparently, so far as its 
 present use went, but a warehouse. There was properly 
 speaking no furniture in it; only a multitude of packing- 
 cases, boxes of all shapes and sizes, piled upon or leaning 
 against each other. The hall was choked with them, so 
 that only a gangway a couple of yards wide was left, con- 
 necting the entrance door with the gallery and staircase. 
 And any one stepping into the gallery, which with its high 
 arched roof ran the whole length of the old house, would 
 have seen it also disfigured in the same way. The huge 
 deal cases stood on bare boards ; the splendid staircase was 
 carpetless. Nothing indeed could have been more repel- 
 lant than the general aspect, the squalid disarray of 
 Threlfall Tower, as seen from the inside, on this dreary 
 evening. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 5 
 
 The fact impressed itself on Mrs. Dixon as she turned 
 back from the window toward her husband. 
 
 She looked round her sulkily. 
 
 "Well, I've done my best, Tammas, and I daursay yo' 
 have too. But it's not a place to bring a leddy to — an' 
 that's the truth." 
 
 "Foaks mun please theirsels," said Dixon with the same 
 studied mildness as before. Then, having at last made 
 the logs burn, as he hoped, with some brightness, he pro- 
 ceeded 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 near the fire. "Tammas, yo' know 
 it's a queer thing awthegither! What are they coomin' 
 here for at all?" 
 
 "Well, master's coom into t' property, an' I'm thinkin' 
 it's nobbut his dooty to coom an' see it. It's two year 
 sen he came into 't; an' he's done nowt but tak' t' rents, 
 an' turn off men, an' clutter up t' house wi' boxes, iver 
 sense. It's time, I'm thinkin', as he did coom an' luke 
 into things a bit." 
 
 Thomas rose from his knees, and stood warming himself 
 at the fire, while he looked pensively round him. He was 
 as tired as his wife, and quite as mistrustful of what might 
 be before them; but he was not going to confess it. He 
 was a lean and gaunt fellow, blue-eyed and broad-shoul- 
 dered, of a Cumbria type commonly held to be of Scandi- 
 navian origin. His eye was a little wandering and absent, 
 and the ragged gray whiskers which surrounded his coun- 
 tenance emphasized the slight incoherence of its expression. 
 Quiet he was and looked. But his wife knew him for one of 
 
6 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 the most incurably obstinate of men; the inveterate critic 
 moreover of everything and every one about him, begin- 
 ning with herself. This trait of his led her unconsciously 
 to throw most of her remarks to him into the form of 
 questions, as offering less target to criticism than other 
 forms of 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 'uU it be to t' chapel at Scargill Fell?" 
 
 "Nine mile. She'll not be for takkin' much notice of 
 her Sunday dooties I'm thinkin'." 
 
 "An' yo' unnerstan' she'll be juist a yoong thing? An' t' 
 baby only juist walkin'." 
 
 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 as sharply 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 the lamp-light, threading her way through 
 the packing-cases, and followed by a 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 and sat there, her feet dangling. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 7 
 
 Mrs. Dixon looked at her with disapproval, but held her 
 tongue. Thyrza was not strictly her underling, though 
 she was helping in the housework. She was the daughter 
 of the small farmer who had been for years the tenant of 
 part of the old house, and had only just been evicted in 
 preparation for the return of the owner of the property 
 with his foreign wife. 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. And how 
 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 of cottages, 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 stifled by 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 trying its strength against the doors and win- 
 dows, and the rain swished against the panes. 
 
 "Are t' fires upstairs burnin' reet?" asked Mrs. Dixon 
 severely. She had aheady told Thyrza half a dozen times 
 that day that such a greed for sweet things as she dis- 
 played would ruin her digestion and her teeth; and it 
 nrffled a dictatorial temper to be taken no more notice of 
 than if she v/ere a duck quacking in the farmyard. 
 
 "Aye, they're burnin'," said Thyrza, with a shrug. 
 Then she looked round her with a toss of her decidedly 
 graceful head. "But it's a creepy old place howivver. 
 I'd not live here if I was paid. What does Muster Melrose 
 
8 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 want wi' coomin' here? He's got lots o' money, Mr. Tyson 
 says. He'll nivver 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, 
 surveying the girl, as she sat on the packing-case swing- 
 ing her feet, her straw-coloured hair and pink cotton dress 
 making a spot of pleasant colour in the darkness as the 
 lamp-light fell on them. "It's a house for t' 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 — juist two 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 
 shabby sticks o' things upstairs an' down as I nivver see ! 
 I'll have a good sight 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 to the ground, Mrs. Dixon picked up her 
 brush and duster, and Dixon resumed his tending of the 
 fire. 
 
 A man in a dripping overcoat and leggings pushed his 
 way rapidly through the 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 oval room panelled in dark oak, with a stucco 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 9 
 
 ceiling, in free Italianate design. But within its stately 
 and harmonious walls a single oil lamp, of the cheapest 
 and commonest pattern, emitting a strong smell of paraf- 
 fin, threw its light upon furniture, quite new, that most 
 seaside lodgings would have disdained; viz., a cheap car- 
 pet of a sickly brown, leaving edges of bare boards be- 
 tween itself and the wainscot; an ugly "suite" covered 
 with crimson rep, such as only a third-rate shop in a small 
 provincial town could have provided; with a couple of 
 tables, and a "chiffonier," of the kind that is hawked on 
 barrows in an East End street. 
 
 Mr. Tyson looked at the room uneasily. He had done 
 his best with the ridiculous sum provided; but of course 
 it was all wrong. 
 
 He passed on silently through a door in the wainscoting 
 of the drawing-room. The others again followed, Thyrza's 
 mouth twitching with laughter. 
 
 Another large room, almost dark, with a few guttering 
 candles on the table. Mrs. Dixon went hastily to the 
 fire and stirred it up. Then a dining-table spread for 
 supper was seen, and a few chairs. Everything here was 
 as cheap and nasty as in the drawing-room, including the 
 china and glass on the table. 
 
 Thyrza pointed to the ceiling. 
 
 "That's a pity howivver!" she said. "Yo' might ha' 
 had it mended up a bit, Mr. Tyson. Why t' rats will be 
 coomin' through!" 
 
 She spoke with the pert assurance of a pretty girl 
 who is only playing the servant "to oblige." The agent 
 looked irritably at the ugly gap in the fine tracing over- 
 head, and then at Thyrza. 
 
10 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 "Mind your own business, please, Miss Thyrza!" 
 And he walked quickly on toward a farther door. 
 
 Thyrza flushed, and made a face at him as he turned 
 his back. The Dixons followed the agent into the next 
 room, Mrs. Dixon throwing behind her an injunction to 
 Thyrza to run upstairs and give a last look to the bed- 
 rooms. 
 
 "Why isn't there a light here.?" said the agent im- 
 patiently. He struck one from some matches in his 
 pocket, and Mrs. Dixon hastily brought a candle from 
 a huge writing-table standing in the middle of the 
 floor. 
 
 Except for that writing-table, and some fine eighteenth- 
 century bookcases, brass-latticed, which ran round the 
 walls, fitting their every line and moulding with delicate 
 precision, the room was entirely empty. Moreover, the 
 bookcases did not hold a single book, and the writing- 
 table was bare. But for any person of taste, looking 
 round him in the light of the candle which Mrs, Dixon 
 held, the room was furnished. All kinds of human and 
 civilized suggestion breathed from the table and the book- 
 cases. The contriving mind, with all its happy arts for 
 the cheating and adorning of life, was to be felt. 
 
 Mr. Tyson took it differently. 
 
 "Look here!" — he said peremptorily to Mrs. Dixon — 
 "you mind what you're doing with that table. It's 
 worth a mint of money." 
 
 The Dixons looked at it curiously, but coldly. To 
 them it was nothing but a writing-table with drawers 
 made out of a highly polished outlandish wood, with little 
 devices of gilt rails, and drawer-furnishings, and tiny fig- 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 11 
 
 ures, and little bits of china "let in," which might easily 
 catch a duster, thought Mrs. Dixon, and "mak' trooble." 
 That it had belonged to a French dramatist under Louis 
 Quinze, and then to a French Queen; that the plaques 
 were Sevres, and the table as a whole beyond the purse 
 of any but a 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, "why Muster Melrose didn't gie us orders 
 to unpack soom more o' them cases. Summat like that- 
 ten" — he pointed to the table — " wud ha' lukit fine i* 
 the drawin'-room." 
 
 Tyson made no reply. He w^as a young man of strong 
 will and taciturn habit; and he fully realized that if he 
 once began discussing with Dixon the various orders 
 received from Mr. Edmund Melrose with regard to his 
 home-coming, during the preceding weeks, the position 
 that he, Tyson, intended to maintain with regard to that 
 gentleman would not be made any easier. If you happened 
 by mischance to have accepted an appointment to serve 
 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 agents before him, 
 of the silent, honest, tenacious Cumbria sort, belonged to 
 a stock which had never resigned anything, till at least 
 the next step was clear; and the young man had no in- 
 tention whatever of "chucking it." But to hold on cer- 
 tainly meant patience, and as few words as might be. 
 
 So he only stopped to give one more anxious look round 
 the table to see that no scratches had befallen it in the 
 
12 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 process of unpacking, gave orders to Mrs. Dixon to light 
 yet another fire in the room, which struck exceedingly 
 chill, and then left them for a final tour round the ground- 
 floor, heaping on coals everywhere with a generous hand. 
 On this point alone — the point of warmth — had Mr. 
 Melrose's letters shown a disposition to part with money, 
 in ordinary domestic way. "The odiousness of your 
 English climate is only matched by the absurdity of your 
 English grates," he had written, urbanely, from Paris. 
 " Get the house up to sixty, 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 shivers al- 
 ready at the thought of Cumbria." 
 
 Sixty indeed! In this dank rain from the northeast, 
 and on this high ground, not a passage in the house could 
 be got above forty-six; and the sitting-rooms were al- 
 ternately stifling and vaultlike. 
 
 "Well, I didn't build the house!" thought the agent 
 with a quiet exasperation in his mind, the result of much 
 correspondence; and having completed his tour of inspec- 
 tion, which included the modest supper now cooking 
 according to Mr. Melrose's orders — Mrs. Melrose had 
 had nothing to do with it — in the vast and distant 
 kitchen, the young man hung up his wet overcoat, sat 
 himself down by the hall fire, drew a newspaper from his 
 pocket, and deliberately applied himself to it, till the 
 carriage should arrive. 
 
 Meanwhile through the rain and wind outside, the 
 expected owner of Threlfall Tower and his wife and child 
 were being driven through the endless and intricate lanes 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 13 
 
 which divided the main road between Keswick and Pen- 
 garth from the Tower. 
 
 The carriage contained Mr. Melrose, Mrs, Melrose, 
 their infant daughter aged sixteen months, and her Italian 
 nurse, Anastasia Doni. 
 
 There was still some gray light left, but the little lady 
 who sat dismally on her husband's right, occasionally 
 peering through the window, could make nothing of the 
 landscape, because of the driving scuds of rain which 
 drenched the carriage windows, as though in their mad 
 charges from the trailing clouds in front, they disputed 
 every inch of the mirj^ way with the newcomers. From 
 the wet ground itself there seemed to rise a livid storm- 
 light, reflecting the last gleams of day, and showing the 
 dreary road winding ahead, dim and snakelike through 
 intermittent trees. 
 
 "Edmund!" said the lady suddenly, in a high thin 
 voice, as though the words burst from her — " If the water 
 by that mill they talked about is really over the road, 
 I shall get out at once!" 
 
 " What? — into it? " The gentleman beside her laughed 
 "I don't remember, my dear, that swinmiing is one of 
 your accomplishments. Do you propose to hang the baby 
 round your neck?" 
 
 "Of course I should take her too! I won't rim any 
 risks at all with her! It would be simply wicked to take 
 such a small child into danger." But there was a fretful 
 desperation in the tone, as of one long accustomed to 
 protest in vain. 
 
 Mr. Melrose laughed once more — carelessly; as though 
 it were not worth while to dispute the matter; and 
 
14 THE IVIATING OF LYDTA 
 
 the carriage went on — battling, as it seemed, with the 
 storm. 
 
 " I never saw such an awful place in my life ! " said the 
 wife's voice again — with the same note of explosion — 
 after an interval. " It's horrible — just horrible! All the 
 way from Pengarth we've hardly seen a house, or a light ! 
 
 — and we've been driving nearly an hour. You don't 
 expect me to live here, Edmund!" The tone was hys- 
 terical. 
 
 "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 we are. 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 a farthing 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 main indulgent, had suddenly, harshly, 
 changed. The wife dropped mto the corner of the car- 
 riage 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 was just visible through the 
 growing darkness. In front of it stood a group of 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 whitish coat and cap who had come for- 
 ward to speak to the coachman. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 15 
 
 "Aye, sir — but you'll get through. In an hour's time, 
 mebbe ye couldn't do it. The water fro' the mill-race is 
 over t' road, but it's nobbut a foot deep as yet. Yo'll 
 do it varra well — but yo'd best not lose time!" 
 
 "Edmund!" — screamed the voice from inside — "Ed- 
 mund! — let me out — let me out 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 any danger of the coachman losing the road? " 
 he said, addressing the man. 
 
 "Aye, they'll keep along t' bank with the lanterns. Noa 
 fear, missis, noa fear!" 
 
 Another scream from inside. Mr. Melrose shut the 
 window abruptly, and the coachman 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's begun!" — for the poor babe, awakened, 
 had set up a wail. "Damn it!" — he turned fiercely to 
 the nurse — "Keep it quiet, will you?" 
 
 On swayed the carriage, the water splashing against 
 the wheels. Carried by the two labourers who walked 
 along a high bank beside the road, a couple of lanterns 
 threw their wavering light on the flooded highway, the 
 dripping, wind-lashed trees, the steaming horses. The 
 yellow rays showed the whirling eddies of autumnal leaves, 
 and found fantastic reflection in the turbid water through 
 which the horses were struggling. Presently — after half 
 
16 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 a mile or so — a roar on the right hand. Mrs. Melrose 
 screamed again, only to be once more savagely silenced 
 by her husband. It was the roar of the mill-race ap- 
 proaching the weir, over which it was rushing in sheets of 
 foam. The swollen river, a thunderous whiteness beside 
 the road, seemed every moment as if it must break through 
 the raised bank, and sweep carriage and horses into its 
 own abyss of fury. Mrs. Melrose was now too terrified 
 to cry out. She sat motionless and quivering, her baby 
 on her lap, her white pointed face and straining eyes 
 touched every now and then by a ghostly gleam from the 
 lanterns. Beside her — whispering occasional words in 
 Italian to her mistress — sat the Italian nurse, pale too, 
 but motionless, a woman from the Campagna, of a Roman 
 port and dignity, who would have scorned to give the 
 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 approached the window, which Melrose had 
 let down. 
 
 "Yo'll do now!" they shouted with cheerful faces. 
 "You've nobbut to do but 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 burst into rough laughter. 
 
 "Saxpence! My word, Jim! — here's a gentleman wot's 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 17 
 
 free wi' his muny. Saxpence! Two men — and two lan- 
 terns — fur t' best part of a mile! We're goin' 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 it me, Bob!" And raising it with a 
 scornful gesture he flung it into the river. Then standing 
 still, with their hands on their hips, the light from the 
 lanterns on the ground breaking over their ruddy rain- 
 washed faces, they poured out a stream of jeers in broad 
 Cumbrian, from which the coachman, angrily urged on 
 by Melrose, escaped as quickly as he could. 
 
 "Insolent boors!" said Melrose as men and flood dis- 
 appeared from view. "WTiat did we want with them 
 after all? It was only a device for bleeding us." 
 
 Mrs. Mehose awoke from her trance of terror with a 
 quavering breath. She did not understand what had 
 passed, nor a word of what the labourers had said; and in 
 her behef over the peril escaped, and her utter fatigue, 
 she gave the child to Anastasia, lay back, and closed her 
 eyes. A sudden and blessed sleep fell upon her for a few 
 minutes; from which she was roused all too soon by grat- 
 ing wheels and strange voices. 
 
 "Here we are, Netta — look alive!" said Melrose. 
 " Put something round the child, Anastasia. We have to 
 walk through this court. No getting up to the door. 
 Find some umbrellas!" 
 
 The two women and the child descended. From the 
 open house-door figures came hurrying down a flagged 
 path, through an untidy kitchen garden, to the gate in a 
 low outer wall in front of which the carriage had drawn up. 
 
18 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 Netta Melrose grasped the nurse's arm, and spoke in 
 wailing Italian, as she held an umbrella over the child. 
 
 "What a place, Anastasia! — what a place! It looks 
 like a prison! I shall die here — I know I shall!" 
 
 Her terrified gaze swept over the old red sandstone 
 house rising dark and grim against the storm, and over the 
 tangled thickets of garden dank with rain. 
 
 But the next moment she was seized by the strong- 
 hands of Mrs. Dixon and Thyrza, who half led, half car- 
 ried, her into the hall of the Tower, while Dixon 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 with his back to the fire, alternately looking 
 about him with an eager curiosity, and rubbing his hands 
 in what appeared to be satisfaction. The agent surveyed 
 him. 
 
 Edmund Melrose at that moment — some thirty years 
 ago — was a tall and remarkably handsome man of fifty, 
 with fine aquiline features deeply grooved and cut, a 
 delicate nostril, and a domed forehead over which fell 
 thick locks of black hair. He looked what he was — a 
 man of wealth and family, spoilt by long years of wander- 
 ing and irresponsible living, during which an inherited 
 eccentricity and impatience of restraint had developed 
 into traits and manners which seemed as natural to him- 
 self as they were monstrous in the sight of others. He had 
 so far treated the agent with the scantest civility during 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 19 
 
 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 good temper, and he seemed to be now more 
 genially inclined. He lit a cigarette and offered Tyson 
 one. Upstairs the child could be heard wailing. Its 
 mother and nurse were no doubt ministering to it. Mrs. 
 Melrose, so far as Tyson had observed her arrival, had cast 
 hasty and shivering looks round the comfortlessness of 
 the hall and drawing-room; had demanded loudly that 
 some of the cases encumbering the hall and passages 
 should be removed or unpacked at once, and had then 
 bade Mrs. Dixon take her and the child to their rooms, 
 declaring that she was nearly dead and would sup upstairs 
 and go to bed. She seemed to Tyson to be a rather pretty 
 woman, very small and dark, with a peevish, excitable 
 manner; and it was evident that her husband paid her 
 little or no attention. 
 
 "I can't altogether admire your taste in carpets, Ty- 
 son," said Melrose, presently, with a patronizing smile, 
 his eyes fastening on the monstrosity 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 expen- 
 sive shops." 
 
 "Oh, well! — I daresay Mrs. Melrose can put up with 
 it. And what about that sofa? " The speaker tried it — 
 "Hm — not exactly Sybaritic — but very fair, very fair! 
 Mrs. Melrose will get used to it." 
 
 "Mrs. Melrose, sir, I fear, will find this place a bit 
 lonesome, and out of the way." 
 
20 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 "Well, it is not exactly Piccadilly," laughed Melrose. 
 "But a woman that has her child is provided for. How 
 can she be dull? I ask you " — he repeated in a louder 
 and rather hectoring voice — "how can she possibly be 
 dull.?" 
 
 Tyson murmured something inaudible, adding to it — 
 "And you, sir? Are you a sportsman?" 
 
 Melrose threw up his hands contemptuously. "The 
 usual British question! What barbarians we are! It 
 may no doubt seem to you extraordinary — but I really 
 never want to kill anything — except sometimes, perhaps, 
 
 — a dealer. My amusements"— he pointed to two large 
 cases at the end of the room — "are pursued indoors." 
 
 "You will arrange your collections?' 
 
 " Perhaps, yes — perhaps, no. When I want something 
 to do, I may begin unpacking. 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 — as yet. But some day I may begin 
 to buy them in earnest. Meanwhile, Tyson — economy!" 
 
 — he lifted a monitory finger. "All my income is re- 
 quired — let me inform you at once — for what is my 
 hobby — my passion — my mania, if you like — the col- 
 lecting of works of art. I have gradually reduced my 
 personal expenditures to a minimum, and it must be the 
 same with this estate. No useless outlay of any kind. 
 Every sixpence will be important to me." 
 
 "Some of the cottages are in a very bad state, Mr. 
 Melrose." 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 21 
 
 "Paradises, I'll be bound, compared to some of the 
 places I have been livmg among, in Italy. Don't en- 
 courage people to complain; that's the great point. En- 
 courage them, my dear sir, to make the best of things — 
 to take life cheerfully.'" 
 
 Certain cottages on the estate presented themselves to 
 the agent's mind. He lifted his eyebrows imperceptibly, 
 and let the subject drop, inquiring instead whether his 
 employer meant to reside at the Tower during the whole 
 or the greater part of the year. 
 
 Melrose smiled. " I shall always spend the winter here 
 — arranging — cataloguing — writing." Again the cigar- 
 ette, held in very long, thin fingers, described a wide 
 semicircle in the dim light, as though to indicate the 
 largeness of the speaker's thoughts. "But in March or 
 April, I take flight from here — I return to the chase. 
 To use a hunting metaphor, in the summer I kill — and 
 store. In the winter I consume — ruminate — chew the 
 cud. Do you follow my metaphor?" 
 
 "Not precisely," said Tyson, looking at him with a 
 quiet antagonism. "I suppose you mean you buy things 
 and send them home?" 
 
 Melrose nodded. "Every dealer in Europe knows me 
 by now — and expects me. They put aside their best 
 things for me. And I prefer to hunt in summer — even 
 in the hot countries. Heat has no terror, for me; and 
 there 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 
 
22 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 Europe any more than is absolutely necessary. Mrs. 
 Melrose will make her home here, and will no doubt be- 
 come 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 alternate Sundays." 
 
 "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 their services. They have been hoping, now 
 that you and Mrs. Melrose have come to live here, that 
 you might perhaps be willing to pay some suitable man to 
 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 of par- 
 sons. And Mrs. Mehose — why I told you she was a 
 Catholic — a Roman Catholic. What does she want with 
 a church? But a parson's wife might have been useful. 
 By the way, I thought I saw a nice-looking girl when we 
 arrived, who has since disappeared." 
 
 "That was Thyrza Smart, sir — the daughter of Smart, 
 the farmer." 
 
 "Excellent! Mrs. Mehose shall make friends with her." 
 
 "And of course, sir, both Pengarth and Keswick are 
 within a drive." 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 23 
 
 "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 it very difficult getting about. There 
 are no flys anywhere near that you can hire." 
 
 "What do we want with them? " Melrose lit another 
 cigarette. " I may have a horse — 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 the 
 room — "to irresponsible people." 
 
 "The cart, sir, has been constantly at work. But — 
 it won't exactly suit Mrs. Melrose." Tyson smiled dis- 
 creetly. 
 
 "Oh! leave that to me — leave that to me!" said Mel- 
 rose with an answering good humour. " Stable and car- 
 riage expenses are the deuce. There never was a coach- 
 man yet that didn't rob his employer. Well, thank you; 
 I'm glad to have had this talk with you, and now, I go 
 to bed. Beastly cold, I must say, this climate of yours!" 
 
 And with a very evident shiver the speaker buttoned 
 the heavy fur coat he had never yet taken off more closely 
 round him. 
 
 "What about that man from Carlisle — and the fur- 
 nace?" he inquired sharply. 
 
 "He comes to-morrow, sir. I could not get him here 
 earlier. I fear it will 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 re- 
 sume our discussion to-morrow." 
 
24 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 The agent departed. Melrose, left solitary, remained 
 standing a while before the fire, examining attentively the 
 architecture and decorations of the room, so far as the 
 miserable light revealed them. Italian, no doubt, the 
 stucco work of the ceiling, with its embossed nymphs and 
 cupids, its classical medallions. Not of the finest kind or 
 period, but very charming — quite decorative. The 
 house had been built on the site of an ancient border 
 fortess, toward the middle of the eighteenth century, by 
 the chief of a great family, from whose latest representa- 
 tive, his mother's first cousin, Edmund Melrose had now 
 inherited it. Nothing could be more curious than its 
 subsequent history. For it was no sooner finished, in a 
 pure Georgian style, and lavishly incrusted in all its 
 principal rooms with graceful decoration, than the man 
 who built it died. His descendants, who had plenty of 
 houses in more southern and populous regions, 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 the farmer, 
 and put in a gardener as caretaker. Yet a certain small 
 sum had always been allowed for keeping it in repair, 
 and it was only within the last few years that dilapidation 
 had made head. 
 
 Melrose took up the lamp, and carried it once more 
 through the ground-floor of the Tower. Save for the dy- 
 ing fires, and the sputtering lamp, everything was dark 
 and still in the spacious house. The storm was dying 
 down in fitful gusts that seemed at intervals to invade 
 the shadowy spaces of the corridor, driving before them 
 the wisps of straw and paper that had been left here and 
 there by the unpacking of the great writing-table. There 
 
THE IVMTING OF LYDIA 25 
 
 could be no ghosts in the house, for nothing but a fraction 
 of it had ever sheltered life; yet from its architectural 
 beauty there breathed a kind of dumb, human protest 
 against the disorderly ill-treatment to which it had been 
 subjected. 
 
 In spite of his excitement and pre-occupation, Melrose 
 felt it, and presently he turned abruptly, and went up- 
 stairs, still carrying the lamp; through the broad upper 
 passage answering to the corridor below, where doors in 
 deep recesses, each with its classical architrave, and its 
 carved lintels, opened from either side. The farthest 
 door on the right he had been shown as that of his wife's 
 room; he opened one nearer, and let himself into his dress- 
 ing-room, where Anastasia had taken care to light the 
 fire, which no north country-woman would have thought 
 of lighting for a mere man. 
 
 Putting the lamp down in the dressing-room, he pushed 
 open his wife's door, 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 was littered from 
 end to end with the contents of two or three trunks that 
 were standing open. The furniture was no less scanty 
 and poor than in the sitting-rooms, and the high panelled 
 walls closing in upon the bed gave a dungeonlike aspect 
 to the room. 
 
 A momentary pity for his wife, brought to this harsh 
 Cumbrian spot, from the flowers and sun, the Bacchic 
 laughter and colour of a Tuscan vintage, shot through 
 Melrose. But his will silenced it. "She will get used 
 to it," he said to himself again, with dry determination. 
 Then he turned on his heel. The untidiness of his wife's 
 
26 THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 room, her lack of method and charm, and the memory 
 of her peevishness on the journey disgusted him. There 
 was a bed in his dressing-room; and he was soon soundly 
 asleep there. 
 
 But his wife was not asleep, and she had been well 
 aware of his presence on her threshold. While he stood 
 there, she had held her breath, "willing" him to go away 
 again; possessed by a silent passion of rage and repul- 
 sion. When he closed the door behind him, she lay 
 wide awake, trembling at all the night sounds in the house, 
 lost in a thousand terrors and wild regrets. 
 
 Suddenly, with a crash the casement window at the 
 farther end of the room burst open under an onset of 
 wind, Netta only just stifled the scream on her lips. She 
 sat up, her teeth chattering. It was awful; but she must 
 get up and shut it. Shivering, she crept out of bed, threw 
 a shawl round her, and made one flight across the floor, 
 possessed with a mad alarm lest the candle, which was 
 flickering in the draught, should go out, and leave her in 
 darkness. 
 
 But now that the window was open she saw, as she 
 approached, that the night was not dark. There was a 
 strong moonlight outside, and when she reached the 
 window she drew in her breath. For there, close upon 
 her, as it seemed, like one of her own Apennines risen and 
 stalking through the night, towered a great mountain, 
 cloud-wreathed, and gashed with vast ravines. The moon 
 was shining on it between two chasing clouds, and the 
 light and shade of the great spectacle, its illumined slopes, 
 and impenetrable abysses, were at once magnificent and 
 terrible. 
 
THE IMATING OF LYDIA 27 
 
 Netta shut the window with groping, desperate hands, 
 and rushed back to bed. Never had she felt so desolate, 
 so cut off from all that once made her poor little life worth 
 living. Yet, though she cried for a few minutes 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 of rain — not now the 
 tempestuous storm rain which had lashed the mill 
 stream to fury, and blustered round the house as they 
 stepped into it, but one of those steady, gray, and feature- 
 less downpours that Westmoreland and Cumbria know so 
 well. The nearer mountains which were wholly blotted 
 out, and of the far Helvellyn range and the Derwentwater 
 hills not a trace emerged. All colour had gone from the 
 grass and the autumn trees; a few sheep and a solitary 
 pony in the fields near the house stood forlorn and patient 
 under the deluge; heaven and earth met in one fusion of 
 rain just beyond the neglected garden that filled the front 
 court; while on three sides of the house, and penetrating 
 through every nook and corner of it, there rose, from 
 depths far below, the roar of the stream which circled 
 the sandstone rock whereon the Tower was built. 
 
 Mrs. Melrose came down late. She descended the 
 stairs slowly, rubbing her cold hands together, and looking 
 forlornly about her. She wore a dress of some straw- 
 coloured stuff, too thin for the climate of a Cumbria 
 autumn, and round her singularly small and fleshless neck, 
 a wisp of black velvet. The top of the head was rather 
 flat, and the heavy dark hair, projecting stiffly on either 
 side of the face, emphasized at once the sharpness of the 
 
 28 
 
THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 29 
 
 little bony chin, the general sallowness of complexion, and 
 the remarkable size and blackness of the eyes. There was 
 something snakelike about the flat head, and the thin 
 triangular face; an effect which certainly belied the little 
 lady, for there was nothing malicious or sinister in her 
 personality. 
 
 She had not yet set eyes on her husband, who had 
 risen early, and could now be heard giving directions to 
 some one in the library to her right — a carpenter appar- 
 ently, since there was hammering going on. She supposed 
 she must find out something about the kitchen and the 
 servants. Anastasia had brought up her breakfast that 
 morning, with a flushed face, muttering complaint against 
 the woman downstairs. A terror struck through her. If 
 Anastasia should desert her — should give notice ! 
 
 Timidly she pushed open the door of the big kitchen, 
 and prepared to play the mistress. Mrs. Dixon was 
 standing at the kitchen table with a pastry-board before 
 her, making a meat pie. She greeted her new mistress 
 civilly, 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 while sen. There was a cart goin' into 
 Pengarth." 
 
 Pengarth was the nearest country town, some eight' 
 miles away. 
 
 Mrs. Melrose coloured. 
 
30 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 "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 
 special biscuits — bananas. 
 
 "Yo' can have the milk yo' want fro' t' farm," said 
 Mrs. Dixon slowly, in reply; " 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 sudden shrillness, 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 course they 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 herself and the child. 
 Yet she knew very well that her husband was a rich 
 man. 
 
 She turned and went in search of him, making her way 
 with difiiculty through the piles of boxes. What could be 
 in them all? Edmund must have been buying for years. 
 Every now and then as she stooped to look at the labels 
 pasted upon them, she caught names well known to her. 
 Orbatelli, Via dei Bardi 13, Firenze; Bianchi, Via Mazzini 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 31 
 
 12, Lucca; Fratelli Masai, Via Manzoni, Pisa. And every- 
 where the recurrent word — Antichita. 
 
 How she hated the word ! — how she hated the associa- 
 tions linked with it, and with the names on the boxes. 
 They were bound up with a score of humbling memories, 
 the memories of her shabby, struggling youth. She 
 thought of her father — the needy English artist, Robert 
 Smeath, with just a streak, and no more than a streak, 
 of talent, who had become rapidly "Italianate" in the 
 Elizabethan sense — had dropped, that is, the English 
 virtues, without ever acquiring the Italian. He had 
 married her mother, a Florentine girl, the daughter of a 
 small impiegato living in one of the dismal new streets 
 leading out of Florence on the east, and had then pursued 
 a shifting course between the two worlds, the English and 
 the Italian, ordering his household and bringing up his 
 children in Italian fashion, while he was earning his keep- 
 and theirs, not at all by the showy pictures in his studio 
 which no one would buy, but as jackal in antichita, to 
 the richer English and American tourists. He kept a 
 greedy eye on the artistic possessions still remaining in 
 the hands of impoverished native owners; he knew the 
 exact moment of debt and dijBBculty in which to bring a 
 foreign gold to bear; he was an adept in all the arts by 
 which officials are bribed, and pictures are smuggled. 
 And sometimes these accomplishments of his resulted in 
 large accessions of cash, so that all the family lived on 
 the fat of the land, bought gorgeous attire, and went to 
 Livorno, or Viareggio, or the Adriatic coast, for the 
 summer. And sometimes there was no luck, and therefore 
 no money. Owners became unkindly patriotic and would 
 
32 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 not sell. Or some promising buyer, after nibbling for 
 months, went off finally unhooked. Then the apartment 
 in the Via Giugno showed the stress of hard times. The 
 girls wore their old clothes to rags; the mother did all the 
 work of the house in a bedgown and slippers; and the door 
 of the apartment was never opened more than a few 
 inches to any applicant, lest creditors should get in. 
 
 And the golden intervals got fewer, and the poverty 
 more persistent, as the years went on. Till at last, by 
 the providence — or malice — of the gods, a rich and 
 apparently prodigal Englishman, Edmund Melrose, hun- 
 gry for antichita of all sorts, arrived on the scene. Smeath 
 became rapidly the bond-slave of Melrose, in the matter 
 of works of art. The two made endless expeditions to- 
 gether to small provincial towns, to remote villas in 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 artist was both a poor judge and a bad 
 agent. Netta's cheek always flamed when she thought 
 of her father's boastings and blunderings, and of the way 
 in which Edmund had come to treat him. And now the 
 Smeath family were just as poor as ever again. Her 
 little sisters had scarcely a dress to their backs; and she 
 was certain her mother was both half-starved and over- 
 worked. Edmund had not been at all kind to them since 
 her marriage — not at all ! 
 
 How had he come to marry her? She was well aware 
 that it was an extraordinary proceeding on his part. He 
 was well born on both sides, and, by common report among 
 the English residents in Florence, enormously rich, though 
 his miserly habits had been very evident even in the first 
 
THE MATING OF LYT>1\ 33 
 
 days of their acquaintance. He might no doubt have 
 married anybody he pleased; if he would only have taken 
 the trouble. But nothing would induce him to take any 
 trouble — socially. He resented the demands and stand- 
 ards of his equals; turned his back entirely on normal 
 English society at home and abroad; and preferred, it 
 seemed, to live wdth his inferiors, where his manners might 
 be as casual, and his dress as careless as he pleased. The 
 queer evenings and the queer people in their horrid little 
 flat had really amused him. Then he had been ill, and 
 mama had nursed him; and she, Netta, had taken him a 
 pot of carnations while he was still laid up; and so on. 
 She had been really pretty in those days; much prettier 
 than she had ever been since the baby's birth. She 
 had been attractive too, simply because she was young, 
 healthy, talkative, and forthcoming; goaded always by the 
 hope of marriage, and money, and escape from home. His 
 wooing had been of the most despotical and patronizing 
 kind; not the kind that a proud girl would have put up 
 with. Still there had been wooing; a few presents; a 
 frugal cheque for the trousseau; and a honeymoon fort- 
 night at Sorrento. 
 
 Why had he done it? — just for a whim? — or to spite 
 his English family, some member of which w'ould occa- 
 sionally turn up in Florence and try to put in claims upon 
 him — claims which infuriated him? He w^as the most 
 wilful and incalculable of men ; caring nothing, apparently, 
 one day for position and conventionality, and boasting 
 extravagantly of his family and 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 
 
34 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 out into the rain. At the point which things had now 
 reached she knew very well that she meant nothing at all 
 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 and the 
 child; he would give her food and lodging and clothes, 
 of a sort, so long as she did not interfere with his tastes, 
 or spend his money. 
 
 Then, suddenly, while she stood wrathfully pondering, 
 a gust of anger rose — childish anger, such as she had 
 shown the night before, when she had tried to get out of 
 the carriage. She turned, ran down the corridor to the 
 <ioor which she understood was the door of his study — 
 and entered with a burst. 
 
 " Edmund ! — I want to speak to you ! " 
 
 Mehose, who was hanging, frowning and absorbed, over, 
 a carpenter who was freeing what seemed to be an old 
 clock from the elaborate swathings of paper and straw in 
 which it had been packed, looked up with annoyance. 
 
 "Can't you see, Netta, that I'm very busy .J*" 
 
 "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 Pen- 
 garth — there were lots of things to get for baby. And 
 I must have something here that I can drive myself. We 
 can't be cut off from everything," 
 
 " Give your orders to Mrs. Dixon then about the cart," 
 said Melrose angrily. "^Vhat has it to do with me.'' As 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA S5 
 
 for a carriage, I have no money to spend on any nonsense 
 of the kind. We can do perfectly well without it." 
 
 "I only want a little pony-cart — you could get it 
 second-hand for ten or twelve 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, so that the carpenter might not hear. 
 
 "Ten or twelve pounds! Do you expect I get money 
 oflF the hedges? Can't you be content here like a reason- 
 able woman, without getting me into debt.?" 
 
 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 before you could hide it away. It was 
 for £3,000 — a dividend from something — a coal 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 I have is wanted — and more." 
 
 "And nothing of course — to give me — your wife! — 
 for any comforts or pleasures! 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 you sometimes thank your stars you're 
 not starving in Florence, and just put up with things a 
 little?" 
 
 Netta restrained herself. 
 
36 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 "So I would" — she said, choking — "if " 
 
 "If what " 
 
 For all answer, she turned and hurried away toward 
 the hall. Melrose looked after her with what appeared 
 like exasperation, then suddenly recaptured himseK, 
 smoothed his brow, and, returning to the study, gave him- 
 self with unruffled zest and composure to the task of 
 unpacking the Boule clock. 
 
 Netta repaired to the drawing-room, and threw herself 
 on to the uncomfortable sofa, struggling with her tears. 
 For about a fortnight after her marriage she had imagined 
 herself in love with Melrose; then when the personal 
 illusion was gone, the illusion of position and wealth 
 persisted. He might be queer, and behave queerly in 
 Italy. But when they returned to England she would 
 find herself the wife of a rich English gentleman, and the 
 gingerbread would once more be gilt. Alack ! a few weeks 
 in a poor London Lodging with no money to spend on the 
 shops which tempted her woman's cupidity at every step; 
 Edmund's final refusal, first laughing, then stubborn, to 
 present her to "my devilish relations"; the complete 
 indifference shown to her wishes as to the furnishings of 
 the Tower; these various happenings had at last brought 
 her to an unwelcome commerce with the bare truth. She 
 had married a selfish eccentric, who had chosen her for a 
 caprice and was now tired of her. She had not a farthing, 
 nor any art or skill by which to earn one. Her family 
 was as penniless as herseK. There was nothing for it but 
 to submit. But her temper and spirits had begun steadily 
 to give way. 
 
 Firenze! As she sat in her cheerless drawing-room, 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 37 
 
 hating its ugly shabbiness, and penetrated with the damp 
 chill of the house, there swept through her a vision of the 
 Piazza del Duomo, as she had last seen it on a hot Septem- 
 ber evening. A blaze of hght — delicious all-prevailing 
 warmth — the moist bronzed faces of the men — the 
 girls with the look of physical content that comes in hot 
 countries with the evening — the sun flooding with its 
 last gold, now the new^ marbles of the facciata, now the 
 alabaster and bronze of the Baptistery, and now the mov- 
 ing crowds — the flower-baskets — the pigeons 
 
 She lifted her eyes with a sobbing breath, and saw the 
 gray cloud-curtain — the neglected garden — the solitary 
 pony in the field — wnth the shafts of rain striking across ' 
 it. Despair stirred in her — the physical nostalgia of the 
 south. A happy heart might have silenced 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. 
 
 "WTiat do you want.'*" said Mrs. Melrose, haughtily, 
 determined to assert herself. 
 
 ThjTza came in slowly. She held a bunch of dripping 
 Michaelmas daisies. 
 
 "Shall I get a glass for them.-* I tho^\i: mebbe you'd 
 like 'em in here." 
 
 Netta thanked her ungraciously. She remembered hav- 
 ing seen the girl the night before, and Anastasia had men- 
 tioned her as the daughter of the Contadino. 
 
 Thyrza put the flow-ers in water, Netta watching her 
 in silence; then going into the hall, she returned with a 
 pair of white lace curtains. 
 
 "Shall I put 'em up.'' It 'ud mebbe be more cheerful." 
 
38 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 Netta looked at them languidly. 
 
 "Where do they come from?" 
 
 "Mr. Tyson brought 'em from Pengarth. He thowt 
 you might hke 'em for the drawing-room," 
 
 Mrs. Melrose nodded, and Thyrza mounted a chair, 
 and proceeded to put up the curtains, turning an observant 
 eye now and then on the thin-faced lady sitting on the 
 sofa, her long fingers clasped round her knees, and her 
 eyes — so large and staring as to be rather ugly than beau- 
 tiful in Thyrza'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 rain hke this.''" 
 
 "Well, it do rain," was Thyrza's cautious reply. "But 
 there that's better than snowin' — for t' shepherds." 
 
 Mrs. Melrose found the girl's voice pleasant, and could 
 not deny that she was 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 grand time here in September — at t' dippin'. 
 Yo'd never ha' thowt there was so mony folk about" — the 
 girl went on, civilly, making talk. 
 
 "I never saw a single house, or a single hght, on the 
 drive from the station last night," said Mrs. Melrose, in 
 her fretful voice. "Wliere are all 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'U coom a long way 
 to help yan anuther," 
 
 "Are they all farmers about here?" 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 39^ 
 
 "Mostly. Well, there's Duddon Castle!" Thyrza's 
 voice, a little muffled by the tin-tacks in the mouth, came 
 from somewhere near the top of a tall window — "Oh — 
 an' I forgot! " 
 
 In a great hurry the speaker jumped down from her 
 perch, and to Netta's astonishment ran out of the room. 
 
 "What is she about?" thought Mrs. Melrose irritably. 
 But the question was hardly framed before Thyrza re- 
 appeared, holding out her hand, in which lay some visit- 
 ing-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 looked uncertainly at her companion — "Mr. Tyson 
 did tell me she was a relation of Mr. Melrose." 
 
 "A relation.'^ I don't know anything about her," said 
 Netta decidedly. "Did she come to call upon me?" 
 
 The girl nodded — "She come over — it was last Tues- 
 day — 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 the neighbourhood, and Duddon Castle 
 was a splendid old place, that all the visitors went to see. 
 And there were her cards. Netta's thoughts began to 
 hurry thither and thither, and possibilities began to rise. 
 A relation of Edmund's.? She made Thyrza tell her all 
 she knew about Duddon and the Tathams. Visions of 
 being received there, of meeting rich and aristocratic 
 people, of taking her place at last in society, the place 
 
40 THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 that belonged to her as Edmund's wife, in spite of his 
 queer miserly ways, ran again lightly through a mind that 
 often harboured such dreams before • — 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 midday was a sinful thing, was none the 
 less willing to sin; and she chattered on in a Westmore- 
 land dialect that grew steadily broader as she felt herself 
 more at ease, till Mrs. Melrose could scarcely follow her. 
 
 But she managed to seize on the facts that concerned 
 her. Lady Tatham, it seemed, was a widow, with an 
 only boy, a lad of seven, who was the heir to Duddon 
 Castle, and its great estates. The Castle was ten miles 
 from the Tower. 
 
 "How shall I ever get there.f*" thought Mrs. Melrose, 
 despairingly. 
 
 As to other neighbours, they seemed to consist entirely 
 of an old bachelor doctor, about three miles away, and the 
 clergj'^man of Gimmers Wick and his wife. She was sure 
 to come. But most people were "glad to see the back 
 on her." She had such a poor spirit, and was always 
 complaining. 
 
 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 white figure. It was the Mel- 
 rose baby, standing silent, wide-eyed, with its fingers in 
 its mouth, and Anastasia behind it. Anastasia, whose 
 look was still thunderous, explained that she was unpack- 
 ing and could not do with it. The child toddled in to its 
 mother, and Thyrza exclaimed in admiration : 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 41 
 
 "Oh, you are a little beauty!" 
 
 And she caught up one of the brass curtam rings lying 
 on the table, and tried to attract the baby with it. But 
 the little thing took not the smallest notice of the lure. 
 She went straight to her mother, and, leaning against 
 Netta's knee, she turned to stare at Thyrza with an in- 
 tensity of expression, rare in a child so young. Thyrza, 
 kneeling on the floor, stared back — fascinated. She 
 thought she had never seen anything so lovely. The 
 child had her father's features, etherealized; and great eyes, 
 like her mother, but far more subtly beautiful. Her 
 skin was pale, but of such a texture that Thyrza's roses- 
 and-milk looked rough and common beside it. Every inch 
 of the proud httle head was covered with close short curls 
 leaving the white neck free, and the hand lifted to her 
 mouth was of a waxen delicacy. 
 
 Netta opened a picture-book that Anastasia had brought 
 doviTi with her. Felicia pushed it away. Netta opened it 
 again. Then the child, snatching it from her, sat down 
 on the floor, and, before Netta could prevent her, tore one 
 of the pages across with a quick, vindictive movement — 
 her eyes sparkling. 
 
 "Naughty — ! naughty!" said Netta in a scolding voice. 
 
 But Thyrza dropped her hand hastily into a gray calico 
 pocket tied round her waist, and again held out something. 
 
 "It is only a pear -drop," she said apologetically to 
 Netta. " It won't hurt her. " 
 
 Felicia snatched at it at once, and sucked it, still flushed 
 with passion. Her mother smiled faintly. 
 
 "You like sweets.''" she said, childishly, to her com- 
 panion; "give me one?" 
 
42 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 Thyrza eagerly brought out a paper bag from her 
 pocket and Netta put out a pair of thin fingers. She and 
 her sisters had been great consumers of sweet stuff in the 
 small dark Florentine shops. The shared greediness pro- 
 moted friendship; and by the time Mrs. Dixon put in a 
 reproachful face with a loud — "Thyrza, what be you a 
 doin'?" — Mrs. Melrose knew as much of 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 consohng in the 
 information. When Thyrza departed, Mrs. Melrose was 
 left to fret and sigh much as before. The place was odious; 
 she could never endure it. But yet the possible advent 
 of "Countess Tatham" cast a faint ray on the future. 
 
 A few days later Lady Tatham appeared. Melrose 
 had been particularly perverse and uncommunicative on 
 the subject. " Like her audacity ! " — so Netta had under- 
 stood his muttered comment, when she took him the cards. 
 He admitted that the lady and he were cousins — the 
 children of first cousins; and that he had once seen a 
 good deal of her. He called her "an audacious woman"; 
 but Mrs. Melrose noticed that he did not forbid her the 
 house; nay, rather that he listened with some attention to 
 Thyrza's report that the lady had promised to call again. 
 
 On the afternoon of the call, the skies were clear of 
 rain, though not of cloud. The great gashed mountain 
 to the north which Dixon called Saddleback, while a little 
 Cumbria "guide," produced by Tyson, called it Blen- 
 cathra, showed sombrely in a gray light; and a November 
 wind was busy stripping what leaves still remained from 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 43 
 
 the woods by the stream and in the hollows of the moun- 
 tain. Landscape and heavens were of an iron bracingness 
 and bareness; and the beauty in them was not for eyes 
 like Netta's. She had wandered out forlornly on the 
 dank paths descending to the stream. Edmund as usual 
 was interminably busy fitting up one of the lower rooms 
 for some of his minor bric-a-brac — ironwork, small 
 bronzes, watches, and clocks. Anastasia and the baby 
 were out. 
 
 Would Anastasia stay? Already she looked ill; she 
 complained of her chest. She had made up her mind to 
 come with the Melroses for the sake of her mother and 
 sister in Rome, who were so miserably poor. Netta felt 
 that she — the mistress — had some security against los- 
 ing her, in the mere length and cost of the journey. To 
 go home now, before the end of her three months, would 
 swallow up all the nurse had earned; for Edmund would 
 never contribute a farthing. Poor Anastasia! And yet 
 Netta felt angrily toward her for wishing to desert them. 
 
 "For of course I shall take her home — in March. 
 We shall all be going then," she said to herself with an 
 emphasis, almost a passion, which yet was full of mis- 
 giving. 
 
 Suddenly, just as she had returned by a steep path to 
 the dilapidated terrace on the north side of the house — 
 a sound of horses' feet and wheels. Evidently a carriage — 
 a caller. Netta's pulse fluttered. She ran into the house 
 by a side door, and up to her room, where she smoothed 
 her hair anxiously, and lightlj^ powdered her face. There 
 was no time to change her dress, but she took out a feather 
 boa which she kept for great occasions, and prepared to 
 
44 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 descend with dignity. On the stairs she met Mrs. 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 down before a strange lady, who sat in one 
 of the crimson armchairs, entirely at her ease. 
 
 " So this is your wife, Edmund," said liady 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, rich however through all its music in a 
 rather formidable significance. The owner of it turned 
 toward Netta. 
 
 "I hope, Mrs. Melrose, that you will like Cumbria.?" 
 
 Netta, accustomed to Edmund's "queerness," and 
 determined to hold her own, settled herself deliberately 
 opposite her visitor, and was soon complaining in her shrill 
 voice of the loneliness of the place and the damp of the 
 climate. Melrose never once looked at his wife. He was 
 paler than usual, with an eager combative aspect, quite 
 new to Netta. He seemed for once to be unsure of his 
 ground — both to expect attack, even to provoke it — 
 and to shrink from it. His eyes were fixed upon Lady 
 Tatham, and followed her every movement. 
 
 Attention was certainly that lady's due; and it failed 
 her rarely. She had beauty — great beauty; and a per- 
 sonality that refused to be overlooked. Her dress showed 
 in equal measure contempt for mere fashion, and a close 
 study of effect. The lines of her long cloak of dull blue 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 45 
 
 cloth, with its garnishings of sable, matched her stately 
 slenderness well; and the close-fitting cap over the coiled 
 hair conveyed the same impression of something perfectly 
 contrived and wholly successful. Netta thought at first 
 that she was "made up," so dazzling was the white and 
 pink, and then doubted. The beauty of the face reminded 
 one, perhaps, of the beauty of a boy — of some clear-eyed, 
 long-chinned athlete — 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 while they talked. 
 Melrose still walking up and down — casting quick glances 
 at 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 in Dublin — 
 and "Barbara" to the astonishment of everybody had con- 
 sented to be made a Woman of the Bedchamber — "poor 
 Queen!" — how Reginald Pratt had been handsomely 
 turned out af the Middleswick seat, and was probably 
 going to "rat" to an Opposition that promised more than 
 the Government — that Cecilia's eldest girl — "a pretty 
 little minx" — had been already presented, and was likely 
 to prove as skilful a campaigner for a husband as her 
 mother before her — that "Gerald" had lost heavily at 
 Newmarket, and was now a financial nuisance, borrowing 
 from everybody in the family — and so on, and so on. 
 
 Melrose received these various items of information 
 half scornfully, half greedily, it might have been guessed 
 that his interest in the teller was a good deal keener than 
 his interest in the things told. The conversation revealed 
 
46 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 to Netta phases in her husband's existence wholly un- 
 known to her. 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 member 
 of Parliament for a time. In any case he had lived, 
 apparently for years, like other men of his kind — shoot- 
 ing, racing, \'isiting, travelUng, fighting, elections. She 
 could not fit the facts to which both alluded with her own 
 recollections of the misanthrope who had first made ac- 
 quaintance with her and her family in Florence three 
 years before this date; and her bewilderment grew. 
 
 As for the others, they had soon, it seemed, completely 
 forgotten the thin sallow-faced wife, who sat with her back 
 to the window, restlessly twisting 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 \\'ith 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 did it!" 
 
 "Yes, I did it." Lady Tatham rose quietly. She had 
 paled, and after a minute's hesitation she held out her 
 hand to Melrose. "Suppose, Edmund, we bury the 
 hatchet. I should hke 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 had been, so to speak, the aggressor, ven- 
 turing audaciously on ground which she knew to be 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 47 
 
 hostile — from bravado? — or for some hidden reason? 
 
 But she spoke 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 marry my sister. I prevented it. She is 
 
 married now — and he is married. Why shouldn't we 
 
 make friends?" 
 
 "Quarrels are very foolish!" said Netta, sententiously, 
 
 straightening her small shoulders. But she dared not 
 
 look at Melrose. 
 
 "Well, tell him so," laughed Lady Tatham. "And 
 
 come and see me at Duddon Castle." 
 
 "Thank you! I should hke 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 are like 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 have gone 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 
 
48 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 the hall, and hurried 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 an exile, that Edmund had 
 brought her from Italy to this dreary place to kill her, that 
 she couldn't and wouldn't endure it, and that return to 
 Italy she must and would, if she had to beg her way. It 
 was cruel to shut her up in that awful house, to deny her 
 the means of getting about, to treat people who wished to 
 be kind to her as Edmund had treated Lady Tatham. 
 She was not a mere caterpillar to be trodden on. She 
 would appeal to the neighbours — she would go home to 
 her parents, etcetera — etcetera. 
 
 Melrose at first tried to check her by sarcasm — a ban- 
 ter that stung where it lit. But when she would not be 
 checked, when she followed him into his study, wailing 
 and accusing, a whirlwind of rage developed in the man, 
 and he denounced her with a violence and a brutality 
 which presently cowed her. She ran shivering upstairs to 
 Anastasia and the baby, bolted her door, and never re- 
 appeared till, twenty-four hours later, she crept down 
 white and silent, to find a certain comfort in Thyrza's 
 rough ministrations. Melrose seemed to be, perhaps, a 
 trifle ashamed of his behaviour; and they patched up a 
 peace over the arrangements for the heating 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 snow lay deep, and when Netta — who 
 
THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 49 
 
 on many days never left the house — after walking a 
 while up and down the long corridor for the sake of ex- 
 ercise, would sink languidly on the seat below its large 
 western window, she looked out upon a confusion of hills 
 near and far, drami in hard white upon an inky sky. To 
 the south the Helvellyn range stretched in bold-flung 
 curves and bosses; in the far distance rose the sharper 
 peaks of Derwentwater; while close at hand Blencathra 
 vnih its ravines, and all the harsh splendoiu- of its white 
 slopes and black precipices, alternately fascinated and 
 repelled the little Southerner, starved morally and physi- 
 cally 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 was snow on the heights, 
 poured down. Derwentwater and Bassenthwaite rose 
 till they mingled in one vast lake. The streams thun- 
 dered 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 thought her "nobbut a 
 silly sort of body," but would sometimes try to cook what 
 pleased her, or let Anastasia use the kitchen fire for " gnoc- 
 chi" or "risotto" or other queer messes; which, however, 
 when they appeared, were generally 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 life was in the little Method- 
 ist chapel to which he walked four miles every Sunday, 
 wet or fine. In the summer he had accompanied the 
 
50 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 minister and one or two class leaders in a drive through 
 the hayfields, shouting to the haymakers — "We're going 
 to heaven ! — won't you come with us ! " — and he had been 
 known to spend five hours at a stretch on his knees 
 wresthng for the salvation of a drunken friend, in the vil- 
 lage of Threlkeld. But Netta baffled him. Sometimes 
 he would come home from chapel, radiant, and would 
 take her a bunch of holly for the table by way of getting 
 into conversation with her. "It was fine to-day. Missis! 
 There was three found peace. And the congregation was 
 grand ! There was four attorneys — two of 'em from as far 
 as Pengarth." And he would lend her tracts — and even 
 offer, good man, to borrow a " shandrey " from a neighbour, 
 and drive her himself to the chapel service. But Netta 
 only smiled or yawned at him; and as for the tracts, she 
 hid them under the few sofa cushions the house possessed. 
 Mr. Tyson, the agent, came to the house as seldom 
 as he could, that he might not quarrel with his employer 
 before it was to his own interest to do so. Netta dis- 
 covered that he pitied her; and once or twice, drawing on 
 the arts of flirtation, with which the Florentine woman is 
 always well acquainted, she complained to him of her 
 loneliness and her husband's unkindness. But his north- 
 country caution protected him from any sentimentalizing, 
 however innocent. And before the end of the winter 
 Netta 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. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 51 
 
 Meanwhile Melrose passed a winter wholly satisfactory 
 to himself. The partial unpacking of his collections was 
 an endless source of amusement and pleasure. But his 
 curious egotism showed itself very plainly in the business. 
 He made no attempt at artistic arrangement, though there 
 was some classification. As fast as one room was filled — 
 the vacant packing-cases turned on their sides, serving to 
 exhibit what they had once contained — he would begin 
 upon another. And woe to Mrs. Dixon or Thyrza if they 
 attempted any cleaning in one of his rooms ! The collec- 
 tions were for himself only, and for the few dealers or 
 experts to whom he chose to show them. And the more 
 hugger-mugger they were, the less he should be pestered 
 to let people in to see them. Occasionally he would rush up 
 to London to attend what he called a "high puff sale" — 
 or to an auction in one of the northern towns, and as he 
 always bought largely, purchases kept arriving, and the 
 house at the end of the winter was in a scarcely less en- 
 cumbered and disorderly condition than it had been at 
 the beginning. The few experts from the Continent or 
 America, whom he did admit, were never allowed a word 
 of criticism of the collections. If they ventured to differ 
 from Melrose as to the genuineness or the age of a bronze 
 or a marble, an explosion of temper and a speedy dismissal 
 awaited them. 
 
 One great stroke of luck befel him in February which 
 for a time put him in high good-humour. He bought at 
 York — very cheaply — a small bronze Hermes, which 
 some fifteenth-century documents in his own possession, 
 purchased from a Florentine family the year before, 
 enabled him to identify with great probability as the work 
 
52 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 of one of the rarest and most famous of the Renaissance 
 sculptors. He told no one outside the house, lest he 
 should be plagued to exhibit it, but he could not help 
 boasting of it to Netta and Anastasia. 
 
 "That's what comes of having an eye! It's worth a 
 thousand guineas of it's worth a penny. And those 
 stupid idiots let me have it for twenty-two pounds!" 
 
 "A thousand guineas ! " Gradually the little bronze be- 
 came to Netta the symbol of all that money could have 
 bought for her — and all she was denied; Italy, freedom, 
 the small pleasures she understood, and the salvation of 
 her family, now in the direst poverty. There were mo- 
 ments when she could have flung it passionately out of the 
 window into the stream 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 she had received orders to pack Mr. 
 Melrose's portmanteaus for departure. 
 
 Netta brooded all day, sitting silent and pale in the 
 window-seat, with some embroidery which she never 
 touched on her knee. Outside, not a sign of spring! A 
 bitter north wind was blowing which had blanched all 
 colour from the hills, and there was ice on the edges of the 
 streams. Thyrza was away 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 attached 
 to the farm, who had come in to help her. The poor 
 babe had a cold, and could be heard fretfully crying and 
 coughing in her nursery. 
 
 And before Netta's inward eye there stretched the 
 interminable days and weeks ahead, no less than the in- 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 53 
 
 terminable weeks and months she had already lived 
 through, in this discomfort of body, and this loneliness of 
 spirit. 
 
 After supper she walked resolutely into her husband's 
 littered study and demanded that she and Anastasia and 
 the baby should go with him to the Continent. He, she 
 understood, would stop in Paris. She and the child would 
 push on to Florence, where she could stay the summer 
 with her people, at no greater cost than at the Tower. 
 The change was necessary both for her and Felicia, and 
 go she would. 
 
 Melrose flatly and violently refused. What did she 
 want better than the Tower? She had as much service, 
 and as much luxury as her antecedents entitled her to; 
 and he neither could nor would provide her with anything 
 more. He was heavily in debt, and had no money to 
 spend on railway tickets. And he entirely disapproved of 
 her relations, especially of her father, who might any day 
 find himself "run in" by the Italian authorities for illicit 
 smuggling of pictures out of the country. He declined 
 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 she and Anastasia sat 
 up whispering together far into the night. 
 
 Early next morning Melrose departed, leaving a letter 
 for his wife, in which he informed her that he had left 
 money with Mr. Tyson for the household expenses, and 
 for the few shillings he supposed she would want as pocket 
 money. He advised her to be out a great deal, and as- 
 sured her that the Cumbria summer, when it came, was 
 
54 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 delightful. And he signed himself "your affectionate 
 husband, Edmund Melrose." 
 
 Mrs. Dixon went into Pengarth for shopping on the fly 
 which conveyed Melrose to the station, and was to come 
 out by carrier. After their departure 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 long 
 maturing. Anastasia had a few pounds left of her Christ- 
 mas wages; enough to carry them to London; and for the 
 rest, they had imagined an excellent device. 
 
 The bronze Hermes had been left by Melrose in a cup- 
 board in a locked room on the first floor. When Mrs. 
 Dixon came back that night, she discovered that Mrs. 
 Melrose, with her child and maid had quitted the house. 
 They had apparently harnessed the cart and horse them- 
 selves, and had driven into Pengarth, taking a labourer 
 with them to bring the cart home. They had carried all 
 their personal belongings away with them; and, after a 
 while, Mrs. Dixon, poking about, discovered that the door 
 of one of the locked rooms had been forced. 
 
 She also noticed, in one of the open drawers of Mrs. 
 Melrose's bedroom, a photograph, evidently forgotten, 
 lying face downward. Examining it, she saw that it was 
 a picture of Netta, with the baby, taken apparently in 
 Italy during the preceding summer. The Cumbrian 
 woman, shrewdly observant like all her race, was struck 
 by the tragic differences between the woman of the picture 
 and the little blighted creature who had just made a flit- 
 ting from the Tower. 
 
 She showed the photograph to her husband, returned 
 it to the drawer, and thought no more about it. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 55 
 
 News was of course sent to Mr. Melrose in Paris, and 
 within three days he had 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 his wife and 
 child, but entirely for the theft of the priceless Florentine 
 bronze, a loss which he had suspected on the first receipt 
 of the news of the forced door, and verified at once on his 
 arrival. 
 
 He stood positively aghast at Netta's perfidy and wick- 
 edness, and he wrote at once to the apartment in the Via 
 Giugno, to denounce her in the most emphatic terms. 
 As she had chosen to steal one of his most precious posses- 
 sions, which she had of course converted into money, she 
 had no further 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 him unmolested. But he desired to hear and see no 
 more of persons who reminded him of the most tragical 
 event of his history as a collector, as well as of the utter 
 failure of his married hfe. Henceforth they were strangers 
 to each other, and she might arrange her future as she 
 pleased. 
 
 The letter was answered by Mrs. Robert Smeath in the 
 third person, and all communications ceased. As a mat- 
 ter of fact the Smeath family were infinitely relieved by 
 Melrose's letter, which showed that he did not intend to 
 take any police steps to recover the bronze or its value. 
 Profiting by the paternal traditions, Netta had managed 
 the sale of the Hermes in London, where, owing to Mel- 
 rose's miserly hiding of it, it was quite unknown, with 
 
m THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 considerable skill. It had realized a small fortune, and 
 she had returned, weary, ill, but triumphant, to the apart- 
 in the Via Giugno. 
 
 Twelve months later, Melrose had practically forgotten 
 that he had ever known her. He returned for the winter 
 to Threlfall, and entered upon a course of Hfe which grad- 
 ually made him the talk and wonder of the countryside. 
 The rooms occupied by Netta and her child were left just 
 as he had found them when he returned after her flight. 
 He had turned the key on them then, and nobody had 
 since entered them. Tyson wondered whether it was 
 sentiment, or temper; and gave it for the latter. 
 
 The years passed away. Melrose's hair turned from 
 black to gray ; Thyrza married a tradesman in Carlisle and 
 presented him with a large family; the Dixons, as cook and 
 manservant, gradually fitted themselves more and more 
 closely to the queer conditions of life in the Tower, and 
 grew old in the service of a master whose eccentricities 
 became to them, in process of time, things to be endured 
 without comment, Uke disagreeable facts of climate. In 
 Dixon, his Methodist books, his Bible, and his weekly 
 chapel maintained those forces of his character which 
 were — and always continued to be — independent of 
 Melrose; and Melrose knew his own interests well enough 
 not to interfere ^^th an obstinate man's religion. While 
 Tyson, after five years, passed on triumphantly to a lucra- 
 tive agency in the Dukeries, having won a reputation for 
 tact and patience in the impossible service of a mad mas- 
 ter, which would carry him through life. Melrose, being 
 Melrose, found it hopeless to replace him satisfactorily; 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 57 
 
 and, as he continued to buy land greedily year after year, 
 the neglected condition of his immense estate became an 
 ever-increasing scandal to the county. 
 
 Meanwhile, for some years after the departure of Netta, 
 Lady Tatham was obliged for reason of health to spend 
 the winters on the Riviera, and she and her boy were only 
 at Duddon for the summer months. Intercourse between 
 her and her cousin Edmund Melrose was never renewed, 
 and her son grew up in practical ignorance of the relation- 
 ship. When, however, the lad was nearing the end of his 
 Eton school days Duddon became once more the perma- 
 nent home, summer and winter, of mother and son, and 
 young Lord Tatham, curly-haired, good-humoured, and 
 good-hearted, became thenceforward the favourite and 
 princeling of the countryside. On the east and north, the 
 Duddon estates marched with Melrose's property. Oc- 
 casions of friction constantly arose, but the determination 
 on each side to have no more communication with the 
 other than was absolutely necessary generally composed 
 any nascent dispute; so long at least as Lady Tatham and 
 a very diplomatic agent were in charge. 
 
 But at the age of twenty-four, Harry Tatham succeeded 
 to the sole management of his estates, and his mother 
 soon realized that her son was not likely to treat their 
 miserly neighbour with the same patience as herself. 
 
 And with the changes in human life, went changes even 
 more subtle and enduring in the Cumbria county itself. 
 Those were times of crisis for English agriculture. Wheat- 
 lands went back to pasture; and a surplus population, that 
 has found its way for generations to the factory towns, 
 began now to turn toward the great Canadian spaces 
 
58 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 beyond the western sea. Only the mountains still rose 
 changeless and eternal, at least to human sense; "am- 
 bitious for the hallowing" of moon and sun; keeping their 
 old 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. 
 
m 
 
 IT was a May evening, and Lydia Penfold, spinster, 
 aged twenty -four, was sketching in St. John's 
 Vale, that winding valley which, diverging from the 
 Ambleside-Keswick road in an easterly direction, di- 
 vides the northern slopes of the HelvelljTi range from the 
 splendid mass of Blencathra. 
 
 So beautiful was the evening, so ravishing under its 
 sway were heaven and earth, 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 very 
 industrious and methodical views of her business. But 
 she was, before everything, one of those persons who thrill 
 under the appeal of beauty to a degree that often threatens 
 or suspends practical energy. Save for the conscience in 
 her, she could have lived from day to day just for the 
 moments 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 particular evening 
 it did little or nothing to check the sheer sensuous dream- 
 ing that had crept over her. 
 
 The hand that held her palette had dropped upon her 
 knee, her eyes were lifted to the spectacle before her, and 
 her lips, slightly parted, breathed in pleasure. 
 
 She looked on a pair of mountains of which one, torn 
 
 59 
 
60 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 and seamed from top to toe as though some vast Fafnir 
 of the prime had wreaked his dragon rage upon it, fronted 
 her sheer, rimmed with gold where some of its thrusting 
 edges still caught the sunset, but otherwise steeped in 
 purple shades already prophesying night; while the other, 
 separated from the first by a gap, yet grouping with it, 
 ran slanting away to the northwest, offering to the eyes 
 only a series of lovely foreshortened planes, rising from the 
 valley, one behind the other, sweeping upward and back- 
 ward to the 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 waited for the last act, and refused 
 to think of supper. That golden fusion of all the upper air; 
 that "intermingling of Heaven's pomp," spread on the 
 great slopes of Skiddaw — red and bronze and purple, 
 shot through each other, and glorified by excess of light; 
 that sharpness of the larch green on the lower slopes; that 
 richness of the river fields; that shining pageantry of 
 cloud, rising or sinking with the mountain line : pondering 
 these things, absorbing them, she looked at her drawing 
 from time to time in a smiling despair; the happy despair 
 of the artist, who amid the failure of to-day looks forward 
 with passion to the effort of to-morrow. 
 
 Youth and natural joy possessed her. 
 
 What scents from the river-bank, under the softly 
 breathing wind which had sprung up with the sunset! 
 The girl brought her eyes down, and saw a bank of prim- 
 roses, and beyond, in the little copse on the farther side of 
 the stream, a gleam of blue, where the wild hyacinth 
 
THE IMATING OF LYDIA 61 
 
 spread among the birches. While close to her, at her very 
 feet, ran the stream, with its slipping, murmuring water, 
 its stones splashed with white, purple, and orange, its still 
 reaches paved with evening gold. 
 
 "\\Tiat a mercy I wrote that letter!" she said to herself, 
 with a sigh of content. She was thinking of a proposal 
 that had come to her a few days before this date, to take a 
 post as drawing mistress in a Brighton school. The 
 salary was tempting; and, at the moment, money was 
 more than usually scarce in the family purse. Her 
 mother's eyes had looked at her wistfully. 
 
 Yet she had refused; with a laughing bravado that 
 had concealed some inward qualms. 
 
 Whereupon the gods had immediately and scandalously 
 rewarded her. She had sold four of her drawings at a 
 Liverpool exhibition for twenty pounds; and there were 
 lying beside her on the grass some agreeable press 
 notices just arrived, most of which she already knew by 
 heart. 
 
 Tw^enty pounds! That would pay the half year's rent. 
 And there were three other drawings in a London show 
 that might very well sell too. WTiy not — now the 
 others had sold.'* Meanwhile she — thank the Lord! 
 — had saved herself, as a fish from the hook. She was 
 still free; free to draw, free to dream. She had not 
 bartered her mountains for a salary. Instead of crocodile 
 walks, two and two, with a score of stupid schoolgirls, 
 here she was, still roaming the fells, the same happy 
 vagabond as before. She hugged her liloerty. And at 
 the same time she promised herself that her mother 
 should have a new shawl and a new cap for WTiitsuntide. 
 
eg THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 Those at present in use came near in Lydia's opinion 
 to being a family disgrace. 
 
 The last act of the great spectacle rushed on; and 
 again the artist held her breath enthralled. The gold on 
 Skiddaw was passing into rose; and over the greenish 
 blue of the lower sky, webs of crimson cirrhus spun them- 
 selves. The stream ran fire; and far away the windows 
 of a white farm blazed. Lydia seized a spare sketching- 
 block lying on the grass, and began to note down a few 
 " passages " in the sky before her. 
 
 Suddenly a gust came straying down the valley. It 
 blew the press-cuttings which 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. Lydia 
 sprang up, with an exclamation of annoyance, and ^'^ent to 
 the rescue. Dear, dear ! — the longest and best notice, 
 which spoke of her work as "agreeable and scholarly, 
 showing, at times, more than a touch of high talent" — 
 was quietly floating away. She must get it back. Her 
 mother had not yet read it — not yet purred over it. 
 And it was most desirable she should read it, so as to get 
 rid thereby of any lingering doubt about the horrid school 
 and its horrid proposal. 
 
 But alack! the slip of newspaper was already out of 
 reach, speeded by a tiny eddy toward a miniature rapid 
 in the middle of the beck. Lydia, chnging with one hand 
 to a stump of willow, caught up a stick lying on the bank 
 with the other, and, hanging over the stream, tried to head 
 back the truant. AU that happened was that her foot 
 slipping on a pebble went flop into the shallow water, 
 and part of her dress followed it. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 63 
 
 It was not open to Lydia to swear, and she had no 
 time for the usual feminine 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 back on to the bank. A young man stood 
 there, civilly deferential. His bicycle lay on the grass 
 at the edge of the road, which was only a few steps away. 
 
 "I saw you slip in, and thought perhaps I might help. 
 You were trying to reach 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. 
 
 "\Miat 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 a point where, with the aid of Lydia's 
 stick, the bedraggled cutting was soon fished out and 
 returned to its owner. Lydia thanked him. 
 
 "But you've wet both your feet!" She looked at 
 them, with concern. "Won't it be very uncomfortable, 
 bicycling? " 
 
 "I haven't far to go. Oh, by the way, I was just 
 looking out for somebody to ask — about this road — and 
 I couldn't see a soul, till just as I came out of the httle 
 wood there" — he pointed — "I saw you — shpping in." 
 
 They both laughed. Lydia returned to her camp 
 stool, and began to put up her sketching things. 
 
 "^\Tiat is it you want to know?" 
 
 "Is this the road for ^\Tiitebeck?" 
 
64 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 "Yes, certainly. You come to a bridge and the village 
 is on the other side." 
 
 "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 mile higher up.^" 
 He had picked up his bicycle from the grass, and stood 
 leaning easily upon it. She could not but observe that 
 he was tall and shm and handsome. A tourist, no doubt; 
 she could not place him as an inhabitant. 
 
 "I know!" she said smiling. "You saw the otter 
 hounds. They passed me an hour ago. Have they 
 caught him.?" 
 
 "Who.' the otter.' Lord, no! He got right away 
 from them — up a tributary stream." 
 
 "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 g:irl before him seemed to him 
 one of the most delicious creatures he had ever seen, he 
 did linger. 
 
 "I wonder if I might ask you another question? Can 
 you tell me whether that fine old house over there is 
 Duddon Castle.'" 
 
 "Duddon Castle!" Lydia lifted her eyebrows. "Dud- 
 don Castle is seven miles away. That place is called 
 Threlf all Tower. Were you going to Duddon.' " 
 
 "No. But" — he hesitated — "I know young Tatham 
 a little. I should like to have seen his house. But, 
 that's a fine old place, isn't it.?* " He looked with curiosity 
 at the pile of building rising beyond a silver streak of 
 river, amid the fresh of the May woods. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 65 
 
 "Well — yes — in some ways," said Lydia, dubiously. 
 "Don't you know who lives there?" 
 
 "Not the least. I am a complete stranger here. I 
 say, do let me do that up for you.'^" And, letting his 
 bicycle fall, the young man seized the easel 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 by now, and she ought to be snubbing 
 him. But the expression on his sunburnt face .as he 
 knelt on the grass, unscrewing her easel, seemed so little 
 to call for snubbing that instead she gave him further 
 information; interspersed with directions to him as to 
 what to do and what not to do with her gear. 
 
 "It belongs to a Mr. Melrose. Did you never hear of 
 him.?" 
 
 "Never. Why should 1?" 
 
 "Not from the Tathams.^" 
 
 "No. You see I only knew Tatham at college — in my 
 last year. He was a good deal junior to me. And I have 
 never stayed with them at Duddon — though they kindly 
 asked me — years ago." 
 
 The girl beside him took not the smallest notice of his 
 information. She was busy packing up brushes and 
 paints, and her next remark showed him subtly that she 
 did not mean to treat him as an acquaintance of the 
 Tathams, whom she probably knew, but was determined 
 to keep him to his role of stranger and tourist. 
 
 "You had better look at Threlfall as you pass. It has 
 a splendid situation." 
 
 "I will. But why ought I to have heard of the gentle- 
 man.' I forget his name." 
 
66 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 "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 name of 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 shuts himself 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 be one of the things that pays best now- 
 adays — with all these Americans about. It's a way of in- 
 vesting your money. Doesn't he show them to anybody? " 
 
 "Nobody is allowed to go near him, or his house. He 
 has built a high wall round 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 small way, I'm a collector myself." 
 
 He smiled, and Lydia understood that the personal 
 reference was thrown out as a feeler, in case she might be 
 willing to push the conversation further. But she did not 
 respond, although as he spoke she happened to notice that 
 he wore a remarkable ring on his left hand, which seemed 
 to illustrate his remark. An engraved gem? — Greek? 
 Her eyes were quick for such things. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 67 
 
 However, she was seized with shyness, and as she had 
 now finished the packing of her brushes and paints, and the 
 young man had elaborately fastened all the straps of the 
 portable easel and its case, there was nothing for him to do 
 but to stoop unwillingly for his soft hat which was lying 
 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 hes in quite another direction. 
 Good-night." 
 
 She held out a shapely hand. He took it, hfted his 
 hat, and departed. 
 
 As soon as he was safely past a jutting corner of the road 
 Lydia, instead of going home, lazily sat down again on a 
 rock to think about what had happened. She was per- 
 fectly aware that — considering the whole interview had 
 only taken ten minutes — she had made an impression 
 upon the young man. And as young men of such distin- 
 guished appearance were not common in the Whitebeck 
 neighbourhood, the recollection of all those little signs in 
 look and manner which had borne witness to the stranger's 
 discreet admiration 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.? I won- 
 der what he does. He can't be rich, or he wouldn't be 
 bicycling. He did up those straps as though he were used 
 to them; but he can't be an artist, or he'd have said some- 
 thing. It was a face with lots of power in it. Not very 
 
68 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 good-tempered, I should say? But there's something about 
 him — yes, distinctly, something! I liked his thin cheeks, 
 and his dark curls. His head, too, was uncommonly well 
 set on. I'm sure that there's a good deal to him, as the 
 Americans say; he's not stuffed with sawdust. I can 
 imagine — just imagine — being in love with him." 
 
 She laughed to herself. 
 
 Then a sudden thought occurred to her, which reddened 
 her cheeks. Suppose when the young man came to think 
 over it, he beUeved that she had let the papers fall into the 
 river — deliberately — on purpose — just to attract his 
 attention? At the very precise moment that he comes 
 upon the scene, she shps 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 good old Tennysonian days. There's precious 
 little chivalry now! Men don't idealize women as they 
 used. They're grown far more suspicious — and harder. 
 Perhaps because women have grown so critical of them! 
 Anyway something's gone — what is it? Poetry? Illu- 
 sion? And yet! — why is it that men still put us off our 
 balance? — even now — that they matter so much less, 
 now that we Uve our own lives, and can do without them? 
 I shouldn't be sitting here, bothering my head, if it had 
 been another girl who had come to help." 
 
 Slowly she gathered up her things and took her way 
 home, while the evening of blue and pearl fell around her, 
 while the glow died on the fells, and Venus came out in a 
 sky that was still too full of hght to let any lesser stars 
 appear. 
 
They stopped to talk while he rested a few minutes 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 69 
 
 She crossed the stepping stones, and in a river field on 
 the farther side she came across an old shepherd, carrying 
 a wounded ewe across his shoulders, and with his dog 
 beside him. At sight of him she paused in astonishment. 
 He was an old friend of hers, but he belonged to a village — 
 the village of Mainstairs — some three miles away in the 
 lowland toward Pengarth. She had first come across 
 him when sketching among some distant 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 her approaching. 
 
 " Why I thowt I med coom across yer ! " he said smiling. 
 And he explained that 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. Her question showed 
 knowledge — no perfunctory kindness. 
 
 He shook his head sadly, and her grave, soft look, as 
 she fell silent a little, 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 the subject. Instead the old man broke 
 out in praise of the "won'erful 'cute" sheep dog beside 
 
70 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 him, and in the story of the accident which had sHghtly 
 lamed the ewe he was carrying. Lydia's vivacious 
 listening, her laugh, her comments, expressed — uncon- 
 sciously — with just a touch of Cumbria dialect, showed 
 them natural comrades. Some deeply human gift, some 
 spontaneity 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 fallen tree, and prepared to go on her way — 
 "those counting words you told me last week. I tried to 
 tell them to my mother — but I couldn't remember them 
 all. They made us laugh so." 
 
 "Aye, they're the owd words," said the shepherd com- 
 placently. "We doan't use 'em now. But my feyther 
 minds how his feyther used alius to count by 'em." 
 
 And he began the catalogue of those ancient numerals 
 by which the northern dalesman of a hundred years ago 
 were still accustomed to reckon their sheep, words that go 
 back to the very infancy of man. 
 
 " Yan — tyan — tethera — methera — pimp; sethera — 
 lethera — ho vera — do vera — dick." 
 
 Lydia's face dissolved in laughter — and when the old 
 man delighting in her amusement Ment on to the com- 
 pounds of ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, and the rest: 
 
 "Yan-a-dick — tyan-a-dick — tethera-a-dick — me- 
 thera-a-dick — bumfit." 
 
 At "bumfit" (fifteen) they both rocked with merri- 
 ment, the old man carried 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." 
 
THE IMATING OF LYDIA 71 
 
 "Yan-a-biimfit — tyan-a-bunifit — 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 
 straightened himself again under his load — a veritable 
 "good shepherd," glorified by the evening light — they 
 parted with a friendly nod, glad to have met and sure 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 in front of her a small white house, recently 
 built, and already embowered in a blossoming garden. 
 Lilacs sent their fragrance to greet her; rhododendrons 
 glowed through the twilight, and a wild-cherry laden with 
 bloom reared its white miracle against the walls of the 
 house. 
 
 Lydia stood at the gate devouring the tree with her 
 eyes. The blossom had 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 a little, 
 little while! I seem hardly to have looked at it. It's 
 horrible how 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 long ago." 
 
 Lydia walked into the house, and put her head into 
 the drawing-room. 
 
72 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 "Sorry, mother! It was so lovely, I couldn't come in. 
 And I met a dear old 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 in irritation. "And then all of a sudden 
 they get nerves — or consumption — or something." 
 
 As she spoke, she withdrew from the window, and curled 
 herself up on a sofa, where a knitted coverlet lay, ready to 
 draw over her feet. Mrs, Penfold was a shght, pretty 
 woman of fifty with invalidish Sybaritic ways, and a 
 character which was an odd mixture of humility and 
 conceit — diffidence and audacity. She was quite aware 
 that she was not as clever as her daughters. She could 
 not write poetry like Susan, or paint like Lydia. But 
 then, in her own opinion, she had so many merits they 
 were without; merits which more than maintained her 
 self-respect, and enabled her to hold her ground with 
 them. For instance: by the time she was four and 
 twenty, Lydia's age, she had received at least a dozen 
 proposals. Lydia's scalps, so far as her mother knew, 
 were only two — fellow-students at South Kensington, 
 absurd people, not to be counted. Then, pretty as Lydia 
 was, her nose could not be compared for delicacy with her 
 mother's. "My nose was always famous" — Mrs. Pen- 
 fold would say complacently to her daughters — " it was 
 that which first attracted your dear father. 'It was,' he 
 said — you know he always expressed himself so remark- 
 ably — 'such a sure sign of "race."' His owni people — 
 oh! they were quite nice people — but quite middle- 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 73 
 
 class." Again, her hands and feet were smaller and more 
 aristocratic than either Lydia's or Susan's. She liked to 
 remind herself constantly how everybody had admired 
 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 went as fast as her needles — 
 concerned chiefly with two matters of absorbing interest: 
 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 the school salary would have been a certainty — 
 and Lydia had hardly considered it with proper serious- 
 ness. But there — all was well ! The extra twenty 
 pounds would carry them on, and now that Lydia had 
 begun to earn, thought the maternal optimist, she would 
 of course go on earning — at higher and higher prices — 
 and the family income of some three hundred a year 
 would obtain the increment it so desperately needed. 
 And as Mrs. Penfold looked upon a girls' school as some- 
 thing not far removed from a nunnery, a place at any rate 
 painfully devoid of the masculine element; and as her 
 whole mind was set — sometimes romantically, some- 
 times financially — on the marriage of her daughters, she 
 felt that both she and Lydia 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 Lydia never communicated the fact, the thrilling 
 fact that she had been meeting at the rectory — more 
 than once apparently — not merely a young man, but the 
 
74 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 young man of the neighbourhood. And with results — 
 favourable results — quite evident to the Rector and the 
 Rector's wife, if Lydia herself chose to ignore and secrete 
 them. It was really unkind. . . . 
 
 The door opened. A white figure slipped into the 
 room through its mingled lights, 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, darhng — but I didn't — it went away. Lydia! 
 the Rector and Mrs. Deacon have been here. Why 
 didn't you tell me you have been meeting Lord Tatham 
 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. Penfold stooped eagerly toward her daugh- 
 ter, trying to see her face in the twilight. 
 
 "Mrs. Deacon's a goose! You know she is, mother, 
 — you often say so. I met him first, of course, at the 
 Hunt Ball. And you saw him there too. You saw me 
 dancing with him." 
 
 "But that was only once," said Mrs. Penfold, can- 
 didly. "I didn't think anything 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 in 
 it." 
 
 "Well, there was nothing in it, dear — in this case. And 
 I wouldn't advise you to give me to Lord Tatham — just 
 yet!" 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 75 
 
 Mrs. Penfold sighed. 
 
 "Of course one knows that that kind of young man has 
 his marriage made for him — just hke royalty. But 
 sometimes — they break out. There are dukes that 
 have married plain Misses — no better than you, Lydia — 
 and not American either. But — Lydia — you did like 
 hi 
 
 im 
 
 "WTio.'* 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 all clever. 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 can believe it." 
 
 "They like being chaffed" — said Mrs. Penfold pen- 
 sively — "if a girl does it well." 
 
 "I don't care, darling, whether they like it or not. It 
 amuses me, and so I 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 a furnace — "I do wish 
 you saw more young men ! " 
 
 "Well, I saw another one — much handsomer than 
 Lord Tatham — this afternoon," laughed Lydia. 
 
 Mrs. Penfold eagerly inquired. The story was told, 
 and Mrs. Penfold, as easily lured by a new subject as a 
 child by a new doll, fell into many speculations as to who 
 the youth could have been, and where he was going. 
 
78 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 She did not intend indeed to be troubled — for the 
 present — with such matters at all. 
 
 "Marrying is not in the bill!" She declaimed it to a 
 lilac-bush, standing with her hands behind her, and face 
 uplifted. "I have no money, and no position — there- 
 fore the vast majority of men won't want to marry me. 
 And as to scheming to make them want it — why ! — 
 good heavens ! — when there are 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 that had 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 — Uke any fool. It's sex of course — and youth. 
 I can no more escape them than anybody else. But I can 
 be mistress of them. I wUl. That's where this genera- 
 tion differs. We needn't drift — we see clear. Oh! those 
 clouds — that blue! — those stars! Dear world! Isn't 
 beauty enough?" 
 
 She lifted her arms above her head in a wild aspiration. 
 And all in a moment 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 Whitebeck bridge. Just above the bridge, a 
 steep pitch of hill, one of those specimens of primitive 
 
THE J^IATING OF LYDIA 79 
 
 road-making that abound in Cumbria, descended rapidly 
 into a dark hollow, wath a high wall on one side, overhung 
 by trees, and on the other a bank, broken three parts of 
 the way down by the entrance of a side road. At the 
 top of the hill, Faversham, to give the youth his name, 
 stopped to look at the wall, which was remarkable for 
 height and strength. The thick wood on his right hid any 
 building there might be on the farther side of the stream. 
 But clearly this was the Ogre's wall — ogreish indeed! A 
 man might well keep a cupboard full of Fatimas, ahve or 
 dead, on the other side of it, or a coiner's press, or a bank- 
 note factory, or any other romantic and literary villainy. 
 Faversham found himself speculating with amusement on 
 the old curmudgeon behind the wall; always with the 
 vision, drawn by recollection on the leafy background, 
 of a girl's charming face — clear pale skin, beautiful 
 eyes, more blue surely than gray — the whitest neck, 
 with coils of brown hair upon it — the mouth with its 
 laughing freedom — yet reticent — no mere silly sweet- 
 ness ! 
 
 Then putting on his brake, he began to coast down the 
 hill, which opened gently only to turn without notice into 
 something scandalously precipitous. The bicycle had 
 been hired in Keswick, and had had a hard season's use. 
 The brake gave way at the worst moment of the hill, and 
 Faversham, unable to save himself, rushed to perdition. 
 And by way of doubling his misfortune, as in the course of 
 his mad descent he reached the side road on the left, there 
 came the loud clatter of a cart, and a young horse emerged 
 almost at a gallop, with a man tugging vainly at its 
 rein. 
 
80 THE :SIATIXG OF LYDIA 
 
 Toi minutes later a group of men stood consulting by 
 the side of the road over Faversham's prostrate fcflm. He 
 was unconscioas; his head and face were covered with 
 liiood, and his left ankle was apparently broken- A small 
 motor stood at the bottom of the hill, and an angry 
 be was gcang on between an cJd man in mire-stained 
 HKO g kiii g-cIothes. and the young doctor from Pengarth to 
 whom the motor belonged. 
 
 "I say. Mr. Dixon- that you've got to take this man 
 into Mr. Melrose's house and look after him, till he is fit 
 to be moved farther, or you 11 be guilty of his death, and I 
 siitaH give evidence accordingly!" said the doctor, with 
 energy, as he raised himself from the injured man. 
 
 "TheCT's noa place few him i' t' Tower, Mr. Under- 
 djaw, an' Ffl take noa sich Kbertyl" 
 
 •Tkea I wffl. Where's Mr. Mehose? " 
 
 "F London — till to-morrow. Yoll do nowt o' t' soart, 
 doctor." 
 
 "We ^ail see. To carry Inim half a mile to the farm, 
 3ro« aright carry him just across that bridge to the 
 rould be sheer murder. I won't see it done. And 
 if you do it, you'll be indicted for maiisfaft^iter. Now 
 then — why doesn't that hurdle come along.'" The 
 speaker looked impatiently up the road; and, as he spoke, 
 a couple of labourers appeared at the top of the lull, 
 carrying a hurdle between them. 
 
 Dixon threw looks of mingled wrath and perplexity at 
 the doctor, and the men. 
 
 " I tell yo', doctor, it conno' be done I Muster Melrose's 
 orders mun be obeyed- I have noa power to admit 
 onybody to his house withoot his leave. Yo' knaw 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 81 
 
 yourser," he added in the doctor's ear, "what Muster 
 Mehose is." 
 
 Undershaw muttered something — expressing either 
 wrath or scorn — behind his moustache; then said 
 aloud: 
 
 "Never you mind, Dison; I shall take the responsi- 
 bUity. You let me alone. Now, my boys, lend a hand 
 with the hurdle, and give me some coats." 
 
 Faversham's leg had been already placed in a rough 
 splint and his head bandaged. They lifted him, quite 
 unconscious, upon the hurdle, and made him as comfort- 
 able as they could. The doctor anxiously felt his pulse, 
 and directed the men to carry him, as carefully as possible, 
 through a narrow gate in the high waU opposite which was 
 standing open, across the private foot-bridge over the 
 stream, and so to the Terrace whereon stood Threlfall 
 Tower. Impenetrably hidden as it was behind the wall 
 and the trees, the old house was yet, in truth, barely sixty 
 yards away. Dixon followed, lamenting and protesting, 
 but in vain. 
 
 "Hold your tongue, man!" said Undershaw at last, 
 losing his temper. " You disgrace your master. It would 
 be a pubHc scandal to reftise to help a man in this phght ! 
 If we get him alive through to-night, it will be a mercy. 
 I beheve the cart's been over him somewhere I" he added. 
 with a frowning brow. 
 
 Dixon silenced, but by no means persuaded, followed 
 the Kttle procession.till it reached a side door of the Tower, 
 opening on the terrace just beyond the bridge. The door 
 was shut, and it was not till the doctor had made several 
 thunderous attacks upon it, beside sending men round to 
 
80 THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 Ten minutes later a group of men stood consulting by 
 the side of the road over Faversham's prostrate form. He 
 was unconscious; his head and face were covered with 
 blood, and his left ankle was apparently broken. A small 
 open motor stood at the bottom of the hill, and an angry 
 dispute was going on between an old man in mire-stained 
 working-clothes, and the young doctor from Pengarth to 
 whom the motor belonged. 
 
 "I say, Mr. Dixon, that you've got to take this man 
 into Mr, Melrose's house and look after him, till he is fit 
 to be moved farther, or you'll be guilty of his death, and I 
 shall give evidence accordingly!" said the doctor, with 
 energy, as he raised himself from the injured man. 
 
 "Theer's noa place for him i' f Tower, Mr. Under- 
 shaw, an' I'll take noa sich liberty!" 
 
 "Then I will. Where's Mr. Melrose?" 
 
 "I' London — till to-morrow. Yo'U do nowt o' t' soart, 
 doctor." 
 
 "We shall see. To carry him half a mile to the farm, 
 when you might carry him just across that bridge to the 
 house, would be sheer murder. I won't see it done. And 
 if you do it, you'll be indicted for manslaughter. Now 
 then — why doesn't that hurdle come along?" The 
 speaker looked impatiently up the road; and, as he spoke, 
 a couple of labourers appeared at the top of the hill, 
 carrying a hurdle between them. 
 
 Dixon threw looks of mingled wrath and perplexity at 
 the doctor, and the men. 
 
 " I tell yo', doctor, it conno' be done ! Muster Melrose's 
 orders mun be obeyed. I have noa power to admit 
 onybody to his house withoot his leave. Yo' knaw 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 81 
 
 yoursel'," he added in the doctor's ear, "what Muster 
 Melrose is." 
 
 Undershaw muttered something — expressing either 
 wrath or scorn — behind his moustache; then said 
 aloud : 
 
 "Never you mind, Dixon; I shall take the responsi- 
 bility. You let me alone. Now, my boys, lend a hand 
 with the hurdle, and give me some coats." 
 
 Faversham's leg had been already placed in a rough 
 spUnt and his head bandaged. They Hfted him, quite 
 unconscious, upon the hurdle, and made him as comfort- 
 able as they could. The doctor anxiously felt his pulse, 
 and directed the men to carry him, as carefully as possible, 
 through a narrow gate in the high wall opposite which was 
 standing open, across the private foot-bridge over the 
 stream, and so to the Terrace whereon stood Threlfall 
 Tower. Impenetrably hidden as it was behind the wall 
 and the trees, the old house was yet, in truth, barely sixty 
 yards away. Dixon followed, lamenting and protesting, 
 but in vain. 
 
 "Hold your tongue, man!" said Undershaw at last, 
 losing his temper. " You disgrace your master. It would 
 be a public scandal to refuse to help a man in this plight! 
 If we get him alive through to-night, it will be a mercy. 
 I believe the cart's been over him somewhere!" he added, 
 with a frowning brow. 
 
 Dixon silenced, but by no means persuaded, followed 
 the Httle procession, till it reached a side door of the Tower, 
 opening on the terrace just beyond the bridge. The door 
 was shut, and it was not till the doctor had made several 
 thunderous attacks upon it, beside sending men round to 
 
82 THE MATING OF LYDTA 
 
 the other doors of the house, that Mrs. Dixon at last 
 cautiously opened it. 
 
 Fresh remonstrance and refusal followed on the part 
 both of husband and wife. Fresh determination also on 
 the part of the doctor, seconded by the threatening looks 
 and words of Faversham's bearers, stout Cumbria labour- 
 ers, to whom the storming of the Tower was clearly a busi- 
 ness they enjoyed. At last the old couple, bitterly 
 protesting, gave way, and the procession entered. 
 
 They found themselves in a long corridor, httered with 
 a strange multitude of objects, scarcely distinguishable 
 in the dim light shed by one unshuttered window through 
 which some of the evening glow still penetrated. Dixon 
 and his wife whispered excitedly together; after which 
 Dixon led the way through the corridor into the entrance 
 hall — which was equally encumbered — and so to a door 
 on the right. 
 
 "Yo' can bring him in there," he said sulkily to Under- 
 shaw. "There's mebbe a bed upstairs we can bring 
 doon." 
 
 He threw open the drawing-room — a dreary, disused 
 room, with its carpets rolled up in one corner, and its 
 scanty furniture piled in another. The candle held by 
 Mrs. Dixon ht up the richly decorated ceiling. 
 
 "Can't you do anything better?" asked Undershaw, 
 turning upon her vehemently. "Don't you keep a spare 
 bedroom in this place?" 
 
 "Noa, we doan't!" said Mrs. Dixon, with answering 
 temper. "There isn't a room upstairs but what's full o' 
 Muster Melrose's things. Yo' mun do wi' this, or naethin'." 
 
 Undershaw submitted, and Faversham's bearers gently 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 83 
 
 laid him down, spreading their coats on the bare floor to 
 receive him, till a bed could be found. Dixon and his 
 wife, in a state of pitiable disturbance, went off to look 
 for one, while Undershaw called after them: 
 
 "And I warn you that to-morrow you'll have to find 
 quarters for two nurses!" 
 
 Thus, without any conscious action on his own part, 
 and in the absence of its formidable master, was Claude 
 Faversham brought under the roof of Threlfall Tower. 
 
IV 
 
 ON THE evening of the following day, Mr. Edmund 
 Melrose arrived in Pengarth by train from Lon- 
 don, hired a one-horse wagonette, and drove out 
 to the Tower. 
 
 His manners were at no time amiable, but the man who 
 had the honour of driving him on this occasion, and had 
 driven him occasionally before, had never yet seen him in 
 quite so odious a temper. This was already evident at the 
 time of the start from Pengarth, and thenceforward the 
 cautious Cumbrian preserved an absolute and watchful 
 silence, to the great annoyance of Melrose, who would have 
 welcomed any excuse for ill-humour. But as nothing be- 
 yond the curtest monosyllables were to be got out of his 
 companion, and as the rich beauty of the May landscape 
 was entirely lost upon 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 brought with 
 him from the south. The news of various strikes and in- 
 dustrial arbitrations which it contained had already en- 
 raged him; and enraged him again as he looked through it. 
 The proletariat, in his opinion, must be put down and kept 
 down; that his owti class began to show a lamentable want 
 of power to do either was the only public matter that ever 
 really troubled him. So far as his life was affected by the 
 outside world at all, except as a place where auctions took 
 
 84 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 85 
 
 place, and dealers' shops abounded, it was through this 
 consciousness of impending social disaster, this terror as 
 of a rapidly approaching darkness bearing the doom of the 
 modern world in its bosom, which intermittently oppressed 
 him, as it has oppressed and still overshadows innumer- 
 able better men of our day. 
 
 At this moment, in the month of May, 190 — , Edmund 
 Melrose had just passed his seventieth birthday. But the 
 extraordinary energy and vivacity of his good looks had 
 scarcely abated since the time when, twenty-three years 
 before this date, Netta Smeath had first seen him in Flor- 
 ence; although his hair had whitened, and the bronzed 
 skin of the face had developed 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 the magnifi- 
 cence of an Italian captain of the Renassiance, something 
 also of the pouncing, peering air that belongs to the type. 
 He seemed indeed to be always on the point of seizing or 
 appropriating some booty or other. His wandering eyes, 
 his long acquisitive fingers, his rapid movements showed 
 him still the hunter on the trail, to whom everything else 
 was in truth indifferent but the satisfaction of an instinct 
 which had grown and flourished on the ruins of a man. 
 
 As they drove along, through various portions of the 
 Tower estates, the eyes of the taciturn driver beside him 
 took note of the dilapidated farm buildings and the broken 
 gates which a miserly landlord could not be induced 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 in the excitement of studying 
 
86 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 the prices of a sale at Christie's, held the day before, 
 wherein his own ill luck had led to the bad temper from 
 which he was suffering. He tracked the passage at last. 
 It ran as follows: 
 
 "The late Professor William Mackworth has left the 
 majority of his costly collections to the nation. To the 
 British Museum will go the marbles and bronzes, to the 
 South Kensington, the china and the tapestries. Pro- 
 fessor Mackworth made no stipulations, and the authori- 
 ties of both museums are free to deal with his bequests as 
 they think best." 
 
 Melrose folded the newspaper and put it back into his 
 pocket with a short sudden laugh, which startled the man 
 beside him. "Stipulations! I should rather think not! 
 What museum in its senses would accept such piffling stuff 
 with any stipulations attached? As it is, the greater part 
 will go into the lumber-rooms; they'll never show them! 
 There's only one collection that Mackworth ever had that 
 was worth having. Not a word about that. People don't 
 give their best things to the country — not they. Hypo- 
 crites! What on earth has he done with them? There 
 are several things / want. " 
 
 And he fell into a long and greedy meditation, in which, 
 as usual, his fancy pursued a quarry and brought it down. 
 He took no notice meanwhile of the objects passed as they 
 approached the Tower, although among them were 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, not apparently by any very recent storm. 
 
THE IMATING OF LYDIA 87 
 
 and now lying half across the roadway, so that the horse 
 and carriage picked their way with difficulty round 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 formal garden in the Italian style, 
 and was now a mere tangled wilderness of weeds and coarse 
 grass, backed by dense thickets of laurel and yew which 
 had grown up in a close jungle round the house, so 
 that many of the lower windows were impenetrably over- 
 grown. 
 
 As they drew up at the gate, the Pengarth driver looked 
 with furtive curiosity at the house-front. Melrose, in the 
 words of Lydia to young Faversham, had "become a 
 legend" to his neighbourhood, and many strange things 
 were believed about him. It w^as said that the house con- 
 tained a number of locked and shuttered rooms which 
 were never entered; that Melrose slept by day, and worked 
 or prowled by night; that his only servants were the two 
 Dixons, no one else being able to endure his company; 
 that he and the house were protected by savage dogs, and 
 that his sole visitors were occasional strangers from the 
 south, who arrived with 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 of precious 
 and marvellous things, including hordes of gold and silver; 
 that Melrose, who was detested in the countryside, hved 
 in the constant dread of burglary or murder; and finally — 
 as a clue to the whole situation which the popular mind 
 insisted on supplying — that he had committed some fear- 
 ful crime, during his years in foreign parts, for which he 
 
88 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 could not be brought to justice; but remorse and dread of 
 discovery had affected his brain, and turned him into a 
 skulking outcast. 
 
 Possessed by these simple but interesting ideas, the 
 Pengarth man sharply noticed, first that the gate of the 
 enclosure was padlocked, Melrose himself supplying a key 
 from his pocket; next that most of the windows of the 
 front were shuttered; and lastly — strange and unique 
 fact, according to his own recollections of the Tower — 
 that two windows on the ground floor were standing wide 
 open, giving some view of the large room within, so far as 
 two partially drawn curtains allowed. As Melrose un- 
 locked the gate, the house dooropened, and three huge dogs 
 came bounding out, in front 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 
 the whole scene with an absorbed curiosity, when Melrose 
 turned, threw him a sudden look, paid him, and peremp- 
 torily bade him be off. He had therefore no time to ob- 
 serve the perturbation of Dixon who was coming with slow 
 steps to meet his master; nor that a woman in white cap 
 and apron had appeared behind him on the steps. 
 
 Melrose on opening the gate found himseK surrounded 
 by his dogs, a fine mastiff and two young collies. He was 
 trying to drive them off, after a gruff word to Dixon, when 
 he was suddenly brought to a standstill by the sight of the 
 woman on the steps. 
 
 "D nit! — whom have you got here?" he said, 
 
 fiercely perceiving at the same moment the open windows 
 on the ground floor. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA S9 
 
 "Muster Melrose — it's noan o' my doin'," was Dixon's 
 trembling reply, as he pointed a shaky finger at the win- 
 dows. "It was t' yoong doctor from Pengarth — yo' 
 ken him " 
 
 A woman's voice interrupted. 
 
 "Please, sir, would you stop those dogs barking? They 
 disturb the patient." 
 
 Melrose looked at the speaker in stupefaction. 
 
 "What the deuce have you been doing with my house.? " 
 
 — he turned furiously to Dixon — "who are these 
 people.'' " 
 
 "Theer's a yoong man lyin' sick i' the drawin'-room," 
 said Dixon desperately. "They do say 'at he's in a varra 
 parlish condition; an' they tell me there's to be no barkin' 
 nor noise whativer." 
 
 "Well, upon my word!" Melrose was by this time 
 pale with rage. "A young man — sick — in my drawing- 
 room ! — and a young woman giving orders in my house ! 
 
 — you're a precious lot — you are!" He strode on 
 toward the young woman, who, as he now saw, was in the 
 dress of a nurse. She had descended the steps, and was 
 \ainly trying to quiet the dogs. 
 
 "I'll uphold yer!" muttered Dixon, following slowly 
 after; "it's the queerest do-ment that iver I knew!' 
 
 " Madam ! I should like to know what your business is 
 here. I never invited you that I know of, and I am en- 
 tirely at a loss to understand your appearance in my 
 house!" 
 
 The girl whom INIelrose addressed with this fierce mock 
 courtesy turned on him a perplexed face. 
 
 "I know nothing about it, sir, except that I was sum- 
 
90 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 moned from Manchester last 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't remain here. I will have him re- 
 moved." 
 
 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 various kicks and cuffs to the noisy trio 
 which at last procured silence. 
 
 Her expression lightened, and with the professional 
 alertness of one who has no time to spend in gossiping, 
 she turned and went quickly back into the 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 cursed business is ! Are you mad or 
 ami.?" 
 
 Dixon eyed him calmly. He had by this time sum- 
 moned to his aid the semi-mystical courage given him 
 occasionally by his evangelical faith. If it was the Lord's 
 will that such a thing should happen, why it was the Lord's 
 will; and it was no use whatever for Mr, Melrose or any 
 one else to kick against the pricks. So with much teasing 
 deliberation, and constantly interrupted by his angry 
 master, he told the story of the accident on the evening 
 before, of Doctor Undershaw's appearance on the scene, 
 and of the storming of the Tower, 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 91 
 
 "Well, of all the presuming rascals!" said Melrose with 
 slow fury, under his breath, when the tale was done. 
 "But we'll be even with him ! Send a man from the farm, 
 at once, to the cottage hospital at Whitebeck, They've 
 got an ambulance — I commission it. It's a hospital 
 case. They shall see to it. Be quick ! March ! — do you 
 hear? — I intended to quit of them — bag and baggage!" 
 
 Dixon did not move. 
 
 " Doctor said if we were to move un now, it 'ud be man- 
 slaughter," he said stohdly, "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 his head, and instead of going toward 
 the farm, quietly retreated round the farther corner of the 
 house to the kitchen. He was the only person at the 
 Tower 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 quick 
 noiseless steps from the corridor, her finger on her 
 lip. 
 
 "Please, sir! — it is most important for the patient that 
 the house should be absolutely quiet." 
 
 "I tell you the house is mine!" said Melrose, positively 
 stamping. "WTiat business have you — or the other one 
 
m THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 — to give orders in it? I'll turn you all out! — you shall 
 march, I tell you!" 
 
 The nurse — an older woman than the first who had 
 spoken to him outside — drew back with dignity. 
 
 'T am sorry if I offended you, sir. I was summoned 
 from Carhsle this morning as night nurse to an urgent case. 
 I have been helping the other nurse all day, for Mr. Faver- 
 sham has wanted a great deal of attention. I am 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, it was difficult to ignore him entirely. She 
 looked at his feet. 
 
 "You'U come in quietly, sir.' I am afraid — your 
 boots " 
 
 "Oh, go on! Order me about! What's wrong with my 
 boots.''" The pale grin was meant for sarcasm. 
 
 "They're rather hea\y, sir, for a sick-room. Would 
 you — would you mind — taking them off.'*" 
 
 "Upon my word, you're a cool one!" 
 
 But there was something in the quiet self-possession of 
 the woman which coerced, while it exasperated him. He 
 perceived plainly that she took him for a madman to be 
 managed. Yet, after glaring at her for a moment, he sat 
 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 and beckoned to Melrose. He went in, and, 
 against his will, he went on tiptoe, and holding his breath. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 9» 
 
 Inside, he looked round the darkened room in angry- 
 amazement. It had been wholly transformed. The 
 open windows had been cleaned and curtained;. the oak 
 floor shone as though it had been recently washed; there 
 was a table on which were medicine bottles and glasses, 
 with a chair or two; while in the centre of the room, care- 
 fully screened from light, was a white bed. Upon it, a 
 motionless form. 
 
 "Poor young fellow!" whispered the nurse, standing 
 beside Melrose, her kind face softening. "He has been 
 conscious a little to-day — the doctor is hopeful. But he 
 has been very badly hurt." 
 
 Melrose surveyed him — the interloper! — who repre- 
 sented to him at that moment one of those unexpected 
 checks and annoyances in life, which selfish men with 
 strong wills cannot and do not attempt to bear. His 
 privacy, his habits, his freedom — all at the mercy of this 
 white-faced boy, these two intolerable women, and the 
 still more intolerable doctor, on whom he intended to 
 inflect a stinging lesson! No doubt the whole thing 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 — perhaps more. The brow and head were covered 
 with bandages; the eyes were closed; the bloodless mouth 
 hung slightly open, with a look of pain. The comeli- 
 ness of the dark, slightly bearded face was not entirely 
 disguised by the dressings in which the head was swathed; 
 and the chest and arms, from which the bedclothes had 
 been folded back, were finel3% though sparely, moulded. 
 Melrose, whose life was spent among artistic objects 
 
94 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 was not insensible to the young man's good looks, as 
 they were visible even under his bandages and in the dim 
 light, and for the first time he felt 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 them here 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 
 Melrose contemptuously. "What's he doing here — in 
 May? This is not the tourist season. What business had 
 he to be here at all? I have no doubt whatever that he 
 was drunk, otherwise why should he have had an accident? 
 Nobody else 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 had hardly spoken when the sound of wheels 
 outside brought a look of relief to her face. 
 
 "That's the ice," she said, rejoicingly. "We sent for it 
 to Pengarth this afternoon." 
 
 And she fled on light steps to the front door. 
 
 " Sent whom? My man — My cart ! " growled Melrose, 
 following her, to verify the outrage with his own eyes. 
 And there indeed at the steps stood the light cart, the 
 only vehicle which the master of the Tower possessed, 
 driven by his only outdoor servant, Joe Backhouse, who 
 had succeeded Dixon as gardener. It was full of packages, 
 which the nurse was eagerly taking out, comparing them 
 with a list she held in her hand. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 95 
 
 "And of course I'm to pay for them!" thought Melrose 
 furiously. No doubt his credit has been pledged up to 
 the hilt already for this intruder, this beggar at his gates 
 by these impertinent women. He stood there watching 
 every packet and bundle with which the nurse was load- 
 ing her strong arms, feeling himself the while an utterly 
 persecuted and injured being, the sport of gods and men; 
 when the sight of a motor turning the corner of the grass- 
 grown drive, diverted his thoughts. 
 
 The doctor — the arch-villian of the plot ! 
 
 Melrose bethought himself a moment. Then he went 
 along the corridor to his library, half expecting to see 
 some other invader ensconced in liLs own 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 Aagorous frame tightening in expectation of the foe, 
 he looked frowning round the chaos of his room. Pictures, 
 with or without frames, and frames without pictures; 
 books in packing-cases with hinged sides, standing piled 
 one upon another, some closed and some with the sides 
 open and showing the books within; portfolios of engrav- 
 ings and drawings; inlaid or i^•ory boxes, containing a 
 medley of objects — miniatures, snuflF-boxes, buttons, 
 combs, seals; vases and plates of blue and white Nankin; 
 an Italian stucco or two; a Renaissance bust in painted 
 wood; fragments of stuff, cabinets, chairs, and tables of 
 various dates and styles — all were gathered 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 
 the wrecks and sports of centuries are heaped into the 
 
96 THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 piano nohile of some great building, once a palazzo, now 
 a chain of lumber rooms. For here also, the large and 
 stately library, with its nobly designed bookcases — still 
 empty of books — its classical panelhng, and embossed 
 ceiling, made a setting of which the miscellaneous plun- 
 der within it was not worthy. A man of taste would have 
 conceived the beautiful room itself as suffering from the 
 disorderly uses to which it was put. 
 
 Only, in the centre, the great French table, the master- 
 piece of Riesener, still stood respected and unencumbered. 
 It held nothing but a Sevres inkstand and pair of candle- 
 sticks that had once belonged to Madame EHsabeth. Mrs. 
 Dixon dusted it every morning, with a feather brush, 
 generally under the eyes of Melrose. He himself regarded 
 it with a fanatical veneration; and one of the chief pleas- 
 ures of his life was to beguile some passing dealer into 
 making an offer for it, and then contemptuously 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 shght 
 brown moustache on an otherwise smooth face. He 
 looked what he was — competent, sincere, and unafraid. 
 
 ISIelrose did not move from his position as the doctor 
 approached, and barely acknowledged his bow. Behind 
 the sarcasm of his voice the inner fury could be felt. 
 
 "I presume, sir, you have come to offer me your apolo- 
 gies.?" 
 
 Undershaw looked up. 
 
 "I am very sorry, Mr, Melrose, to have inconvenienced 
 
THE INIATING OF lATDIA 97 
 
 you and your household. But really after such an acci- 
 dent there was nothing else to be done. I am certain you 
 would have done the same yourself. When I first saw 
 him, the poor fellow was in a dreadful state. The only 
 thing to do was to carry him into the nearest shelter and 
 look after him. It was — I assure you — a case of hfe 
 and death." 
 
 Melrose made an effort to control himself, but the situa- 
 tion was too much for him. 
 
 He burst out, storming : 
 
 "I wonder, sir, that you have the audacity to present 
 yourself to me at all. \Mio or what authorized you, I 
 should like to know, to take possession of my house, and 
 install this young man here.^ \Vliat have I to do 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, which is only a quarter of a mile 
 distant. That of course would have been the reasonable, 
 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 endeavoured to protect himself and his life from 
 vulgar tongues and eyes, you must needs 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 an ambulance, and I'll thank you to make arrange- 
 ments at once to remove this young man to some neigh- 
 bouring hospital, where, I understand, he will have every 
 attention." 
 
 Melrose, even at seventy, was over six feet, and as he 
 stood towering above the little doctor, his fine gray hair 
 flowing back from strong aquiline features, inflamed with 
 
98 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 a passion of wrath, he made a sufficiently magnificent 
 appearance. Undershaw grew a httle pale, but he fronted 
 his accuser quietly. 
 
 " If you wish him removed, Mr. Melrose, you must take 
 the responsibihty yourself, I shall have nothing to do with 
 it — nor will the nurses." 
 
 " What do you mean, sir.'* You get yourseK and me into 
 
 this d d hobble, and then you refuse to take the only 
 
 decent way out of it ! I request you — I command you — 
 as soon as the WTiitebeck ambulance comes, to remove 
 your patient at once, and the two women who are looking 
 after him." 
 
 Undershaw slipped his hands into his pockets. The 
 coolness of the gesture was not lost on Melrose. 
 
 "I regret that for a few days to come I cannot sanction 
 anything of the kind. 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 serious case can be safely removed in a proper 
 ambulance. The whole thing is monstrous ! By G — d, sir, 
 what law obliges me to give up my house to a man I know 
 nothing about, and a whole tribe of hangers-on, besides.''" 
 
 And, fairly beside himself, Melrose struck a carved 
 chest, standing within reach, a blow which made the china 
 and glass objects huddled upon it ring again. 
 
 "Well," said Undershaw slowly, "there is such a thing 
 as — a law of humanity. But I imagine if you turn out 
 that man against my advice, and he dies on the road to 
 hospital, that some other kind of law might have some- 
 thing to say to it." 
 
 "You refuse!" 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 99 
 
 The shout made the Uttle doctor, always mindful of 
 his patient, look behind him, to see that the door was 
 closed. 
 
 "He cannot be moved for three or four days," was the 
 firm reply. "The chances are that he would collapse on 
 the road. But as soon as ever the thing is possible you 
 shall be relieved of him. I can easily find accommodation 
 for him at Pengarth. At present he is suffering from very 
 severe concussion. I hope there is not actual brain lesion 
 — but there may be. And, if so, to move him now would 
 be simply to destroy his chance of recovery." 
 
 The two men confronted each other, the unreasonable 
 fury of the one met by the scientific conscience of the other. 
 IVIelrose was dumfounded by the mingled 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 
 compunction whatever for what he had done, nay, rather, 
 a quiet conviction that, rage as he might, the owner of 
 ThreLfall Tower would have to submit. It was indeed the 
 suggestion in the doctor's manner, of an unexplained com- 
 pulsion behind — ethical or humanitarian — not to be 
 explained, but simply to be taken for granted, which per- 
 haps infuriated Melrose more than anytliing else. 
 
 Nevertheless, as he still glared at his enemy, Melrose 
 suddenly realized that the man was right. He would have 
 to submit. For many reasons, he could not — at this 
 moment in particular — excite any fresh hue and cry 
 which might bring the whole countryside on his back. 
 Unless the doctor were lying, and he could get another of 
 the craft to certify it, he would have to put up — for the 
 
100 THE IMATING OF LYDIA 
 
 very minimum of time — with the intolerable plague of 
 this invasion. 
 
 He turned away abruptly, took a turn up and down the 
 only free space the room contained, and returned. 
 
 "Perhaps you will kindly inform me, sir — -since you 
 have been good enough to take this philanthropic business 
 on yourself — or rather to shovel it on to me" — each 
 sarcastic word was flung hke a javelin at the doctor — 
 "whether you know anything whatever of this youth you 
 are thrusting upon me.^ I don't imagine that he has 
 dropped from the skies ! If you don't know, and haven't 
 troubled yourself to find out, I shall set the pohce on at 
 once, track his friends, and hand him over!" 
 
 Undershaw was at once all ci\ility and alacrity. 
 
 "I have already made some inquiries at Keswick, Mr. 
 Melrose, where I was this morning. He was staying, it 
 appears, with some friends at the Victoria Hotel — a Mr. 
 and Mrs. Ransom, Americans. The hotel people thought 
 that he had been to meet them at Liverpool, had taken 
 them through the Lakes, and had then seen them off for 
 the south. He himself was on his way to Scotland to fish. 
 He had sent his luggage to Pengarth by 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 on the main line." 
 
 "Just as I supposed! Idle scapegrace! — with nothing 
 in the world to do but to get himself and other people into 
 trouble!" 
 
 "You saw the card that I left for you on the hall table.'* 
 But there is something else that we found upon him in 
 undressing him which I should greatly prefer, if I might, to 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 101 
 
 hand over to your care. You, I have no doubt, under- 
 stand such things. They seem to be valuable, and neither 
 the nurses nor I at all wish to have charge of them. There 
 is a ring" — Undershaw searched his pockets — "and this 
 case." 
 
 He held out two small objects. Melrose — still breath- 
 ing quick with anger — took them unwillingly. With 
 the instinctive gesture of the collector, however, he put up 
 his eyeglass to look at the ring. Undershaw saw him 
 start. 
 
 "Good heavens!" 
 
 The voice was that of another man. He looked frown- 
 ing 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 sometimes delirious, he might do himself 
 some hurt with it." 
 
 Melrose opened the case — a small flat case of worn 
 green leather some six inches long; and looked at its con- 
 tents in a speechless amazement. The ring was a Greek 
 gem of the best period — an Artemis with the towered 
 crown, cut in amethyst. The case contained six pieces, 
 — two cameos, and four engraved gems — amethyst, 
 cornelian, sardonyx, and rock crystal; which Melrose 
 recognized at once as among the most precious things of 
 this kind in the world ! He turned abruptly, walked to his 
 writing-table, took out the gems, weighed them in his 
 hand, examined them with a magnifying glass, or held 
 them to the light, muttering to himself, and apparently 
 no longer conscious of the presence of Undershaw. Recol- 
 
102 THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 lections ran about his brain: "Mackworth showed me 
 that Medusa himself last year in London. He bought 
 that Mars at the Castellani sale. And that's the Muse 
 which that stupid brute Vincent had my commission for, 
 and let slip through his fingers at the Arconati sale!" 
 
 Undershaw observed him, with an amusement carefully 
 concealed. He had suspected from the beginning that in 
 these possessions of the poor stricken youth means might 
 be found for taming the formidable master of the Tower. 
 For himself he scorned "la curiosite," and its devotees, 
 as mere triflers and shell-gatherers on shores bathed by 
 the great ocean of science. But like all natural rulers of 
 men he was quick to seize on any weakness that suited his 
 own ends; and he said to himself that Faversham was 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" — the speaker smiled amicably — 
 "that we have not to do with any mere penniless adven- 
 turer. His friends are probably at this moment extremely 
 anxious about him. I hope we may soon get some clue 
 to them. Now" — the voice sharpened to the practical 
 note — "may I appeal to you, Mr. Melrose, to make ar- 
 rangements for the nurses as soon as is convenient to you. 
 Their wants are very simple — two beds — plain food — 
 a small amount of attendance — and some means of 
 communicating without too much delay with myself, or 
 the chemist. I promise they shall give as httle trouble as 
 possible!" 
 
 Melrose rose slowly without replying. He took a bunch 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 103 
 
 of keys from is pocket, and opened one of the drawers in 
 the Riesener table. As he did so, the drawer, under a 
 stream of sunset Ught from the window beyond it, seemed 
 to give out a many-coloured flash — a rapid Irislike effect, 
 lost in a moment. The impression made on Undershaw 
 was that the drawer already contained gems hke those in 
 the case — or jewels — or both. 
 
 Melrose seemed to have opened the drawer in a fit of 
 abstraction during which he had forgotten Undershaw's 
 presence. But, if so, the act roused him, and he looked 
 round half angrily, half furtively at his visitor, as he hastily 
 relocked the drawer. 
 
 Then speaking with renewed arrogance, he said: 
 
 " Well, sir, I will see to these things. For to-night, I con- 
 sent — for to-night only, mind you — reserving entirely 
 my liberty of action for to-morrow." 
 
 Undershaw nodded, and they left the room together. 
 
 Dixon and Mrs. Dixon were both waiting in the passage 
 outside, W'atching for Melrose, and hanging on his aspect. 
 To their amazement they were told that a room was to be 
 got ready for the nurses, a girl was to be fetched to wait on 
 them from the farm, and food was to be cooked. 
 
 The faces of both the old servants showed instant rehef . 
 Dixon went off to the farm, and Mrs. Dixon flew to her 
 kitchen. She was getting old, and the thought of the extra 
 work to be done oppressed her. Nevertheless after these 
 years of solitude, passed as it were in a besieged camp — 
 Threlfall and its inmates against the world — this new and 
 tardy contact with humanity, this momentary return to 
 neighbourly, kindly ways brought with it a strange sweet- 
 ness. And when night fell, and a subdued, scarcely per- 
 
104 THE INIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 ceptible murmur of life began to creep about the passages 
 of the old house, in general so dead and silent, Mrs. Dixon 
 might have been heard hoarsely crooning an old song to 
 herself as she went to and fro in the kitchen. All the 
 evening she and Dixon were restless, inventing work, 
 when work was finished, running from yard to house and 
 house to yard, calling to each other without reason, and 
 looking at each other with bewildered eyes. They were 
 like beetles under a stone, when the stone is suddenly 
 lifted. 
 
 Gradually the house sank to rest. Dixon creeping past 
 the door of the sick-room, on his stockinged feet, could 
 hear the moaning, the hoarse indeterminate sounds, now 
 loud, now plaintive, made by the sufiFerer. The day nurse 
 came out with an anxious face, on her way to bed. Mr. 
 Faversham she said was very ill — what could be done if 
 it did become necessary to summon the doctor .f* Dixon 
 assured her the gardener who was also the groom was sleep- 
 ing in the house, and the horse was in the stable. She had 
 only to wake Mrs. Dixon — he showed her where and 
 how. In the dark corridor, amid all its obstructive lum- 
 ber, these two people who had never seen each other be- 
 fore, man and woman, took anxious counsel for the help of 
 an unconscious third, a complete stranger to both of 
 them. 
 
 The night nurse gave a dose of morphia according to 
 directions, and sat down 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 to thin, she was startled by a sound outside. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 105 
 
 She half rose, and saw the door open to admit a tall and 
 gaunt figure, whom she recognized as the master of the 
 house. 
 
 She held up an anxious finger, but Melrose advanced in 
 spite of it. His old flowered dressing-gown and gray 
 head came within the range of the night-light, and the 
 nurse saw his shadow projected, grotesque and threaten- 
 ing, on the white traceries of the ceiling. But he made no 
 sound, and never looked at the nurse. He stood survey- 
 ing young Faversham for some time, as he lay hot and 
 haggard with fever, yet sleeping under the power of mor- 
 phia. And at last, without a word, the nurse saw her 
 formidable visitor depart. 
 
 Melrose returned to his own quarters. The window of 
 his room was open, and outside the great mountains, in a 
 de'v\'y dawn, were begirming to show purple 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 at twenty in Sandford lasher on the 
 Oxford Thames; friends of his early manhood, riding be- 
 side him to hounds, or over the rolhng green of the Cam- 
 pagna. Old instincts long suppressed, yet earher and 
 more primitive in liim 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. He thought 
 Avith vindictive bitterness of Netta, who had robbed and 
 deserted him. And then, again, of his involuntary 
 guest. 
 
 The strangest medley of ideas ran through his mind. 
 Self-pity; recollections connected with habits on which 
 
106 THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 he had dehberately turned his back some thirty years 
 before — the normal pleasures, friendships, occupations 
 of English society; fanatical hatred and resentment — 
 against two women in particular, the first of whom had, in 
 his opinion, deliberately spoilt liis life by a double cruelty, 
 while the second — his wife — whom he had plucked up 
 out of poverty, and the dust-heap of her disreputable re- 
 lations, had ungratefully and wickedly rebelled against 
 and deserted him. 
 
 Also — creeping through all his thoughts, like a wander- 
 ing breeze in the dark, stole again and again the chilhng 
 consciousness of old age — and of the end, waiting. He 
 was fiercely tenacious of life, and his seventieth birthday 
 had rung a knell in his ears that still sounded. So defiant 
 was he of death, that he had never yet brought himself to 
 make a will. He would not admit to himself that he was 
 mortal; or make arrangements that seemed to admit the 
 grim fact — weakly accepted — into the citadel of a still 
 warm life. 
 
 Yet the physical warnings of old age had not been 
 absent. Some day he would feel, perhaps suddenly — 
 the thought of it sent tlirough him a shiver of impotent 
 revolt against the human destiny — the clutch of the mas- 
 ter whom none escapes. 
 
 Vague feehngs, and shapeless terrors ! — only subter- 
 raneously connected with the wounded man lying in his 
 house. 
 
 And yet they were connected. The advent of the un- 
 conscious youth below had acted on the ugly stagnation 
 of the Threlfall life with a touch of crystaUizing force. 
 Melrose felt it in his, own way no less than the Dixons. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 107 
 
 Something seemed to have ended; and the mere change 
 suggested that something might begin. 
 
 The sudden shock, indeed, of the new event, the mere 
 interruption of habit, were serious matters in the psy- 
 chology of a man, with whom neither brain nor nerves 
 were normally attuned. Melrose moved restlessly about 
 his room for a great part of the night. He could not get 
 the haggard image 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 might die. 
 
 Nonsense! One could get a specialist from Edinburgh 
 
 — from London if necessary. 
 
 And always, by whatever road, his thoughts came back 
 
 — as it were leaping — to the gems. Amethyst, sar- 
 donyx, crystal — they twinkled and flashed through all 
 the byways of the brain. So long as the house held their 
 owTier, 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 ridiculous chance had this lad 
 got hold of them? 
 
 With the morning came a letter from a crony of Mel- 
 rose's in London, an old Fellow of the Society of Anti- 
 quaries, with whom he had had not a few deahngs in the 
 past. 
 
 "Have you heard that that queer fish Mackworth has 
 left his whole cabinet of gems to a young nephew — his 
 sister's son, to whom they say he has been much attached? 
 Everything else goes to the British Museum and South 
 Kensington, and it is a queer business to have left the 
 most precious thing of all to a youth who in all probability 
 has neither knowledge nor taste, and may be trusted to 
 
108 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 turn them into cash as soon as possible. Do you remem- 
 ber the amethyst Medusa? I could shout with joy when 
 I think of it! You will be wanting to run the nephew to 
 earth. Make haste! — or Germany or America will grab 
 them." 
 
 But the amethyst Medusa lay safe in her green case in 
 the drawer of the Riesener table. 
 
DUDDON CASTLE in May was an agreeable place. 
 Its park, lying on the eastern slopes of the moun- 
 tain mass which includes Skiddaw and Blen- 
 cathra, 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 the mountain where the deer were at 
 home, while on the east and south its splendid oaks stood 
 thick in bracken beside sparkling becks, overlooking dells 
 and valleys of succulent grass where the sheep ranged at 
 will. The house consisted of an early Tudor keep, married 
 to a Jacobean house of rose-coloured brick, which Lady 
 Tatham had since her widowhood succeeded in freeing from 
 the ugly stucco which had once disguised and defaced it. 
 It could not claim the classical charm, the learned ele- 
 gance of Threlfall Tower. Duddon was romantic — a 
 medley of beautiful things, full of history, colour, and 
 time, fused by the trees and fern, the luxuriant creepers 
 and mosses, and of a mild and rainy cUmate into a lovely 
 irregular whole; with no outline to speak of, yet with 
 notliing that one could seriously wish away. The size 
 was great, yet no one but an auctioneer could have called 
 it "superb"; it seemed indeed to take a pleasure in con- 
 cealing the whole extent of its clustered building; and by 
 the time you were aware of it, you had fallen in love with 
 Duddon, and notliing mattered. 
 
 109 
 
110 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 But if without, in its broad external features, Duddon 
 betrayed a romantic freedom in the minds of those who 
 had planned it, nothing could have been more orderly or 
 exquisite than its detail, when detail had to be considered. 
 The Italian garden round the house with its formal masses 
 of contrasting colour, its pleached alleys, and pergolas, 
 its steps, vases, and fountains, was as good in its way as 
 the glorious wildness of the Chase. One might have 
 applied to it the Sophoclean thought — " How clever is 
 man who can make all these things!" — so diverse, and 
 so pleasant. And indoors, Duddon was oppressive by the 
 very ingenuity of its refinement, the rightness of every 
 touch. No overcrowding; no ostentation. Beautiful 
 spaces, giving room and dignity to a few beautiful objects; 
 famous pictures, yet not too many; and, in general, things 
 rather suggestive than perfect; sketches — fragments — 
 from the great arts of the world; as it were, a lovely 
 wreckage from a vast ocean set tenderly in a perfect order, 
 breathing at once the greatness and the eternal 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 created it 
 through many years; she had been terribly "advised," in 
 the process, by a number of clever folk, English and for- 
 eign; and the result alternately pleased and tormented her. 
 To be fastidious to such a point is 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 was personally generous and soft- 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 111 
 
 hearted, but all "causes" found in her rather a critic than 
 a supporter. The follies of her own class were particularly 
 plain to her; her relations, Tvnth their great names, and 
 great "places," seemed to her often the most ridiculous 
 persons in the world — a world no longer made for them. 
 But one must hasten to add that she was no less aware of 
 her own absurdities; so that the ironic mind in her robbed 
 her both of conceit for herself and enthusiasm for others. 
 
 Two or three days after the storming of Threlfall Tower, 
 Lady Tatham came in from a mountain ramble at tea- 
 time, expecting her son, who had been away on a short 
 visit. She entered the drawing-room by a garden door, 
 laden with branches of hawthorn and wild cheriy. In her 
 linen dress and shady hat she still looked youthful, and 
 there were many who could not be got to admit that she 
 was any less beautiful than she had ever been. These 
 flatterers of course belonged to her own generation; young 
 eyes were not so kind. 
 
 Tea had been brought in, and she was busy with the 
 arrangement of a branch of wild cheiTy in a corner of the 
 room where its pearl and silver blossoms shone out against 
 a background of dull purple, when the door was hastily 
 opened, and a curly-haired youth stood on the threshold 
 who smiled 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, affect- 
 ing to scold; but her eyes betrayed her. She put up her 
 
112 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 hand and smoothed back the thick and tumbHng 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 we have 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 her daughters who came to White 
 Cottage about two years ago?" 
 
 "AMrs. Penfold?" 
 
 "Just so. I told you I met them — in April, when you 
 were abroad — at the Hunt Ball. But — well, really, I've 
 met them several times since. The Deacons know them." 
 The sHght consciousness in the voice did not escape his 
 mother. "You know you've never called on them. 
 Mother, you are disgraceful about calling! Well, I met 
 them again this afternoon, just the other side of White- 
 beck. They were in a pony-carriage, and I was in the 
 motor. It's a jolly afternoon, and they didn't seem to 
 have anything particular to do, so I just asked them to 
 come on here, and have tea, and we'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 Miss Penfold thought you ought to have 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 113 
 
 called on them before they came here! But Mrs. Pen- 
 fold'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 eight years to call on, and when you 
 got there you'd forgotten their names." 
 
 " Pure invention. Never mind, sit down and have your 
 tea. How many daughters.?" 
 
 "How many Miss Penfolds? Well, there are two, and 
 I danced with them both. But" — the young man shook 
 his head slowly — "I haven't got any use for the elder 
 one." 
 
 "Plain.?" 
 
 "Not at all — rather pretty. But she talks philosophy 
 and stuff. Not my sort." 
 
 " And the younger one doesn't talk philosophy.?" 
 
 "Not she. She's a deal too clever. But she paints — 
 like a bird. I've seen some of her things." 
 
 "Oh! — so you've been to call.?" 
 
 Lady Tatham hfted her beautiful eyes upon her son. 
 Harry Tatham fidgeted with his cup and spoon. 
 
 "No. I was shy, because you hadn't been. But " 
 
 "Harry," interrupted his mother, her look all vivacity, 
 "did she paint those 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? She told me she had sent them there. So 
 I just wrote to the secretary and bought them." 
 
114 THE iMATING OF LIDIA 
 
 There was silence a moment. Lady Tatham continued 
 to look at her son. The eyebrows on her brow, as they 
 slowly arched themselves, expressed the haU-amused, half- 
 startled inquiry she did not put into words. He flushed 
 scarlet, still smihng, and suddenly he laid his hand on 
 hers. 
 
 "I say, mummie, don't tease me, and don't talk to me 
 about it. There may be 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 after you." 
 
 "I know. But you're not hke other mothers," said 
 the youth impatiently. "You want me to be happy and 
 please myself. At least if you'd wanted the usual thing, 
 you should have brought me up differently!" He smiled 
 upon her 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 promise you, 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 restlessly from the table. "But don't let's talk about 
 it. Somehow I can't stand it — yet. I just wanted you 
 to know that I liked them — and I'd be glad if you'd be 
 civil to them — that's all. Hullo — here they are!" 
 For as he moved across the room he caught sight, through 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 115 
 
 a side window commanding the park, of a pony-carriage 
 just driving into the wide gravel space before the house. 
 
 "Already? Their pony must have seven-leagued boots, 
 to have caught you up in this time." 
 
 "Oh! I was overtaken by Undershaw, and he kept 
 me talking. He told me the most extraordinary thing! 
 You've no idea what's been happening at the Tower, 
 
 That old brute Melrose! But I say 1" He made a 
 
 dash across the room. 
 
 "What's the matter?" 
 
 "I must go and put those pictiu-es 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 very surprising." 
 
 Lady Tatham sat on at the tea-table, her chin in her 
 hands. It was quite true that she had brought up her 
 son with unconventional ideas; that she had unconven- 
 tional ideas herseK on family and marriage. All the same, 
 her mind at this moment was in a most conventional state 
 of shock. She knew it, perceiving quite clearly the irony 
 of the situation. Who were the Penfolds? A little artist 
 girl? — earning her hving — wuth humble, perhaps hardly 
 presentable relations — to mate with her glorious, golden 
 Harry? — ^^ Harry whom half the ambitious mothers of 
 England courted and flattered? 
 
 The thought of defeating the mothers of England was 
 however so pleasant to her sense of humour that she 
 hurriedly abandoned this line of reflection. What had she 
 been about? to be so blind to Harry's proceedings? She 
 had been lately absorbed, with that intensity she could 
 
116 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 still, at fifty, throw into the most diverse things, in a piece 
 of new embroidery, reproducing a gorgeous Italian design; 
 and in a religious novel of Fogazzaro's. Also she had been 
 watching birds, for hours, with a spy-glass in the park. 
 She said to herself that she had better have been watching 
 her son. 
 
 Meanwhile she was quite aware of the slight sounds 
 from the hall which heralded the approaching visitors. 
 The footman threw the door open; and she rose. 
 
 There came in, with hurrying steps, a httle lady in 
 widow's dress, her widow'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't correct — indeed we are quite aware of it — 
 that we should call upon you first. But then we know 
 your son — he is such a charming young man ! — and he 
 asked us to come. I don't think Lydia wanted to come 
 — she always wants to do things properly. No, indeed, 
 she didn't want to come. It's all my doing. I per- 
 suaded her." 
 
 "That was very kind of you," said Lady Tatham as she 
 shook hands first with the mother, and then with the silent 
 daughter. "Oh, I'm a dreadful neighbour. I confess it 
 in sackcloth and ashes. I ought to have called upon you 
 long ago. I don't know what to say. I'm incorrigible! 
 Please will you sit down, and will you have some tea,? 
 My son will be here directly." 
 
 But instead of sitting down Mrs. Penfold ran to the 
 window, exclaiming on the beauty of the view, the garden. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 117 
 
 the trees, and the bold profile of the old keep, thrown 
 forward among the flowers. There was nothing the least 
 distinguished in her ecstasy. But it flowed and bubbled 
 with perfect sincerity; and Lady Tatham did not dislike 
 it at all. 
 
 "A lady" — she thought — "quite a lady, though 
 rather a goose. The daughter is uncomfortable." 
 
 And she glanced at the slightly flushed face of Lydia, 
 who followed in their wake, every now and then replying, 
 as politeness demanded, to some appeal from her mother. 
 It was indeed clear that the visit had been none of her 
 doing. 
 
 Grace.'* — personality.'* — Lady Tatham divined them, 
 from the way the girl moved, from the look in her gray- 
 blue eyes, from the carriage of her head. She was certainly 
 pretty, wath that proud virginal beauty which often bears 
 itself on the defensive, in our modern world where a cer- 
 tain superfluity of women has not tended to chivalry. 
 But how little prettiness matters, beside the other thing ! 
 — the indefinable, irresistible something — which gives 
 the sceptre and the crown ! All the time she was listening 
 to Mrs. Penfold's chatter, and the daughter's occasional 
 words, Victoria Tatham was on the watch for this some- 
 thing; and not without jealousy and a critical mind. She 
 had been taken by surprise; and she resented it. 
 
 Harry was very long in coming back ' — in order she 
 supposed to give her time to make acquaintance. 
 
 But at last she had them at the tea-table, and Mrs. Pen- 
 fold's adjectives were a little quenched. Each side con- 
 sidered the other. Lady Tatham's dress, her old hat, and 
 country shoes attracted Lydia, no less than the boyish, 
 
118 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 open-air look, which still survived through all the signs 
 of a complex life and a cosmopolitan experience. Mrs. Pen- 
 fold, on her part, thought the old hat, and the square-toed 
 shoes "unsuitable." In her young days great ladies 
 "dressed" in the afternoons. 
 
 "Do you like your cottage?" Lady Tatliam inquired. 
 
 Mrs. Penfold replied that nothing could be more to their 
 taste — except for the motors and the dust. 
 
 "Ah! that's my fault," said a voice behind her. "All 
 motorists are brutes. I say, it was jolly of you to come ! " 
 
 So saying, Tatham found a place between his mother 
 and Mrs. Penfold, looking across at I^ydia. Youth, happi- 
 ness, manly strength came in with him. He had no 
 features to speak of — round cheeks, a mouth generally 
 slightly open, and given to smiling, a clear brow, a red and 
 white complexion, a babyish chin, thick fair hair, and a 
 countenance neither reserved nor foolishly indiscreet. 
 Tatham's physical eminence — and it was undisputed — 
 lay not in his plain, good-tempered face, but in the young 
 perfection of his athlete's form. Among spectacles, his 
 mother, at least, asked nothing better than to see him on 
 horseback or swinging a golf -club. 
 
 "How did you come? — through the Glendarra woods?" 
 he asked of Lydia. The delight in his eyes as he turned 
 them upon her was already evident to his mother. 
 
 Lydia assented. 
 
 "Then you saw the rhododendrons? Jolly, aren't 
 they?" 
 
 Lydia replied with ardour. There is a place in the 
 Glendarra woods, where the oaks and firs fall away to let 
 a great sheet of rhododendrons sweep up from the lowland 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 119 
 
 into a mountain boundary of gray crag and tumbling fern. 
 Rose-pink, white and crimson, the waves of colour roll 
 among the rocks, till Cumbria might seem Kashmir. 
 Lydia's looks sparkled, as she spoke 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 so easily. Couldn't 
 you, mother.''" 
 
 "Delighted," said Lady Tatham, rather perfunctorily. 
 " They are just in their glory — they ought to be painted." 
 
 "Thank you so much!" — Lydia's tone was a little 
 hurried — "but I have so many subjects on hand just 
 now." 
 
 "Oh, but nothing haK so beautiful as that, Lydia!" 
 cried her mother, "or so 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 a laugh and a flush. 
 
 "I say, we mustn't bother you to paint what we like. 
 That would be too bad." 
 
 Lydia smiled upon him. 
 
 "I'm so busy with a big view of the river and Threl- 
 fall." 
 
 "Threlfall? Oh, do you know — mother ! do you know 
 what's been happening at Threlfall. Undershaw told 
 me. The most marvellous thing!" He turned to Mrs. 
 Tenfold. "You've heard the stories they tell about here 
 of old Melrose?" 
 
 I^ydia laughed softly. 
 
120 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 " 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 like passing the gate of Threl- 
 fall, and the high wall round the estate made her shud- 
 der. 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 gets richer every year in spite of the state 
 of the property. And meanwhile no human 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 his behaviour to everybody round about — well, I can 
 tell you all about that whenever you want to know! 
 However, now they've stormed him — they've smoked 
 him out like a wasp's nest. My goodness — he did buzz ! 
 Undershaw found a man badly hurt, lying on the road by 
 the bridge — bicycle accident — run over too, I believe 
 — and carried him into the Tower, willy-nilly!" The 
 speaker chuckled. " Melrose was away. Old Dixon said 
 they should only come in over his body — but was re- 
 moved. Undershaw got four labourers to help him, and, 
 by George, they carried the man in! They found the 
 drawing-room downstairs empty, no furniture in it, or 
 next to none — turned it into a bedroom in no time. 
 Undershaw telegraphed for a couple of nurses — and when 
 Melrose came home next day — tableau! There was a 
 jolly row! Undershaw enjoyed it. Fd have given any- 
 thing in the world to be there. And Melrose '11 have to 
 stick it out they say for weeks and weeks — the fellow's 
 so badly hurt — and " 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 121 
 
 Lydia interrupted him. 
 
 "What did Doctor Undershaw say of him to-day?" 
 
 She bent forward across the tea-table, speaking ear- 
 nestly. 
 
 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 Under- 
 shaw that morning, on his way to the Tower, in Whitebeck 
 village, and he had told her the story. She was par- 
 ticularly interested, because of the little meeting by the 
 river, which she described in a few words. Twenty min- 
 utes or so after her conversation with the stranger the 
 accident must have happened. 
 
 Mrs. Penfold meanwhile was thinking, "Why didn't 
 Lydia tell me all this on the drive?" Then she remem- 
 bered one of Lydia's characteristics — a kind of passion- 
 ate reticence about things that moved her. Had the 
 fate then of the young man — whom she could only have 
 seen for a few minutes — touched her so much? 
 
 Lady Tatham had listened attentively to Lydia's 
 story — the inner mind of her all the time closely and 
 critically observant of the story-teller, her beauty, the 
 manner and quality of it, her movements, her voice. Her 
 voice 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. 
 
122 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 Lydia supplied the information. The name of the 
 young man was Claude Faversham. He seemed to have 
 no relations whatever who could come and nurse him. 
 
 "Claude Faversham!" Tatham turned upon her with 
 astonishment. "I say! I know a Claude Faversham. 
 I was a term with him at Oxford — at least if it'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 was tying up my easel." 
 
 "A ring!" cried Tatham, wrinkling up his forehead. 
 "By George, that is odd! I remember Faversham's ring 
 perfectly. An uncle gave it him — an old Professor at 
 Oxford, who used to collect things. My tutor sent me to 
 a lecture once, when I was in for schools. Mackworth — 
 that was the old boy's name — was lecturing, and Faver- 
 sham came down to help him show his cases. Faver- 
 sham's own ring was supposed to be something special, 
 and Mackworth talked no end about it. Goodness ! — 
 so that's the man. Of course I must go and see him! 
 — ask after him anyway." 
 
 But the tone had grown suddenly dubious. Lady 
 Tatham's eyebrows rose shghtly. 
 
 "GotoThrelfall, Harry.?" 
 
 "Well, not to call on Melrose, mother! I should have 
 to make sure he was out 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 me into a little club I wanted to belong to." 
 
 "Oh, but yo^^ could belong to any club you wished!" 
 cried Mrs. Penfold. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 123 
 
 Tatham laughed and coloured. Lady Tatham slipped 
 the slightest look at Lydia. 
 
 "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 grasping and tyrannical old villain! He's got a 
 business on now of the most abominable kind. I have 
 been hearing the whole story this week. A man who 
 dared to county court him for some perfectly just claim. 
 And Melrose in revenge has simply ruined him. Then 
 there's a right of way dispute going on — scandalous ! — 
 nothing to do with me! — but I'm helping other people to 
 fight him. And his cottages! — you never saw such pig- 
 sties! 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 purpose whatever. Well, 
 now that I'm on the County Council, I mean to go for 
 him! " 
 
 The young man sprang up, apparently to fetch ciga- 
 rettes, really that he might once more obtain a full view 
 of Lydia, who had moved from the tea-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 who cherished some rather strict and old- 
 
124 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 fashioned notions about women, very imperfectly re- 
 vealed even to his mother, was momentarily displeased; 
 then lost himself in the pleasure of watching a white hand 
 and arm — for the day was hot and sleeves short — in new 
 positions. 
 
 Lady Tatham looked round in answer to her son's last 
 words. 
 
 "I wish, Harr3% 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. I believe, mother, you know a heap of things 
 about Melrose you've never told me!" 
 
 Lady Tatham smiled faintly, but did not reply. Whereat 
 Mrs. Penfold whose curiosity was insatiable, within lady- 
 hke bounds, tried to ask questions of 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 under- 
 stand, to run with. But she could not stand ThreKall — 
 nor — I suppose — her husband. So one day — 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. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 125 
 
 "Oh, they can't be aUve, surely," said Lydia. "Mr. 
 Meh-ose told Doctor Undershaw that he had no relations 
 in the world, and didn't wish to be troubled with any." 
 
 Contempt sat on Tatham's ruddy countenance. 
 
 "Well, as far as we're concerned, he may take it easy. 
 His family affections don't matter to anybody! But the 
 way he behaves as a landowner does really matter to all 
 of us. He brings disgrace on the whole show." 
 
 He rose, straightening his young shoulders as he spoke. 
 Lydia noted the modest involuntary consciousness of 
 power and responsibility which for a moment dignified 
 the boyish countenance; and as her eyes met his Tatham 
 was startled by the passionate approval expressed in the 
 girl's look. 
 
 She asked if there was no agent on the Melrose estates 
 to temper the tyrannies of their master. 
 
 Tatham came to her side — explaining — looking down 
 upon her with an eagerness 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 things Melrose does. He'd cut his 
 hand off first. And if he didn't, the old villain would kick 
 him out in no time. But that's enough about him, isn't 
 it? 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 to Lydia, and they 
 moved away together. His mother looked after them. 
 Tatham was leading the way toward the door in the 
 
126 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 farther wall which led to his own sitting-room. Their 
 young faces were turned toward each other. The girl's 
 shyness seemed to have broken up. She was now talking 
 fast, with smiles. Ah, no doubt they would have plenty 
 to say to each other, as soon as they were together. 
 
 It was one of the bitter-sweet moments of life. Lady 
 Tatham steadied herself. 
 
 "That is a sketch," she said mechanically, "by Burne- 
 Jones, for one of the Pygmalion and Galatea series. We 
 have one or two others on the same subject." 
 
 Mrs. Penfold clasped her small hands in rapture. 
 
 "Oh! but how interesting! Do you know I was once 
 Galatea.'^ When I was a girl I used to act a great deal. 
 Well, not act exactly — for I didn't have to 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 hundreds of pounds for hospitals — hun- 
 dreds. It's not vain now, is it, to say one was 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 old and ugly now," cried Mrs. Penfold with 
 fervour. "Of course" — she looked shyly at the sketch 
 
 — "I had beautiful draperies on. My Galatea was not 
 like that." 
 
 "Draperies.''" Lady Tatham laughed. "Pygmalion 
 had only just made her — there had been no time to dress 
 her." 
 
 ''We dressed her," said Mrs. Penfold decidedly, "from 
 top to toe. Some day I nmst show you the drawings of it 
 
 — it's not like that at all. The girls think I'm silly to 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 127 
 
 talk of it — oh! they don't say it — they're very good to 
 me. But I can see they do. Only — they've so many 
 things to be proud 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 twenty 
 pounds out of her sketches this week!" 
 
 "Capital!" said Lady Tatham smiling. 
 
 "Ah, it means a great deal to us! You see" — Mrs. 
 Penfold looked round her — "when you're very rich, and 
 have everything you want, you can't understand — at 
 least I don't think you can — how it feels to have twenty 
 pounds you don't expect. Lydia just danced about the 
 room. And I'm to have a new best dress — she insists on 
 it. Well, you see" — the httle pink and 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 were rich, 
 and made a thousand pounds. I daresay" — she looked, 
 awestruck, at the Burne-Jones sketch — "that's worth 
 our whole income. But we're very happy. We never fret. 
 Lydia and Susy both help in the housework. And I make 
 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 studying in London, had copied one like it in the 
 National Gallery. And her poor 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 
 "poor father" — that he had been a naval officer, a Cap- 
 tain Penfold, who had had to retire early on half-pay be- 
 
128 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 cause of ill-health, and had died just as the girls had grown 
 up. "He felt it so — he was so proud of them — but 
 he always said, ' If one of us is to go, why, it had better be 
 me, 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 the little widow, even when she prattled 
 most embarrassingly about her own affairs, or stood 
 frankly wondering at the Tatham wealth. But no one 
 could deny it was untutored. Lady Tatham thought of 
 all the Honourable Johns, and Geralds, and Barbaras on 
 the Tatham side — Harry's uncles and cousins — and the 
 various magnificent people, ranging up to royalty, on her 
 own; and envisaged the moment when Mrs. Penfold should 
 look them all in the face, with her pretty, foohsh eyes, and 
 her chatter about Lydia's earnings and Lydia's blouses. 
 And not all the inward laughter which the notion pro- 
 voked in one to whom life was largely comedy, in the 
 Meredithian sense, could blind her to the fact that the 
 shock would be severe. 
 
 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 she had read 
 poetry, and talked of heroes, into whose ears she had 
 poured Ruskin and Carlyle from his youth up; who was the 
 friend and comrade of all the country folk, because of a 
 certain irrepressible interest in his kind, a certain selfless- 
 ness that were his cradle gifts; who shared in his 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 of life? 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 129 
 
 For, like it or despise it, English society was there, and 
 he must fill his place in it. And things are seemly and 
 unseemly, fitting and unfitting — as well as good and bad. 
 This inexperienced girl, with her prettiness, and her art, 
 and her small world — was it fair to her? Is there not 
 something in the unconscious training of birth and posi- 
 tion, when, bon gre, mat gre, there is a big part in the 
 world's social business to be played? 
 
 And meanwhile, with a fraction of her mind, she went on 
 talking "Raphaels, Correggios, and stufiF." She did the 
 honours of half their possessions. Then it suddenly 
 seemed to her that the time was long, and she led the way 
 back once more to the drawing-room, in a rather formi- 
 dable silence, of which even her cheerful companion be- 
 came 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 dispelled the 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, on the other hand, 
 was overcast. Had the girl been trampling on him? 
 Impossible! In any case, there was no denying the quiet 
 ease, the complete self-possession, with which the "inex- 
 perienced" one moved through Harry's domain, and took 
 leave of Harry's mother. Your modern girl? — of the 
 intellectual sort — quite unmoved by gewgaws! Minx! 
 
 Harry saw the two ladies into their pony-carriage. 
 When he returned to his mother, it was with an absent 
 brow. He went to the window and stood softly whistling, 
 
130 THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 with his hands in his pockets. Lady Tatham waited a 
 little, then went up to him, and took him by the arms — 
 her eyes smiling into his, without a word. 
 
 He disengaged himself, almost roughly. 
 
 "I wish I knew something about art!" he said dis- 
 contentedly. "And why should anybody want to 
 be independent all their lives — economically inde- 
 pendent.'*" 
 
 He slowly repeated the words, evidently from another 
 mouth, in a kind of wonder. 
 
 "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 her yet — 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 as though 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 a career — and earning money — and things 
 of that kind. Oh, I daresay I'm a stupid 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 MATING OF LYDIA 131 
 
 The young man's chagrin and bewilderment were evi- 
 dent. His mother could only 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 desper- 
 ate reply. 
 
 "Pooh!" she said, releasing him, after she had kissed 
 him. "We shall see." 
 
 And straightway, with a wave of the hand as it were, 
 she dismissed all thought of the Honourable Johns and 
 Geralds. Mrs. Penfold and her chatter sank out of sight 
 and hearing. She was her son's champion — against the 
 world. 
 
VI 
 
 IT WAS the tenth day since the evening when Claude 
 Faversham had been carried unconscious into Threl- 
 fall Tower, and the first one which anj^thing like 
 clearness of mind had returned to him. Before that there 
 had been passing gleams and perceptions, soon lost again 
 in the delusions of fever, or narcotic sleep. A big room 
 — strange faces — pain — a doctor coming and going — 
 intervals of misery following intervals of nothingness ■ — 
 helplessness — intolerable oppression — horrible struggles 
 with food — horrible fear of being touched — gradually, 
 little by little, these ideas had emerged in consciousness. 
 Then had followed the first moments of relief — in- 
 credibly sweet — but fugitive, soon swallowed up in 
 returning discomfort; yet lengthening, deepening, passing 
 by degrees into a new and tremulous sense of security 
 of a point gained and passed. And at last on this tenth 
 morning — a still and 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, dumb 
 anguish lay behind him, already half effaced; and the 
 words of a psalm familiar at school and college ran idly 
 through his mind: "My soul hath escaped as a bird out 
 of the snare of the fowler." 
 
 "Where am I?" Not in a hospital. Hospital ceilings 
 are not adorned with wreaths and festoons in raised stucco, 
 
 132 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 133 
 
 or with medallion groups of winged children playing with 
 torches, or bows and arrows. 
 
 "I have a gem hke that one," he thought, sleepily. 
 "A genius with a torch." 
 
 Then for a long time he was only vaguely conscious of 
 more light than usual in the room — of an open window 
 somewhere — of rustling leaves outside — and of a chaf- 
 finch singing. . . . 
 
 Another couple of days passed, and he began to question 
 the kind woman whom he had come to regard as a sort 
 of strong, protective force between him and anguish, 
 without any desire to give it a name, or realize an in- 
 dividual. But now he saw that he had been nursed by 
 hands as refined as they were skilful, and he dimly per- 
 ceived that he owed his life mainly to the wholly imper- 
 sonal yet absorbed devotion of two women — gentle, 
 firm-faced, women — who had fought death for him and 
 won. Just a professional service for a professional fee; 
 yet his debt was measureless. These are the things, he 
 feebly understood, that women do for men; and what had 
 been mere hearsay to his strong manhood had become 
 experience. 
 
 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 a delicious sense 
 of warmth and summer scents. 
 
 "Where am I?" He turned his bandaged head stiffly 
 toward the nurse beside him. 
 
 "In Threlfall Tower — the house of Mr. Edmund 
 Melrose," she said, bending over him. 
 
 The nurse saw him smile. 
 
134 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 "That's queer. What happened?" 
 
 His companion gave him a short account of the accident 
 and ofUndershaw's handhng of it. Then she refused to 
 let her patient talk any more, and left him with instruc- 
 tions not to tire his head with trying to remember. He 
 lay disconnectedly dreaming. A stream of clear water, 
 running shallow over greenish pebbles and among stones, 
 large and small — and some white things floating on it. 
 The recollection teased him, and a shght headache warned 
 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 had he come across her? 
 
 A few days later, when, for the first time, he was sitting 
 up raised on pillows, and had been allowed to lift a shak- 
 ing hand to help the nurse's hand 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 the cards." 
 
 She fetched them from a table near and read the names. 
 "Lord Tatham, and his mother, Lady Tatham. They've 
 sent you flowers every day. These are Duddon roses." 
 She held up a glass vase before him. " Mrs. Penfold and 
 Miss 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 see you one day soon. And Miss 
 Penfold saw you just before the accident. She was sketch- 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 135 
 
 ing in St. John's Vale, and you helped her fish something 
 out of the water." 
 
 "By Jove! — so I did," he said, slowly. "Tatham?" 
 He pondered. "Tell Lady Tatham 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 own voice. 
 
 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 of the words was round and master- 
 ful. "Are you comfortable? Have you all you want?" 
 
 "Everything. The nurses are Al. I say — has some 
 one written to my uncle? " 
 
 "Undershaw wrote to a Mr. George Faversham last 
 week. He was ill with rheumatic 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. 
 HuUo!" 
 
 He made a sudden movement. His hand slipped into 
 
136 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 his breast and found nothing. He raised himself in bed, 
 with a frowning brow. 
 
 "I say!" — he looked urgently at Melrose. "Where 
 are my gems? — and my ring?" 
 
 "Don't trouble yourself. They were brought to me. 
 I have them locked up." 
 
 Faversham's expression relaxed. He let himself shde 
 down upon his pillows. 
 
 "By George!— if I'd lost them." 
 
 IVIelrose studied him closely. 
 
 "They're all right. Whsit do you know about gems?" 
 
 "Only what Uncle Mackworth taught me. We were 
 great pals. He was my guardian. I hved with him in 
 the hoUdays after my parents died. I knew all 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. He promised to lock it up in one of 
 their strong rooms. But those six I always carry with 
 me." 
 
 Melrose laughed. 
 
 "But those are just the six that should have been 
 locked up. They are worth 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 histories of those six, anyway, for generations. 
 If it hadn't been for a fool of an agent of mine, your uncle 
 would never have had the Arconati Bacchus." 
 
 Faversham was silent — evidently trying to feel his way 
 through some induction of thought. But he gave it up 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 137 
 
 as too much for him, and merely said — nervously — 
 with the sudden flush of weakness : 
 
 " I'm afraid you've been put to great expense, sir. But 
 it's all right. As soon 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 tales of me. Take 'em 
 with a grain of salt. He'll tell you I'm mad, and I dare- 
 say I am. I'm a hermit anyway, and I like my own 
 society. But you're welcome here, as long as you've any 
 reason to stay. I should like you to know that I do not 
 regard Mackworth's nephew as a stranger." 
 
 The studied amiabihty of these remarks struck Faver- 
 sham 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 remem- 
 ber. Why ! — the Ogre was tame enough. But the 
 conversation — the longest he had yet held — had ex- 
 hausted him. He turned on his side, and shut his eyes. 
 
 Then gradually, day by day, he came to understand 
 the externals, at any rate, of the situation. Undershaw 
 gave him a guarded, though still graphic, account of how, 
 as unconscious as the dead Cid strapped on his warhorse, 
 he and his bodyguard had stormed the Tower. The jests 
 of the nurse, as to the practical difficulties of living in 
 such a house, enlightened him further. Melrose, it ap- 
 peared, lived like a peasant, and spent like a peasant. 
 They brought him tales of the locked rooms, of the pas- 
 
138 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 sages huddled and obstructed with bric-a-brac, of the 
 standing feuds between Melrose and his tenants. None 
 of the ordinary comforts of life existed in the Tower, 
 except indeed a vast warming apparatus which kept it 
 hke an oven in winter; the only personal expenditure, be- 
 yond bare necessaries, that Melrose allowed himself. Yet 
 it was commonly believed that he was enormously rich, 
 and that he still spent enormously on his collections. 
 Undershaw had attended a London stockbroker staying in 
 one of the Keswick hotels, who had told him, for instance, 
 that Melrose was well known to the "House" as one of 
 the largest holders of Argentine stock in the world, and as 
 having made also immense sums out of Canadian land 
 and railways. "The sharpest old fox going," said the 
 Londoner, himself, according to Undershaw, no feeble 
 specimen of the money-making tribe. "His death duties 
 will be worth raking in!" 
 
 Occasional gossip of this, or a more damaging kind, 
 enlivened convalescence. Undershaw and the nurses had 
 no motives for reticence. Melrose treated them uncivilly 
 throughout; and Undershaw knew very well that he 
 should never be forgiven the forcing of the house. And 
 as he, the nurses, and the Dixons were firmly convinced 
 that for every farthing of the accommodation supplied 
 him Faversham would ultimately have to pay handsomely, 
 there seemed to be no particular call for gratitude, or for 
 a forbearance based upon it. 
 
 Meanwhile Faversham himself did not find the char- 
 acter and intentions of his host so easy to understand. 
 Although very weak, and with certain serious symptoms 
 still persisting to worry the minds of doctor and nurse. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 139 
 
 he was now regularly dressed of an afternoon, and would 
 sit in a large armchair — which had had to be hired from 
 Keswick — by one of the windows looking out on the 
 courtyard. Punctually at tea-time Melrose appeared. 
 And there was no denying that in general he proved him- 
 self an agreeable companion — a surprisingly agreeable 
 companion. He would come slouching in, wearing the 
 shabbiest clothes, and a black skullcap on his flowing 
 gray hair; looking one moment like the traditional doctor 
 of the Italian puppet-play, gaunt, long-fingered, long- 
 featured, his thin, pallid face a study in gray amid its 
 black surroundings; and the next, playing the man of 
 family and cosmopolitan travel, that he actually was. 
 Faversham indeed began before long to find a curious 
 attraction in his society. There was flattery, moreover, 
 in the fact that nobody else in living memory had Melrose 
 ever been known to pay anything like the attention he 
 was now daily devoting to his invalid guest. The few 
 inmates and visitors of the Tower, permanent and tem- 
 porary, became gradually aware of it. They were as- 
 tonished, but none the less certain that Melrose had only 
 modified his attitude for some selfish reason of his own 
 which would appear in due time. 
 
 The curious fact, however, emerged, after a while, that 
 between the two men, so diverse in age, history, and cir- 
 cumstance, there was a surprising amount in common. 
 Faversham, in spite of his look of youth, much impaired 
 for the present by the results of his accident, was not so 
 very young; he had just passed his thirtieth birthday, and 
 Melrose soon discovered that he had seen a good deal both 
 of the natural and the human worlds. He was the son, it 
 
140 THE JVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 seemed, of an Indian Civil Servant, and had inherited 
 from his parents, who were both dead, an income — so 
 Meh"ose shrewdly gathered from various indications — 
 just sufficient to keep him; whereby a will, ambitious 
 rather than strong, had been able to have its way. He 
 had dabbled in many things, journahsm, law, politics; had 
 travelled a good deal; and was now apparently tired of 
 miscellaneous living, and looking out discontentedly for 
 an opening in life — not of the common sort — that was 
 somewhat long in presenting itself. He seemed to have 
 a good many friends and acquaintances, but not any of 
 overmastering importance to him; his intellectual powers 
 were evidently considerable, but not working to any great 
 advantage either for himself or society. 
 
 Altogether an attractive, handsome, restless fellow; 
 persuaded that he was destined to high things, hungry for 
 them, yet not seeing how to achie^^e them; hungry for 
 money also — probably as the only possible means of 
 achieving them — and determined, meanwhile, not to 
 accept any second best he could help. It was so, at least 
 — from the cynical point of view of an observer who 
 never wasted time on any other — that Melrose read him. 
 
 Incidentally he discovered that Faversham was well 
 acquainted with the general lines and procedure of modern 
 financial speculation, was in fact better versed in the 
 jargon and gossip of the Stock Exchange than Melrose 
 himself; and had made use now and then of the large 
 amount of information and the considerable number of 
 usef id acquaintances he possessed to speculate cautiously 
 on his own account — without much result, but without 
 disaster. Also it was very soon clear that, independently 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 141 
 
 of his special reasons for knowing something about en- 
 graved gems and their value, he had been, through his 
 Oxford uncle, much brought across collectors and collect- 
 ing. He could, more or less, talk the language of the 
 tribe, and indeed 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 himself provided with a listener, and a spectator 
 who neither wanted to buy from him nor sell to him. 
 When a couple of vases and a statuette, captured in Paris 
 from some remains of the Spitzer sale, arrived at the 
 Tower, it was to Faversham's room that Melrose first 
 conveyed them; and it was from Faversham's mouth that 
 he also, for the first time, accepted any remarks on his 
 purchases that were not wholly rapturous. Faversham, 
 with the arrogance of the amateur, thought the vases 
 superb, and the statuette dear at the price. Melrose 
 allowed it to be said; and next morning the statuette 
 started on a return journey to Paris, and the Tower knew 
 it no more. 
 
 Meanwhile the old collector would appear at odd 
 moments with a lacquered box, or a drawer from a cabinet, 
 and Faversham would find a languid amusement in turn- 
 ing over the contents, while Melrose strolled smoking up 
 and down the room, telling endless stories of "finds" and 
 bargains. Of the store, indeed, of precious or curious 
 objects lying heaped together in the confusion of Melrose's 
 den, the only treasures of a portable kind that Faversham 
 found any difficulty in handling were his own gems. Mel- 
 rose would bring them sometimes, when the young man 
 specially asked for them, would keep a jealous eye on them 
 
142 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 the whole time they were in their owner's hands, and hurry 
 them back to their drawer in the Riesener table as soon 
 as Favershara could be induced to give them up. 
 
 One night the invalid made a show of slipping them 
 back into the breast-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 his host. "Nurse and I will mount 
 guard." 
 
 Whereupon Melrose protested so vehemently that the 
 young man, in his weakness, did not resist. Rather 
 sulkily, he handed the case back to the greedy hand held 
 out for it. 
 
 Then Melrose smiled; if so pleasant a word may be 
 apphed to the queer glitter 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 hkely to get 
 elsewhere — 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 had many offers. But I don't intend to 
 sell them," 
 
 Melrose was silent a moment, looking down on the 
 patient, in whose pale cheeks 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." 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 143 
 
 And vaguely there ran through his mind the phrases of 
 a letter handed to him by his old uncle's solicitor, together 
 with the will: "Keep them for my sake, my dear boy; 
 enjoy them, as I have done. You will be tempted to sell 
 them; but don't, if you can help it. The money would be 
 soon spent; whereas the beauty of these things, the as- 
 sociations connected with them, the thoughts they arouse 
 — would give you pleasure for a lifetime. I have loved 
 you like a father, and I have left you all the Httle cash 
 I possess. Use that as you will. But that you should 
 keep and treasure the gems which have been so much to 
 me, for my sake — and beauty's — would give me pleasure 
 in the shades — ' quo dives Tullus et Ancus ' — you know 
 the rest. 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 won- 
 dered, though not without guesses at the 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 as there was of it — who knew? 
 
 The question of removing his patient to a convalescent 
 home at Keswick was raised by Undershaw at the end of 
 the third week from the accident. He demanded to see 
 Melrose one morning, and quietly communicated the fact 
 that he had advised Faversham to transfer himself to 
 Keswick as soon as possible. The one nurse now remain- 
 ing would accompany him, and he, Undershaw, would 
 personally superintend the removal. 
 
 Melrose looked at him with angry surprise. 
 
144 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 "And pray what is the reason for such an extraordinary 
 and unnecessary proceeding?" 
 
 "I understood," said Undershaw, smihng, "that you 
 were anxious to have your house to yourself again as soon 
 as possible." 
 
 "I defended my house against your attack. But that's 
 done with. And why you should hurry this poor fellow 
 now into new quarters, in his present state, when he might 
 stay quietly here till he is strong enough for a railway 
 journey, I cannot conceive!" 
 
 Undershaw, remembering the first encounter between 
 them, could not prevent his smile becoming a grin. 
 
 "I am delighted Mr. Faversham has made such a good 
 impression on you, sir. But I understand that he him- 
 self feels a delicacy in trespassing upon you any longer. 
 I know the house at Keswick to which I propose to take 
 him. It is excellently managed. We can get a hospital 
 motor from Carhsle, and of course I shall go with bim." 
 
 "Do you suggest that he has had any lack of attention 
 here from me or my servants .5^" said Melrose, hotly. 
 
 "By no means. But — well, sir, I will be open with 
 you. Mr. Faversham in my opinion wants a change of 
 scene. He has been in that room for three weeks, 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 a garden. In f act "— the httle doctor spoke with 
 the same cool frankness he had used in his first interview 
 with Melrose — "your house, Mr. Melrose, is a museum; 
 but it is not exactly the best place for an invaUd who is 
 beginning to get about again." 
 Melrose frowned upon him. 
 
THE INIATING OF LYDIA 145 
 
 "What does he want, eh? More space? Another 
 room? How many rooms do you suppose 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 of Dixon the other day whether it would 
 be impossible to move Mr. Faversham into another room 
 he told me that every hole and corner in the house was 
 occupied by your collections, except two on the ground 
 floor that you had never furnished. We can't put Mr. 
 Faversham into an unfurnished room. That which he 
 occupies at present is, if I may speak plainly, rather barer 
 of comforts than I like." 
 
 "What on earth do you mean?" 
 
 "Well, when an invahd's out of bed a pleasant and 
 comfortable room is a help to him — a few things to look 
 at on the walls — a change of chairs — a bookcase or two 
 — and so on. Mr. Faversham's present room is — I mean 
 no offence — as bare as a hospital ward, and not so cheer- 
 ful. Then as to the garden" — Undershaw moved to a 
 side window and pointed to the overgrown and gloomy 
 wilderness outside — "nurse and I have tried in vain to 
 find a spot to which we could carry him. I am afraid I 
 must say that an ordinary lodging-house, with a bit of 
 sunny lawn on which he could he in his long chair, would 
 suit him better, at his present stage, than this fine old 
 house." 
 
 "Luxury!" growled Melrose, "useless luxury and ex- 
 pense! that's what every one's after nowadays. A man 
 must be as cossu as a pea in a pod ! I'll go and speak to 
 him myself!" 
 
146 THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 And catching up round him the sort of Tennysonian 
 cloak he habitually wore, even in the house and on a sum- 
 mer day, Melrose moved imperiously toward the door. 
 
 Undershaw stood in his way. 
 
 "Mr. Faversham is really not fit yet to discuss his own 
 plans, except with his doctor, Mr. Melrose. It would be 
 both wise and kind of you to leave the decision of the 
 matter to myself." 
 
 Melrose stared at him. 
 
 "Come along here!" he said, roughly. Opening the 
 door of the library, he turned down the broad corridor to 
 the right. Undershaw followed unwillingly. He was due 
 at a consultation at Keswick, and had no time to waste 
 with this old madman. 
 
 Melrose, still grumbling to himself, took a bunch of 
 keys out of his pocket, and fitted one to the last door in 
 the passage. It opened with difficulty. Undershaw saw 
 dimly a large room, into which the light of a rainy June 
 day penetrated through a few chinks in the barred shut- 
 ters. Melrose went to the windows, and with a physical 
 strength which amazed his companion unshuttered and 
 opened them all, helped by Undershaw. One of 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 lovely tracery which incrusted the 
 ceiling, at the carving of the doors, at the stately mantel- 
 piece, with its marble caryatides, and at the Chinese wall- 
 paper which covered the walls, its mandarins and pagodas. 
 
THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 147 
 
 and its branching trees. " I never saw such a place. But 
 what is my patient to do with an unfurnished room.?" 
 
 "Furniture!" snorted Melrose. "Have you any idea, 
 sir, what this house contains.''" 
 
 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 — the upholsterer's. Tell him to send me over 
 four men here to-morrow, to do what they're told. Stop 
 also at the nurseryman's — Johnson's. No — I'll write. 
 Give me three days — and you'll see." 
 
 He studied the doctor's face with liis hawk's eyes. 
 
 Undershaw felt considerable embarrassment. The 
 owner of the Tower appeared to him more of a lunatic 
 than ever. 
 
 "Well, really, Mr. Melrose — I appreciate your kind- 
 ness — as I am sure my patient will. But — why should 
 you put yourself out to this extent? It would be much 
 simpler for everybody concerned that I should find him 
 the quarters I propose." 
 
 "You put it to Mr. Faversham that I am quite pre- 
 pared to move him into other quarters — and quarters 
 infinitely more comfortable than he can get in 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 sup- 
 pose he must ultimately decide." Undershaw's tone 
 betrayed his annoyance. "But I warn you, I reserve my 
 own right of advice. And moreover — supposing you do 
 furnish this room for him, allow me to point out that he 
 
148 THE ]\L1TING OF LYDIA 
 
 will soon want something else, and something more, even, 
 than a better room. He will want 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 convales- 
 cence, and inchned to be depressed — 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. "WTien the room 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 of course — if you wish it." 
 
 "Ten o'clock to-morrow," said Melrose, accompanying 
 him to the door. "Ten o'clock, sharp." He stood, with 
 raised forefinger, on the threshold of the newly opened 
 room, bowing a stiff farewell. 
 
 Undershaw escaped. But as he turned into the pillared 
 hall, Nurse Aston hurriedly emerged from Faversham's 
 room. She reported some fresh trouble in one of the 
 wounds on the leg caused by the accident, which had 
 never yet properly healed. There was some pain, and a 
 rise in temperature. 
 
 The unfavourable symptoms soon subsided. But as the 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 149 
 
 fear of blood-poisoning had been in Undershaw's mind 
 from the beginning, they led him to postpone, in any case, 
 the arrangements that had been set on foot for Faver- 
 sham's departure. During three or four days afterward 
 he saw little or nothing of Melrose. But he and Nurse 
 Aston were well aware that unusual things were going on 
 in the house. Owing to the great thickness of the walls, 
 the distance of Faversham's room from the scene of action, 
 and the vigilance of his nurse, who would allow no traffic 
 whatever through the front hall, the patient was protected 
 from the noise of workmen in the house, and practically 
 knew nothing of the operations going on. Melrose ap- 
 peared every evening as usual, and gave no hint. 
 
 On the afternoon of the fourth day, Melrose met Under- 
 shaw in the hall, as he entered the house. 
 
 "How is he?" 
 
 "All right again, I think, and doing well. I hope we 
 shall have no further drawbacks." 
 
 "Be good enough to give me ten minutes — before you 
 see Mr. Faversham?" 
 
 The invitation could not have been more grand-sei- 
 gneunsh. Undershaw, consumed with curiosity, accepted. 
 Melrose led the way. 
 
 But no sooner had they passed a huge lacquer screen, 
 newly placed in position, and turned into the great cor- 
 ridor, than Undershaw exclaimed in amazement. Melrose 
 was striding along toward the south wing. Behind them, 
 screened off, lay regions no longer visible to any one com- 
 ing from the hall. In front, stretched a beautiful and 
 stately gallery, terminating in a pillared window, through 
 which streamed a light to which both it and the gallery 
 
150 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 had been strangers for nearly a score of years. A mass 
 of thick shrubbery outside, which had grown up close to 
 the house, and had been allowed for years to block this 
 window, together with many others on the ground floor, 
 had been cut sheer away. The effect was startling, and 
 through the panes, freed from the dust and cobwebs of a 
 generation, the blue distant line of the Pennines could be 
 distinctly seen far away to the southeast. The floor of 
 the gallery was spread with a fine matting of a faint golden 
 brown, on which at intervals lay a few old Persian or 
 Indian rugs. The white panelling of the walls was broken 
 here and there by a mirror, or a girandole, delicate work 
 of the same date as the Riesener table; while halfway 
 down two Rose du Barri tapestries faced each other, 
 glowing in the June sun. It was all spacious — a little 
 empty — the whole conception singularly refined — the 
 colour lovely. 
 
 Melrose stalked on, silently, pulling at his beard. He 
 made no reply to Undershaw's admiring comments; and 
 the doctor wondered whether he was already 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 gallery outside. A carpet of old 
 Persian, of a faded blue — a few cabinets spaced along the 
 walls — a few bookcases full of books old and new — a 
 pillared French clock on the mantelpiece — a comfortable 
 modern sofa, and some armchairs — branches of white 
 rhododendron in a great enamelled vase — and two oval 
 portraits on the walls, a gentleman in red, and a gentleman 
 in blue, both pastels by Latour — in some such way one 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 151 
 
 might have catalogued the contents of the room. But 
 no catalogue could have rendered its effect on Undershaw, 
 who was not without artistic leanings of a mild kind 
 himself — an effect as of an old debt paid, an injustice 
 remedied, a beautiful creation long abused and desecrated, 
 restored to itself. The room was at last what it had 
 been meant to be; and after a hundred and fifty years 
 the thought of its dead architect had found fruition. 
 
 But this was not all. The garden door stood open, and 
 outside, as he walked up to it, Undershaw saw a stretch of 
 smooth grass, with groups of trees — the survivors of a 
 ragged army — encircling it; a blaze of flowers; and be- 
 yond the low parapet wall of lichened stone, from which 
 also a dense thicket of yew and laurel had been removed, 
 the winding course of the river, seventy feet below the 
 Tower, showed blue under a clear sky. A deck chair 
 stood on the grass and a garden table beside it, holding an 
 ash-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 men would 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?" 
 
 HaK an hour later Faversham, assisted by his nurse, 
 had limped along the corridor, and was sitting beside the 
 glass door in an utter yet not unpleasant bewilderment. 
 Wliat on earth had made the strange old fellow take such 
 an odd fancy to him.^ He had had singularly little "spoil- 
 
152 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 ing" in his orphaned life so far, except occasionally from 
 " Uncle Mackworth, " The experience was disturbing, yet 
 certainly not disagreeable. 
 
 He must of course stay on for a while, now that such 
 extraordinary pains had been taken for his comfort. It 
 would be nothing less than sheer ingratitude were he not 
 to do so. At the same time, his temperament was cau- 
 tious; he was no green youngster; and he could not but ask 
 himself, given Melrose's character and reputation, what 
 ulterior motive there might be behind a generosity so 
 eccentric. 
 
 Meanwhile Melrose, in high spirits, and full of com- 
 plaisance, now that the hated Undershaw had departed, 
 walked up and down as usual, talking and smoking. It 
 was evident that the whole process of unpacking his treas- 
 ures had put him in a glow of excitement. The sudden 
 interruption of habit had acted with stimulating power, 
 his mind, like his home, had shaken off some of its dust. 
 He talked about the pictures and furniture he had un- 
 earthed; 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 you must have some society — 
 invite some people." 
 
 Faversham laughed. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 153 
 
 "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. They are your nearest neighbours, 
 aren't they.'*" He looked smiling at his host. 
 
 "I don't know my neighbours!" said Melrose, em- 
 phatically. "But as for that 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 I are not on terms, though his mother 
 and I are cousins. I dare say Undershaw's told you — 
 he's thick with them. The young man has been insolent 
 to me on one or two occasions. I shall have to take him 
 down. He's one of your popularity-hunting fools. How- 
 ever you ask him by all means if you want him. He'll 
 come to see you. Ask him Thursday. I shall be at 
 Carlisle for the day. Tell him so." 
 
 He paused, his dark eyeballs, over which the whites 
 had a trick of showing disagreeably, fixing his visitor; 
 then added: 
 
 "And ask the women too. I shan't bite 'em. I saw 
 them from the window the day they came to inquire. 
 The mother looked perfectly scared. The daughter's 
 good looking." 
 
 Manner and tone produced a vague irritation in Faver- 
 
154 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 sham. But he merely said that he would write to Mrs. 
 Penfold. 
 
 Two notes were accordingly despatched that evening 
 from the Tower; one to Duddon Castle, the other to Green 
 Cottage. Faversham had succeeded in writing them him- 
 self; and in the exhilaration of what seemed to him a 
 much-quickened convalescence, he made arrangements the 
 following morning to part with his nurse within a few 
 days. "Do as you like, in moderation," said Undershaw, 
 *'but no railway journey for a week or two." 
 
VII 
 
 MELROSE had gone to Carlisle. The Cumbria 
 landscape lay in a misty sunshine, the woods and 
 fields steaming after a night of soaking rain. All 
 the shades of early summer were melting into each other; 
 reaches of the river gave back a silvery sky, while under 
 the trees the shadows slept. The mountains were indis- 
 tinct, drawn in pale blues and purples, on a background of 
 lilac and pearl. And all the vales "were up," drinking 
 in the streams that poured from the heights, 
 
 Tatham and his mother were walking through the park 
 together. He was in riding-dress, and his horse awaited 
 him at the Keswick gate. Lady Tatham beside him was 
 attired as usual in the plainest and oldest of clothes. Her 
 new gowns, which she ordered from time to time mechani- 
 cally, leaving the whole designing of them to her dress- 
 maker, served her at Duddon, in her own phrase, mainly 
 "for my maid to show the housekeeper." They lay in 
 scented drawers, daintily folded in tissue paper, and a maid 
 no less ambitious than her fellows for a well-dressed mis- 
 tress kept mournful watch over them. This carelessness 
 of dress had grown upon Victoria Tatham with years. In 
 her youth the indulgence of a taste for beautiful and 
 artistic clothes had taken up a great deal of her time. 
 Then suddenly it had all become indifferent to her. De- 
 votion to her boy, books, and natural history absorbed 
 
 155 
 
156 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 a mind more and more impatient of ordinary conven- 
 tions. 
 
 "You are quite sure that Melrose will be out of the 
 way?" she asked her son 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 to the neighbourhood of Carlisle on 
 business, and cannot be home till ten o'clock at night." 
 
 "He has the decency not to 'regret,'" said Lady 
 Tatham. 
 
 "No. It is awkward of course going at all" — Tat- 
 ham's brow was a little furrowed — " but I somehow think 
 I ought to go." 
 
 "Oh, go," said his mother. "If he does play a trick 
 you will know how to meet it. It would be very hke 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 faint red appeared in her cheeks also. 
 
 "I believe he supposed himself to be. I knew him very 
 well, and I might — possibly — have accepted him — but 
 that some information came to my knowledge. Then, 
 later on, largelj^ I think to punish me, he nearly succeeded 
 in entangling my younger sister — your Aunt Edith. I 
 stood in his way. He hates me, of course. I think he 
 suffered. In those days he was very different. But his 
 pride and self-will were always a madness. And grad- 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 157 
 
 ually they have devoured everything else." She paused. 
 "I cannot tell 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 her shoulders, looking down upon her with 
 a proud tenderness. 
 
 "None. I escaped; and I won all along the line. I was 
 neither to be pitied — nor he," she added slowly, "though 
 I daresay he would put down his 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 I was dazzled by him. Then when I 
 — and others — broke with him, he turned his back on 
 England and went to live abroad. And gradually he 
 quarrelled with everybody who had ever known him." 
 
 "But you never did care about him, mother?" cried 
 Tatham, outraged by the mere notion of any such thing. 
 
 "No — never." There was a deliberate emphasis on 
 the words. The smile that followed was slight but poig- 
 nant. "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 a moment. He was in the happy posi- 
 tion of a son in whom filial affection represented no en- 
 forced piety, but the spontaneous instinct of his nature. 
 His mother had been so far his best friend; and though he 
 rarely spoke of his father his childish recollections of him, 
 
158 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 and the impression left by his mother's constant and delib- 
 erate talk of him, during the boyish years of her son, had 
 entered deep into the bases of character. It is on such 
 feelings and traditions that all that is best in our still 
 feudal English life is reared; Tatham had known them 
 without stint; and in their absence he would have been 
 merely the trivially prosperous young man that he no 
 doubt appeared to the Radical orators of the neighbour- 
 hood. 
 
 The wood thinned. They emerged from it to see the 
 Helvellyn range lying purple under a southwest sky, and 
 Tatham's gray mare waiting a hundred yards 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 call too 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 his own land and made its way at last into 
 that which flowed beneath the Tower. He was going to 
 Threlfall, but on his way he was to call at Green Cottage 
 and deliver a note from his mother. 
 
 He had seen a good deal of Lydia Penfold during the 
 weeks since her first appearance at Duddon. The two 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 159 
 
 sisters had been induced to lunch there once or twice; 
 there had been a picnic in the Glendarra woods; and for 
 himself, in spite of his mother's attack, he thought he had 
 been fairly clever in contriving excuses for calls. On one 
 occasion he had carried with him — by his mother's sug- 
 gestion — a portfolio containing a dozen early proofs of 
 the "Liber Studiorium," things about which he knew little 
 or nothing; but Lydia's eyes had sparkled when he pro- 
 duced them, which was all he cared for. On the second, 
 he had called to offer them a key which would admit 
 their pony-carriage to some of the private drives of the 
 park, wild enchanted ways which led up to the very eastern 
 heart of Blencathra. That was not quite so successful, 
 because both Lydia and her mother were out, and his 
 call had been made chiefly on Susan, who had been even 
 queerer than usual. After taking the key, she had let it 
 fall absently 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 know of his visit. On 
 all other occasions he had found Lydia, and she had been 
 charming — always charming — but as light and inac- 
 cessible as mountain birds. He had been allowed to see 
 the drawing she was now busy on — the ravines of Blen- 
 cathra, caught sideways through a haze of Hght, edge be- 
 yond edge, distance behind distance; a brave attempt on 
 the artist's part at poetic breadth and selection. She had 
 been much worried about the "values," whatever they 
 might be. "They're quite vilely wrong!" she had said, 
 impatiently. "And I don't know how to get them right." 
 And all he could do was to stand like an oaf and ask her 
 to explain. Nor could he ignore the fact — so new and 
 
160 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 strange to a princeling ! — that her perplexities were more 
 interesting to her than his visit. 
 
 Yet of course Tatham had his own natural conceit of 
 himself, like any normal young man, in the first bloom of 
 prosperous life. He was accustomed to be smiled on; 
 to find his pleasure consulted, and his company welcome, 
 whether as the young master of Duddon, or as a comrade 
 among his equals of either sex. The general result in- 
 deed of his happy placing in the world had been to make 
 him indifferent to things that most men 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 steady lowering of his golf handicap. He was 
 proud also of certain practical aptitudes he possessed, and 
 would soon allow no one to interfere with him — hardly to 
 advise him — in the management of his estate. He hked 
 nothing better than to plan the rebuilding of a farm, or 
 a set of new cottages. He was a fair architect, of a rough 
 and ready sort, and a decent thatcher and bricklayer. All 
 the older workmen on the estate had taught him some- 
 thing at one time or another; and of these various handi- 
 crafts he was boyishly vain. 
 
 None of these qualifications, however, gave him the 
 smallest confidence in himself, M'ith regard to Lydia Pen- 
 fold. Ever since he had first met her, he had realized 
 in her the existence of standards just as free as his own, 
 only quite different. Other girls wished to be courted; 
 or they courted him. Miss Penfold gave no sign that 
 she wished to be courted; and she certainly had never 
 courted anybody. Many pretty girls assert themselves 
 by a kind of calculated or rude audacity, as though to say 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 161 
 
 that gentleness and civility are not for the hkes of them. 
 Lydia was always gentle — kind, at least — even when 
 she laughed at you. Unless she got upon her "ideas." 
 Then — Uke Susan — she could harangue a little, and 
 grow vehement — as she had at Duddon that day, talking 
 of the new independence of women. But neither her 
 gentleness nor her vehemence seemed to have any rela- 
 tion to what a man — or men — might desire of her. She 
 lived for herself; not indeed in any selfish sense; for it was 
 plain that she was an affectionate daughter and sister; but 
 simply the world was so interesting to her in other ways 
 that she seemed to have no need of men and matrimony. 
 And as to money, luxury, a great train de vie — he had 
 felt from the beginning that those things mattered nothing 
 at all to her. It might be inexperience, it might be some- 
 thing loftier. But, at any rate, 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 Hunt Ball, she had filled his thoughts. Her 
 delicate, pale beauty, lit by those vivacious eyes; so quiet, 
 so feminine, yet with its suggestion of something uncon- 
 querable, moving in a world apart — he could not define 
 it in any such words; but there it was, the attraction, the 
 lure. Something difficult; something dehghtful! A dear 
 woman, a woman to be loved; and yet a thorn hedge sur- 
 rounding her — how else can one put the eternal chal- 
 lenge, the eternal chase.'* 
 
 But as three parts of love is hope, and hope is really the 
 mother of invention, Tatham, though full of anxiety, was 
 also, like General Trochu, full of plans. He had that 
 morning made his mother despatch an invitation to one of 
 
162 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 the great painters of the day; a man who ruled the beauties 
 of the moment en Sultan; painted whom he would; when 
 he would; and at what price he would. But while those 
 who were dying to be painted by him must often wait for 
 years, and put up with manners none too polite, there were 
 others who avenged them; women, a few, very few women, 
 whom the great man, strange to say, sighed to paint, and 
 sighed in vain. Such women were generally w^omen of a 
 certain age; none of your soft-cheeked beauties. And 
 Lady Tatham was one of them. The great artist had 
 begged her to let herself be painted by him. And Victoria 
 had neghgently 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; 
 but now for her son's sake she had actully named a time; 
 ^nd a jubilant telegram from London had clenched the 
 bargain. The great man was to arrive in a fortnight from 
 now, for a week's visit; and Tatham had in his pocket a 
 note from Lady Tatham to Mrs. Penfold requesting the 
 pleasure of her company and that of her two daughters at 
 -dinner, to meet Mr. Louis Delorme, the day after his 
 arrival. 
 
 And all this, because, at a mention of the illustrious 
 name, Lydia had looked 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 the dis- 
 tance — he was giving away prizes. I didn't get one 
 — alack! That's the nearest 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 just as much as she jolly well pleases. And 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 163 
 
 of course he'll take to Iier, and offer to give her lessons — 
 or paint her — or something. Then we can get her 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 a laburnum tree on the lawn. Hat in hand, 
 the smiling youth approached her. She was sewing, 
 apparently mending house-linen, which she quietly put 
 down to greet him. There was a book before her; a 
 book of poetry, he thought. She slipped it among the 
 folds of the linen. 
 
 He could not flatter himself that his appearance dis- 
 turbed her composure in the least. She was evidently 
 glad to see him; she was gratefully sure that they would 
 all be delighted to dine with Lady Tatham on the day 
 named; she came with him to the gate, and admired his 
 horse. But as to any flutter of hand or eye; any con- 
 sciousness in her, answering to the eager feeling in him — 
 he knew very well there was nothing of the kind. Never 
 mind! There was an inner voice in him that kept reas- 
 suring him all the time; telling him to be patient; to go at 
 it steadily. There was no other fellow in the way, any- 
 how! He had a joyous sense of all the opportunities to 
 come, the summer days, the open country, the resources 
 of Duddon. 
 
 With his hand on his horse's neck, and loath to ride 
 away, he told her that he was on his way to the Tower to 
 call on Faversham. 
 
164 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 "Oh, but we're coming too, mother and II" she said, in 
 surprise. "Mr. Faversham sent us a note. I don't be- 
 heve he ought to have two sets of visitors just yet." 
 
 Tatham too was surprised. "How on earth Faversham 
 is able to entertain anybody, I can't think! Undershaw 
 told me last week he must get him away, as soon as pos- 
 sible, 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 the invahd. "Well, good-bye! for 
 the moment. We have ordered the pony in half an hour." 
 
 "You'll see a queer place; the piggery that old fellow 
 lives in! You didn't know Faversham — I think you 
 said — before that day of the accident.'^" He looked 
 down on her from the saddle. 
 
 "Not the least. I feel a horrid pang sometimes that I 
 didn't warn him of that hill!" 
 
 "Any decent bike ought to have managed that hill all 
 right," said Tatham scornfully. "Scores of tourists go 
 up and down it every day in the summer." 
 
 I.ydia bade him speak more respectfully of his native 
 hills, lest they bring him also to grief. Then she waved 
 good-bye to him; received the lingering bow and eager 
 look, which betrayed the youth; thought of "young Harry 
 with his beaver on," as she watched the disappearing 
 horseman, and went 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 anything else on his part — take his ad- 
 vances seriously — check them — put up restrictions — 
 
THE INIATING OF LYDIA 165 
 
 make herself disagreeable? Why? During her training 
 in London, Lydia had drunk of the modern spring like 
 other girls. She had been brought up in a small old- 
 fashioned way, by her foolish little mother, and by a 
 father — a stupid, honourable, affectionate man — whom 
 she had loved with a half-tender, half -rebellious affection. 
 There had been no education to speak of, for either her or 
 Susy. But the qualities and gifts of remoter ancestors 
 had appeared in them — to the bewilderment of their 
 parents. And when after her father's death Lydia, at 
 nineteen, had insisted on entering the Slade School, she 
 had passed through some years of rapid development. 
 At bottom her temperament always remained, on the 
 whole, conservative and critical; the temperament of the 
 humourist, in whose heart the old loyalties still lie warm. 
 But that remarkable change in the whole position and 
 outlook of women which has marked the last half century 
 naturally worked upon her as upon others. For such per- 
 sons as Lydia it has added dignity and joy to a woman's 
 life, without the fever and disorganization which attend its 
 extremer forms. While Susy, attending lectures at Uni- 
 versity 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 so much in his way — were still dominant. 
 Marriage was not necessary. Art and knowledge could 
 very well suflSce. On the whole, in her own case, she 
 aspired to make them suffice. 
 
 But not in any cloistered world. Women who lived 
 merely womanish lives, without knowledge of and com- 
 
 V, 
 
166 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 radeship with men, seemed to her limited and parochial 
 creatures. She was impatient of her sex, and the narrow- 
 ness of her sex's sphere. She dreamed of a broadly hu- 
 man, practical, disinterested relation between men and 
 women, based on the actual work of the world; its social, 
 artistic, intellectual work; all that has made civilization. 
 
 "We women are starved" — she thought, "because 
 men will only marry us — or make playthings of us. 
 But the world is only just — these last years — open to us, 
 as it has been open to men for thousands of generations. 
 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 in us, open the treasure-house to us? — and 
 kt us alone! To be treated as good fellows! — that's 
 all we ask. Some of us would make such fratchy wives 
 — and such excellent friends! I vow I should make a 
 good friend! Why shouldn'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 these innumerable angels 
 or virtues, by artists illustrious or forgotten, which throng 
 the golden twilight of an Italian church; drawing back the 
 curtains of a Doge; hovering in quiet skies; or offering the 
 Annunciation lily, from one side of a great tomb, to the 
 shrinking Madonna on the other. These creations of 
 Italy in her early prime are the most spontaneous of the 
 children of beauty. There are no great differences among 
 them; the common type is lovely; they spring like flowers 
 from one root, in which are the forces both of Greece and 
 the Italy of Leonardo. It was their harmony, their cheer- 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 167 
 
 fulness, their touch of somethmg universal, that were 
 somehow reproduced in this English girl, and that made 
 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 — how she was to make Lord Tatham clearly 
 understand, before he had any chance of proposing (if that 
 were really ia the wind, and she were not a mere lump 
 of conceit), that marrying was not her line; but that, as a 
 friend, he might rely upon her. Anything — in particu- 
 lar — that she could do to help him to a wife, short of 
 offermg herself, was at his service. She would be eyes and 
 ears for him; she would tell him things he did not in the 
 least suspect about the sex. 
 
 But as to marrying! She rose from her seat, stretching 
 her arms toward the sky and the blossoming trees, in that 
 half-wild gesture which so truly expressed her. Marrying 
 Duddon! that vast house, and all those possessions; those 
 piles of money; those coimty relations, and that web of 
 inherited custom which would lay its ghostly compulsion 
 on Tatham's wnfe the very instant he had married her — 
 it was not to be thought of for a moment ! She, the artist 
 wnth art and the world before her; she, with her soul in her 
 own keeping, and all the beauty of sky and fell and stream 
 to be had for the asking, to make herself the bond slave 
 of Duddon — of that formidably beautiful, that fond, 
 fastidious mother ! — and of all the ceremonial and para- 
 phemaha that must come with Duddon ! She saw herself 
 spending weeks on the mere ordering of her clothes, call- 
 ing endlessly on stupid people, opening bazaars, running 
 hospitals, entertaining house parties, with the clef des 
 
168 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 chaiwps gone forever — a little drawing at odd times — 
 and all the meaning of life drowned in its trappings. 
 No — no — no! — a thousand times, no ! Not though 
 her mother implored her, and every creature in Cum- 
 bria and the universe thought her stark staring mad. 
 No! — for her own sake first; but, above all, for Lord 
 Tatham's sake. 
 
 Whereat she repentantly reminded herself that after 
 all, if she despised the world and the flesh, there was no 
 need to give herself airs; for certainly Harry Tatham was 
 giving proof — stronger proof indeed, of doing the same; if 
 it were really his intention to offer his handsome person, 
 and his no less handsome possessions to a girl as insig- 
 nificant as herself . Custom had not staled Aiw. And there 
 was his mother too; who, instead of nipping the silly busi- 
 ness in the bud, and carrying the foohsh young man to 
 London, was actually aiding and abetting — sending 
 gracious invitations to dinner, of the most unnecessary 
 description. 
 
 What indeed could be more detached, more romantic — 
 apparently — than the attitudie of both Tatham and his 
 mother toward their own immense advantages? 
 
 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 another half to discover 
 what to do with them." 
 
 "And, if one takes the place, ought one not to earn the 
 wages? I<ady Tatham 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 I should eall 
 that shirking. Either refuse the game; or play it! And 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 169 
 
 of all the games in the world, surely, surely the Lady 
 Bountiful game is the dullest! I icon''t be bored with it!" 
 
 She went toward the house, her smiling eyes on the 
 grass. "But, of course, if I could not get on without the 
 young man, I should put up with any conditions. But I 
 can get on without him perfectly! I don't want to marry 
 him. But I do — Ido want to be friends ! " 
 
 "Lydia! Mother says you'll be late if you don't get 
 ready," said a voice from 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 any young man! " laughed Lydia. 
 
 Susan descended the garden steps. She was a much 
 thinner and dimmer version of her sister. One seemed to 
 see her pale cheeks, her dark eyes and hair, her small 
 mouth, through mist, hke a Whistler portrait. She 
 moved very quietly, and her voice was low, and a little 
 dragging. The young vicar of a neighbouring hamlet in 
 the fells, who admired her greatly, thought of her as play- 
 ing "melancholy" — in the contemplative Miltonic sense 
 — to Lydia's "mirth." She was a mystery to him; a 
 mystery he 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 two tragedies in 
 blank verse; and she held feminist views, vague yet fierce. 
 She was apparently indifferent to men, much more so 
 than Lydia, who frankly preferred their society to that 
 of her own sex; but Lydia noticed that if the vicar, Mr. 
 Franl<lin, did not call for a week Susan would ingeniously 
 invent some device or other for peremptorily inducing 
 
170 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 him to do 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. She breakfasted in bed, 
 which Mrs. Penfold never thought of doing; Lydia mended 
 her stockings, and renewed her strings and buttons; while 
 Mrs. Penfold spent twice the time and money on Susan's 
 wardrobe that she did on 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, to 
 make the others her slaves. Mrs. Penfold found her re- 
 ward in the belief that Susan was a genius and would 
 some day astonish the world; Lydia had no such illusion; 
 and yet it would have given her a shock to see Susan 
 mending her own stockings 
 
 Susan approached her now languidly, her hand to her 
 brow. Lydia looked at her severely. 
 
 "I suppose you have got a headache?" 
 
 "A little." 
 
 "That's because you will go and write poetry directly 
 after lunch. Why it would even give me a headache!" 
 
 "I had an idea," said Susan plaintively. 
 
 "What does that matter? Ideas '11 keep. You have 
 just to make a note of them — 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 for ideas. What have you been doing to your 
 collar?" 
 
 And Lydia took hold of her sister, straightening her 
 collar, pinning up her hair, and generally putting her to 
 rights. When the operation was over, she gave a little 
 pat to Susan's cheek and kissed her. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 171 
 
 "You can come with us to Thelfall, 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 by myself. I want to think." 
 
 Lydia received the intimation respectfully, merely rec- 
 ommending her sister to keep out of the sun; and was 
 hurrying into the house to fetch her hat when Susan de- 
 tained 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 fort- 
 night," said Susan, with feminine exaggeration. "It is 
 becoming so marked that everybody talks." 
 
 "Well, I can't help it," said Lydia defiantly. "We are 
 not a convent; and we 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 be- 
 hind her, and tossing her fair head. " Marrying ! — I hate 
 the word." 
 
 "He cares — and you don't," said Susan slowly, "that 
 makes it very unfair — 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 should I drive him away, or be rude to 
 him? I want to put things on a proper footing — so that 
 he'll understand." 
 
 "He's going to propose to you," said Susan bluntly. 
 
 "Well, then, we shall get it over," said Lydia, reluc- 
 
172 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 tantly. "And you don't imagine that such a golden 
 youth will trouble about such a trifle for long. Think of 
 all the other things he has to amuse him. Why, if I broke 
 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 his house. 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, look- 
 ing at the mysterious Tower. Her power of visualization 
 was uncannily strong; it amounted almost to second sight. 
 She seemed to be in the Tower — in one of its locked and 
 shuttered rooms; to be looking at a young man stretched 
 on a sofa — a wizardlike figure in a black cloak standing 
 near — and in the doorway, Lydia entering, bringing the 
 light on her fair hair. . . . 
 
vni 
 
 TATHAiSI had to open the gate of Threlfall Park for 
 hunself. The lodge beside it, of the same date 
 and architecture as the house, had long ceased 
 to be inhabited. The gate was a substantial iron affair, 
 and carried a placard, peremptorily directing the person 
 entering to close it behind him. And on either side of 
 it, the great wall stretched away with which, some ten 
 years before this date, Melrose, at incredible cost, had 
 surrounded the greater part of his property, in consequence 
 of a quarrel with the local hunt, and to prevent its mem- 
 bers from riding over his land. 
 
 Tatham, having carefully shut the gate, rode slowly 
 through the park, casting a curious and hostile eye over 
 the signs of parsimonious neglect which it presented. 
 Sheep and cattle were feeding in part of it; part of it was 
 standing for hay; and everywhere the fences were ruinous, 
 and the roads 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 man must be a 
 simple fool who could let them get into such a state!" 
 Tatham prided himseK hugely on the admirable forestry 
 with which the large tracts of woodland in his own prop- 
 erty were managed. But then he paid a proper salary to 
 a trained forester, a man of education. Melrose's woods, 
 with their choked and ruined timber, were but another 
 
 173 
 
174 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 proof that a miser is, scientifically, only a species of 
 idiot. 
 
 Only once before in his life had he been within the park 
 — on one of the hunts of his boyhood, the famous occasion 
 when the fox, started on the other side of the river, had 
 made straight for Threlfall, and, the gate closing the pri- 
 vate foot-bridge having been, by a most unusual chance, 
 left open, had sHpped thereby into the park, with the 
 hounds in full cry after him. The hunt had momentarily 
 paused, and then breaking loose from all control had 
 dashed through the yard of the Home Farm in joyous 
 pursuit, while the enraged Melrose, who with Dixon and 
 another man had rushed out wath sticks to try and head 
 them back, had to confine himself and his followers to 
 manning the enclosure round the house — impotent spec- 
 tators of the splendid run through the park — which had 
 long remained famous in Cumbrian annals. Tatham was 
 then a lad of fourteen, mounted on one of the best of 
 ponies, and he well remembered the mad gallop which 
 had carried him past the Tower, and the tall figure of its 
 furious master. The glee, the mahcious triumph of the 
 moment ran through his pulses again as he thought of it. 
 
 A short-lived triumph indeed, as far as the hunt was 
 concerned; for the building of the ten-foot wall had fol- 
 lowed, and Melrose's final breach with the gentry of his 
 county. Never since had Tatham set foot in the Ogre's 
 demesne; and he examined every feature of it with the 
 most lively interest. The dilapidated buildings of the 
 Home Farm reminded him of a lawsuit brought by a 
 former tenant against his landlord, in wliich a story of 
 mean and rapacious dealing on the part of Melrose, to- 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 175 
 
 ward a decent though unfortunate man, had excited the 
 disgust of the whole countryside. Melrose had never 
 since been able to find a tenant for the farm, and the 
 bailiff he had put in was a drunken creature whose mis- 
 management of it was notorious. Such doings by a man 
 so inhumanly shrewd as Melrose in many of his affairs 
 could only be accounted for by the combination in him 
 of miserly disUke of spending, with a violent self-will. 
 Instances, however, had been known when to get his own 
 way, or gain a sinister advantage over an opponent, Mel- 
 rose had been wiUing to spend extravagantly. 
 
 After passing the farm, Tatham pressed on eagerly, 
 expecting the first sight of the house. The dense growth 
 of shrub and creeper, which had been allowed to grow up 
 around it, the home according to the popular legend of 
 uncanny multitudes of owls and bats, tickled imagination; 
 and Tatham had often brought a field-glass to bear upon 
 the house from one of the neighbouring hills. But as he 
 turned the last corner of the drive he drew up his horse 
 in amazement. 
 
 The jungle was gone — ! and the simple yet stately archi- 
 tecture of the house stood revealed in the summer sun- 
 shine. 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; and to the east all the windows stood free and 
 open. Moreover, two men were at work in the front 
 garden, clearing the flagged paths, traced in the eighteenth 
 century, from encumbrance, and laying down turf in a 
 green circle round one of the small classical fountains that 
 stood on either side of the approach. 
 
176 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 "What on earth is the old villain up to now?" was the 
 natural comment of the surprised Tatham. 
 
 Was it simply the advent of a guest — an invahd guest 
 — that had wrought such changes? 
 
 One of the gardeners, seeing him as he approached the 
 gate, came running up to hold his horse. Tatham, who 
 knew everybody and prided himself on it, 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 »ve're 
 about through wi' this side, howivver." He pointed to 
 the east wing. 
 
 "One can see now what a jolly old place it is," said 
 Tatham, pausing in the gateway to survey the scene. 
 
 Backhouse grinned responsively, 
 
 " I do beheve, my lord, Muster Melrose hissel' is pleased. 
 He stood a lang while lookin' at it this morning, afore he 
 started oot." 
 
 "Well, no one can deny it's an improvement!" laughed 
 Tatham, as he walked toward the house. 
 
 Dixon had already opened the door. Slave and facto- 
 tum of Melrose as he was, he shared the common liking of 
 the neighbourhood for young Lord Tatham. Two of his 
 brothers were farmers on the Duddon estate; and one of 
 them owed his recovery from a dangerous and obscure 
 illness to the fact that, at the critical moment, Tatham 
 had brought over a specialist from Leeds to see him, pay- 
 ing all expenses. These things — and others besides — 
 were reflected in the rather tremulous smile with which 
 Dixon received the visitor. 
 
 "Mr. Faversham expects me?" 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 177 
 
 "Aye, aye, my lord." The old man quickly led the way 
 through the front hall, more quickly than Tatham's curi- 
 osity liked. He had time to notice, however, the domed 
 and decorated ceiling, the classical mantelpiece, with its 
 medallions and its pillars of Sienese marble, a couple of 
 bold Renaissance cabinets on either side, and a central 
 table, resting on carved sphinxes, such as one might find 
 in the sola of a Venetian palace. 
 
 But as they turned into the corridor or gallery Tatham's 
 exclamation brought Dixon to a halt. He faced round 
 upon the young man, revealing a face that worked with 
 hardly repressed excitement, and explained that the 
 furnishing and arrangement had been only completed that 
 day. It had taken them eight days, and Barclay's men 
 were only just gone. 
 
 Tatham frankly expressed his surprise and admiration. 
 The whole gallery and both of its terminal windows had 
 now been cleared. The famous series of rose-coloured 
 tapestries, of which Undershaw had seen the first speci- 
 mens, had been hung at intervals throughout its length; 
 and from the stores of the house had been brought out 
 more carpets, more cabinets, mirrors, pictures, fine eigh- 
 teenth-century chairs, settees, occasional tables, and what 
 not. Hastily as it had been done, the brilliance of the 
 effect was great. There was not, there could not be, the 
 beauty that comes from old use and habit — from the 
 ordered life of generations moving among and gradually 
 adapting to itself a number of lovely things. Tatham 
 brought up amid the surroundings of Duddon was scorn- 
 fully conscious of the bric-a-brac element in the show, as 
 he stood contemplating Melrose's latest performance. 
 
178 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 Nevertheless a fine taste had presided both at the original 
 selection of the things shown, and at the arrangement of 
 them in the stately gallery, which both harmonized and 
 displayed them. 
 
 "There's not a thing yo' see, my lord, that hasna been 
 here — i' this house — for years and years!" said Dixon, 
 pointing a shaky finger at the cabinets on either side. 
 "There's soom o' them has been i' their packing-cases ever 
 sin' I can remember, an' the carpets rolled up aw deep in 
 dust. And there's not a thing been unpacked now i' 
 the house itsel', for fear o' t' dust, an' Mr. Faversham. 
 The men carried it aw oot o' that door" — he pointed to 
 the far western end of the gallery — "an' i very thing was 
 doon out o' doors, all t' carpets beaten an' aw, where Mr. 
 Faversham couldna hear a sound. An' yesterday Muster 
 Melrose and Muster Faversham — we browt him in his 
 wheeled chair yo' unnerstan' — fixed up a lot o' things 
 together. We havna nailed doon th' matting yet, for 
 fear o' 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 do say 'at he's not to tak' a journey 
 for a while yet." 
 
 Tatham's curiosity was hot within him, but his very 
 dislike of Melrose restrained him from indulging it. He 
 followed Dixon through the gallery in silence. 
 
 There was no one in the new sitting-room. But out- 
 side on some newly laid grass, Tatham perceived the in- 
 valid on a deck chair, with a table holding books and 
 cigarettes beside him. 
 
THE :MATING of LYDIA 179 
 
 Dixon had departed. Faversham offered cigarettes. 
 
 "Thank you," said Tatham, "I have my ot\ti." 
 
 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 of his head, and his ruddy, good- 
 humoured face beaming on his companion, it did not oc- 
 cur to Faversham that Tatham was thereby refusing the 
 "salt" of an 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 dehcacy had given a peculiar distinction to the 
 gaunt black and white of his eyes, hair, and complexion, 
 and to the thinness of his long frame, so that Tatham, who 
 would have said before seeing him that he remembered 
 him perfectly, found himself looking at him from time to 
 time in surprise. As to his surroundings, Faversham 
 appeared not only willing but anxious to explain. 
 
 "It's a queer business, " he said frankly. "I can assure 
 you I never asked for anything, never wished for any- 
 thing of the sort. Everything was arranged 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 with laughter. "I suppose you know 
 that nobody but yourself has ever had bite or sup in this 
 house for twenty years, unless it were some of the dealers, 
 
180 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 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 puzzled as anybody. 
 
 "My mother was afraid you would be anything but 
 comfortable," said Tatham. "She knows this gentleman 
 of old. But she didn't know your powers of 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 be ungrateful for what has been done. 
 But my best thanks to Lady Tatham all the same. I hope 
 I may get over to see her some day." 
 
 "You must, of course. Dixon tells me there is a car- 
 riage coming — perhaps a motor; why not!" 
 
 A flush rose in Faversham's pale cheek. 
 
 "Mr. Melrose talked of hiring one yesterday," he said, 
 unwillingly. "How far are you.f*" 
 
 They fell into talk about Duddon and the neighbour- 
 hood, avoiding any further discussion of Melrose. Then 
 Faversham described his accident, and spoke warmly of 
 Undershaw, an occupation in which Tatham heartily 
 joined. 
 
 "I owe my life to him," said Faversham; adding with 
 sudden sharpness, "I suppose I must count it an advan- 
 tage!" 
 
 "That would be the common way of looking at it!" 
 laughed Tatham. "What are you doing just now.f*" 
 . "Nothing in particular. I am one of the large tribe 
 of briefless barristers. I suppose I've never given enough 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 181 
 
 of my niind to it. The fact is I don't like the law — 
 never have. I've tried other things — fatal, of course! — 
 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 few resources — just enough to Kve on — with- 
 out a wife." 
 
 Tatham felt a little awkward. Faversham's tone was 
 already that of a man to some extent disappointed and 
 embittered. 
 
 "You had always so much more brains than the rest of 
 us," he said cordially. "You'll be all right." 
 
 "It's not brains that matter nowadays — it's money. 
 What do you get by brains.' A civil service appointment 
 • — and a pension of seven hundred a year. What's the 
 good of slaving for that.'* " 
 
 Faversham turned to his companion wdth a smile, in 
 which however there was no good-humour. It made 
 Tatham disagreeably conscious of his own wealth. 
 
 "Well, of course, there are the prizes " 
 
 "A few. So few that they don't count. A man may 
 grind for years, and get passed over or forgotten — just by a 
 shave — at the end. I've seen that happen often. Or 
 you get on swimmingly for a while, and everybody sup- 
 poses you're going to romp in; and then something crops 
 up you never thought of. Some boss takes a dislike to 
 you — or you make a mistake, and cut your own throat. 
 And there you are — pulled!" 
 
 Tatham was silent a moment, his blunt features ex- 
 pressing some bewilderment . Then he said — awkwardly : 
 
 "So you don't really know what you're going to take 
 up.?" 
 
182 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 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 idiot one 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 not the things I must do," laughed 
 Faversham. "That seems to me the dividing line in life 
 — whether you are under another man's orders or your 
 own. And broadly speaking it's the line between poverty 
 and money. But you don't know much about it, old 
 fellow!" He looked round with a laugh. 
 
 Tatham screwed up his blue eyes, not finding reply very 
 easy, and not certain that he liked the "old fellow," though 
 their college familiarity justified it. He changed the sub- 
 ject, and they fell into some gossip about Oxford acquain- 
 tances and recollections, which kept the conversation 
 going. 
 
 But at the end of it the two men were each secretly 
 conscious that the other jarred upon him; and in spite of 
 the tacit appeal made by Faversham 's physical weakness 
 and evident depression to Tatham 's boundless good- 
 nature, there had arisen between them at the end an in- 
 cipient antagonism which a touch might develop. Faver- 
 sham appeared to the younger man as querulous, dis- 
 contented, and rather sordidly ambitious; while the smiling 
 optimism of a youth on whom Fortune had showered 
 every conceivable gift — money, position, and influence — 
 without the smallest effort on his own part, rang false or 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 183 
 
 foolish in the ears of his companion. Tatham, cut off 
 from the county, agricultural, or sporting subjects in which 
 he was most at home, fumbled a good deal in his efforts to 
 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 and wonderful possessions, had him- 
 self neither literary nor artistic faculty, and in the pre- 
 vailing manner of the English country gentleman, had 
 always found the pleasures of England so many and 
 superior that there was no need whatever to cross the Chan- 
 nel in pursuit of others. Both were soon bored; and Tat- 
 ham would have hurried his departure, but for the hope 
 of Lydia. With that to fortify him, however, he sat on. 
 
 And at last she came. Mrs. Penfold, it will easily be 
 imagined, entered upon the scene, in a state of bewildered 
 ravishment. 
 
 " She had never expected — she could not have be- 
 lieved — it was like a fairy-tale — a real fairy-tale — 
 wasn't the house too beautiful — Mr. Melrose's iaste! — 
 and such things!" In the wake of this soft, gesticulating 
 whirlwind, followed Lydia, waiting patiently with her 
 bright and humorous look till her mother should give 
 her the chance of a word. Her gray dre.^, and white hat, 
 her little white scarf, a trifle old-fashioned, and the pansies 
 at her belt seemed to Tatham's eager eyes the very perfec- 
 tion of dress. He watched her keenly as she came in; the 
 kind look at Faversham; then the start — was it, of pity? 
 — for his altered aspect, the friendly greeting for himself; 
 and all so sweet, so detached, so composed. His heart 
 sank, he could not have told why. 
 
184 THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 "I ought to have warned you of that hill!" she said, 
 standing beside Faversham, and looking down upon him. 
 
 "You couldn't know I was such a duffer!" laughed 
 Faversham. "It wasn't me — 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 wiped out. 
 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. "It said 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, turning round upon him. "You can't think how 
 Lydia was envied! Hardly anybody sold. There were 
 friends of hers exhibiting — and it was dreadful. The 
 secretary said they had hardly ever had such a bad year — 
 something to do with a bank breaking — or the influenza 
 — or something. But Lydia, lucky girl, sold hers within 
 the first week. And we don't know at all who bought 
 them. The secretary said he was not to tell. There are 
 many buyers, he told us, who won't give their names — 
 for fear of being bothered afterward. As if Lydia would 
 ever bother any one!" 
 
 The guilty Tatham sat with his cane between his knees 
 twirling it, his eyes on the ground. No one noticed him. 
 
 "And the sketch you were making that day.''" said 
 Faversham. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 185 
 
 "As you liked it, I brought it to show you," said Lydia 
 shyly. And she produced a thin parcel she had been 
 carrying under her arm, 
 
 Faversham praised the drawing warmly. It reminded 
 him, he said, of some work he had seen in March, at one of 
 the Bond Street galleries; a one-man show by a French 
 water-colourist. He named him. Lydia flushed a little. 
 
 "Next to Mr. Delorme" — she glanced gratefully at 
 Tatham — "he is the man of 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't mean that for a moment." 
 
 Lydia's eyes surveyed him with a look of amusement, 
 which seemed to say that she was not at all duped by his 
 compUment. He proceeded to justify it. 
 
 "I'll tell you who do imitate him " 
 
 And forthwith he began to show a remarkable knowledge 
 of certain advanced groups among the younger artists and 
 their work. Lydia's face kindled. She listened; she 
 agreed; she interrupted; she gave her view; it was evident 
 that the conversation both surprised and delighted her. 
 
 Tea came out, and, at Faversham's invitation, Lydia 
 presided. The talk between her and Faversham flowed 
 on, in spite of the girl's pretty efforts to make it general, 
 to bring Tatham into it. He himself defeated her. He 
 wanted to listen; so did Mrs. Penfold, who sat in open- 
 mouthed wonder at Lydia's cleverness; while Tatham 
 was presently conscious of a strong discomfort, a jealous 
 discomfort, which spoilt for him this nearness to Lydia, 
 and the thrill stirred in him by her movements and tones, 
 her soft laugh, her white neck, her eves. . . . 
 
186 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 Here, between these two people, Faversham and Lydia, 
 who had only seen each other for some ten minutes in 
 their lives before, there seemed to have arisen, at once, 
 an understanding, a freemasonry, such as he himself 
 had never reached in all his meetings with Lydia Penfold. 
 
 How had it come about? They talked of people, 
 struggling people, to whom art was life, though also 
 livelihood; of men and women, for whom nothing else 
 counted, beside the fascination and the torment of their 
 work; Lydia speaking from within, as a humble yet devout 
 member of the band; Faversham, as the keen spectator and 
 amateur — not an artist, but the frequenter of artists. 
 
 And all the time Lydia's face wore a happy anima- 
 tion which redoubled its charm. Faversham was clearly 
 making a good impression upon her, was indeed set on 
 doing so, helped always by the look of delicacy, th6 traces 
 of suffering, which appealed to her pity. Tatham moved 
 restlessly in his chair, and presently he got up, and pro- 
 posed to Mrs. Penfold that they should examine the im- 
 provements in the garden. 
 
 When they returned, Lydia and Faversham were still 
 talking and still absorbed. 
 
 "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 been made in a 
 week! It's like that part in 'Monte Cristo,' where he 
 orders an avenue at breakfast-time, that's to be ready by 
 dinner — don't you remember.'^ It's thrilling!" 
 
 Lydia rose obediently, and Mrs. Penfold slipped into 
 her seat. Lydia, strolling with Tatham along the rampart 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 187 
 
 wall which crowned the sandstone chff, was now and then 
 uncomfortably aware as they passed the tea-table of the 
 soft shower of questions that her mother was raining upon 
 Faversham. 
 
 "You really think, Mr. Faversham " — the tone was 
 anxiously lowered — "the daughter is dead? — the daugh- 
 ter and the mother?" 
 
 "I know nothing!" 
 
 "She would be the heiress?" 
 
 "If she were alive? Morally, I suppose, not legally, 
 unless her father pleased." 
 
 "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 was rung. Mrs, Penfold flushed. She 
 quite understood that Lydia thought it unseemly to be 
 putting a guest through a string of questions about the 
 private affairs of his host; but the inveterate gossip in her 
 whimpered. 
 
 " You see when one has watched a place for months — 
 and people tell you such tales — and you come and find it 
 so different — and so — so fascinating " 
 
 She paused, her plaintive look, under her wistful eye- 
 brows, appealing to Faversham 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! WTien ^-ill you come to see me again? " 
 
188 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 "Will it be permitted?" She laid a jBnger on her lip, 
 as she glanced smiling at the house. 
 
 He begged them to repeat their visit. Tatham looked 
 on in silence. The figure of Lydia, delicately bright 
 against the dark background of the Tower, absorbed him, 
 and this time there was something painful and strained 
 in his perception of it. In his first meeting with her that 
 day he had been all hopefulness — content to wait and 
 woo. Now, as he saw her with Faversham, as he per- 
 ceived 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 to the terrace. 
 
 The two ladies escorted by Tatham moved toward 
 the house expecting Dixon with the announcement of 
 their carriage. 
 
 A tall figure stood in the doorway. There was a checked 
 exclamation from Tatham, and Faversham perceived to 
 his amazement that it was not Dixon — but — Melrose' 
 
 Melrose surveyed the group. Removing his old hat he 
 bowed gravely to the ladies. His flowing hair, and largely 
 cut classical features gave him an Apollonian aspect as he 
 towered above the startled group, looking down on them 
 with an expression half triumphant, half sarcastic. Tat- 
 ham was the first to recover himself. He approached 
 Melrose with a coolness like his own. 
 
 "You are back early, sir? I apologize for my intrusion, 
 which will not be prolonged. I came, as you see, to in- 
 quire after my old friend, Mr. Faversham." 
 
 "So I understand. Well — what's wrong with him? 
 
THE IMATING OF LYDIA 18» 
 
 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 that words failed her, bowed profoundly; 
 Lydia slightly. She was indignant for Tatham. Mr. 
 Melrose, having announced his absence for the day, ought 
 not to have returned upon them by surprise, and his 
 manner convinced her that it 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're going?" This was 
 in answer to Tatham's bow which he slightly acknowl- 
 edged. "Good-day, good-day! You'll find your horse. 
 Sorry you're so hurried." 
 
 Followed by the old man's insolent eyes, Tatham shook 
 hands with Faversham and the Penfolds; then without 
 reentering the house, he took a short cut across the 
 garden and disappeared. 
 
 "Hm!" said Melrose, looking after him, "I can't say he 
 resembles his mother. 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 invited the 
 ladies to do the same. Mrs. Penfold obeyed; Lydia re- 
 mained standing behind her mother's chair. The situa- 
 tion reminded her of a covey of partridges when a hawk is 
 hovering. 
 
 Mrs. Penfold at once began to make conversation, say- 
 ing the most dishevelled things for sheer fright. Melrose 
 threw her a monosyllable now and then, reserving all his 
 
190 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 attention for the young girl, whose beauty he instantly 
 perceived. His piercing eyes travelled from Faversham 
 to Lydia repeatedly, and the invalid rather angrily divined 
 the conjectures which might be passing in their owner's 
 brain. 
 
 "How are you?" asked Melrose abruptly, when he 
 returned from accompanying the Fenfolds to the front 
 door. 
 
 Faversham replied with some coldness. He was dis- 
 gusted that Melrose should have spoilt the final success 
 of his little festa by the breach of a promise he had himself 
 volunteered. 
 
 But Melrose appeared to be in an unusually good 
 temper, and he took no notice. He had had considerable 
 success that morning, it appeared, at an auction of some 
 fine things at a house near Carlisle; having not only se- 
 cured what he wanted himself, but having punished two 
 or three of his most prominent rivals, by bidding high for 
 some inferior thing, exciting their competition, and then 
 at the critical moment dropping it on the nose, as he ex- 
 plained it, of one of his opponents. " Wilson of York came 
 to me nearly in tears, and implored me to take some 
 beastly pot or other that I had made him buy at a ridic- 
 ulous price. I told him he might keep it, as a reminder 
 that I always paid those out who bid against me. Then 
 I found I could get an earlier train home; and I confess 
 I was curious to see how young Tatham woidd look, on 
 my premises. He did not expect that I should catch him 
 here." The Ogre chuckled. 
 
 "You told me, if you remember," said Faversham, not 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 191 
 
 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 I can'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 his chair: "I have — a rather important 
 proposition to make to you. That fellow Undershaw 
 would attack me if I began upon it now. Moreover, it 
 will want a fresh mind. Will it suit you if I come to see 
 you at eleven o'clock to-morrow.''" 
 
rx 
 
 ON THE following morning, Faversham, for the 
 first time, dressed without assistance, and walked 
 independently — save for his stick — into his sit- 
 ting-room. The July day was rather chill and rainy and 
 he decided to await Melrose indoors. 
 
 As to the "important proposal" his mind was full of 
 conjectures. What he thought most probable was that 
 Melrose intended, according to various fresh hints and 
 indications, to make him another and a more serious offer 
 for his gems — no doubt a big offer. They were worth at 
 least three thousand pounds, and Melrose of course knew 
 their value to a hair. 
 
 "Well, I shall not sell them," thought Faversham, his 
 hands behind his head, his eyes following the misty 
 course of the river, and the rain showers scudding over the 
 fells. "I shall not sell them." 
 
 His mind clung obstinately to this resolve. His 
 ambitions with regard to money went, ' in fact, so far 
 beyond anything that three thousand pounds could 
 satisfy, that the inducement to sell at such a price — 
 which he knew to be the market price — and wound 
 thereby the deepest and sincerest of his affections, was 
 not really great. The little capital on which he lived was 
 nearly double the sum, and could be made to yield a fair 
 income by small and judicious speculation. He did not 
 
 192 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 193 
 
 see that he should be much better off for the addition to 
 it of three thousand pounds; and on the other hand, were 
 the gems sold, he should have lost much that he keenly 
 valued — the prestige of ownership; the access which it 
 gave him to circles, learned or wealthy, which had been 
 else closed to him; the distinction attaching thereby to 
 his otherwise obscure name in catalogues and mono- 
 graphs, English or foreign. So long as he possessed the 
 "Mackworth gems" he was, in the eyes of the world of 
 connoisseurs, at any rate, a personage. Without them 
 he was a personage nowhere. Every month, every week, 
 almost, he was beginning to receive requests to be allowed 
 to see and study them, or appeals to lend them for exhibi- 
 tion. In the four months since his uncle's death, both 
 the Louvre and the Berlin Museum had approached 
 him, offering to exhibit them, and hinting that the loan 
 might lead, should he so desire it, to a very profitable 
 sale. If he did anything of the kind, he was pledged 
 of course to give the British Museum the first chance. 
 But he was not going to do it — he was not even going to 
 lend them — yet a while. To possess them, and the 
 kudo.'i that went with them; not to sell them, for senti- 
 mental reasons, and even at a money loss, made a poor 
 man proud, and ministered in strange ways to his self- 
 respect, which went often rather hungry; gave him, in 
 short, a standing with himself, and with the world. All 
 the more, that the poor man's mind was in fact, set 
 passionately on the conquest of wealth — real and sub- 
 stantial wealth — to which the paltry sum of three 
 thousand pounds bore no sort of relation. 
 
 No, he would not sell them. But he braced himself to a 
 
194 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 tussle with Melrose, for he seemed to have gathered from 
 a number of small indications that the fierce old collector 
 had set his heart upon them. And no doubt this business 
 of the newly furnished rooms, and all the luxuries that had 
 been given or promised, made it more difficult — had 
 been intended, perhaps, to make it more difficult? Well, 
 he could but say his No and depart, expressing his grati- 
 tude — and insisting on the payment of his score ! 
 
 But — depart where? The energies of renewed health 
 were pulsing through him, and yet he had seldom felt 
 more stranded, or, except in connection with the gems, 
 more insignificant, either to himself or others; in spite 
 of this palace which had been oddly renovated for his 
 convenience. His uncle's death had left him singularly 
 forlorn, deprived of the only home he had ever possessed, 
 and the only person who felt for him a close and spon- 
 taneous affection. For his other uncle — his only re- 
 maining relation — was a crusty and selfish widower, 
 with whom he had been on little more than formal terms. 
 The rheumatic gout pleaded in the letter to Undershaw 
 had been, he was certain, a mere excuse. 
 
 Well — something must be done; some fresh path 
 opened up. He had in fact left London in a kind of secret 
 exasperation with himself and circumstance, making an 
 excuse out of meeting the Ransoms — mere acquaint- 
 ances — at Liverpool; and determined, after the short 
 tour to which they had invited him, to plunge himself for 
 a week or two in the depths of a Highland glen where he 
 might fish and think. 
 
 The Ransoms, machine manufacturers from St. Louis, 
 had made matters worse. Such wealth ! — such careless. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 195 
 
 vulgar, easily gotten wealth ! — heaped up 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 a frivolous woman; yet possessed, through their 
 mere money, of a power over life and its experiences, 
 such as he, Faversham, might strive for all his days and 
 never come near. It might be said of course — Herbert 
 Ransom would probably say it — that all men are 
 worth the wages they get; with an obvious deduction in 
 his own case. But when or where had he ever got his 
 chance — a real chance? Visions of the rich men among 
 his acquaintance, sleek, half-breed financiers, idle, con- 
 ceited youths of the "classes," pushed on by family 
 interest; pig-headed manufacturers, inheritors of fortunes 
 they could never have made; the fatteners on colonial 
 land and railway speculation — his whole mind rose in 
 angry revolt against the notion 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 physical strength there had come a 
 passionate renewal of desire — desire for happiness and 
 success. The figure of Lydia Penfold hovered perpetually 
 in his mind. Marriage! — his whole being, moral and 
 
196 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 physical, cried out for it. But how was he ever to marry? 
 — how could he ever give such a woman as that the setting 
 and the scope she could reasonably claim? 
 
 "A bad day!" said a harsh voice behind him, "but all 
 the better for business." 
 
 Faversham turned to greet his host, the mental and 
 physical nerves tightening. 
 
 "Good morning. Well, here I am" — his laugh 
 showed his nervousness — "at your disposal." 
 
 He settled himself in his chair. Melrose took a ciga- 
 rette from the table, and offered one to his guest. He 
 lit and smoked in silence for a few moments, then began 
 to speak with deliberation: 
 
 "I gather from our conversations, Faversham, during 
 the last few weeks that 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 you mean to imply by that, that I am 
 necessarily — or willingly — an idler, you are mis- 
 taken." 
 
 "I did not mean to imply anything of the kind. I 
 merely wished, so to speak, 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 to attempt — suddenly — to lift a man out of a 
 fixed groove and career, and suggest to him another. I 
 should expect to be sent to the devil — and serve me 
 right. But in your case — correct me if I am wrong — 
 you seem not yet to have discovered the groove that 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 197 
 
 suits you. Now I am here to propose to you a groove 
 
 — and a career." 
 
 Faversham looked at him with astonishment. The 
 gems, which had been so urgently present to his mind, 
 receded from it. Melrose in his skullcap, sitting side- 
 ways in his chair, his cigarette held aloft, presented a 
 profile which might have been that of some Venetian 
 Doge, old, withered and crafty, engaged, say, in negotia- 
 tion with a Genoese envoy. 
 
 "When you were first brought here," Melrose con- 
 tinued — "your presence, as Undershaw has no doubt 
 told you — of course he has told you, small blame to 
 him — was extremely distasteful to me. I am a recluse. 
 
 I like no women — and d d few men. I can do 
 
 without them, that's all; their intimate company, any- 
 way: and my pursuits bring me all the amusement I 
 require. Such at any rate was my frame of mind up to 
 a few weeks ago. I don't apologize for it in the least. 
 Every man has a right to his ovra idiosyncrasies. But 
 I confess that your society during the last few weeks — 
 I am in no mood for mere compliment — has had a 
 considerable effect upon me. It has revealed to me 
 that I am no longer so young as I was, or so capable 
 
 — apparently — of entertaining myself. At any rate 
 your company — I put it quite frankly — instead of 
 being a nuisance — has been a godsend. It has turned 
 out that we have many of the same tastes; and your 
 inheritance of the treasures collected by my old friend 
 Mackworth" — ("Ah!" thought Faversham, "now we 
 come to it!") — "has made from the first, I think, a 
 link between us. Have I your assent.'*" 
 
198 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 "Certainly." 
 
 Melrose paused a moment, and then resumed. The 
 impression he made was that of one rehearsing, point by 
 point, a prepared speech. 
 
 "At the same time, I have become more aware than 
 usual of the worries and annoyances connected with the 
 management of my estates. We live, sir, in a world of 
 robbers " — Melrose suddenly rounded on his companion, 
 his withered face aflame — "a world of robbers, and of 
 rapine! Not a single Tom, Dick, and Harry in these 
 parts that doesn't think himself my equal and more. 
 Not a single tenant on my estate that doesn't try at 
 every point to take advantage of his landlord! Not a 
 single tramp or poacher that doesn't covet my goods — 
 that wouldn't murder me if he could, and sleep 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 about us like the plague; that every child im- 
 bibes from our abominable press ! — that our fools of 
 clergy — our bishops even — are not ashamed to preach. 
 There is precious little sense of property, and not a single 
 rag of loyalty or respect left in this country! But when 
 you think of the creatures that rule us — and the fanatics 
 who preach to us — and the fools who bring up our 
 children, what else can you expect! The whole state 
 is rotten! The men in our great to\\Tis are ripe for any 
 revolutionary villainy. We shall come to blood, Faver- 
 sham!" — he struck his hand violently on the arm of 
 his chair — "and then a dictator — the inevitable round. 
 Well, I have done my part. I have fought the battle of 
 property in this country — the battle of every squire in 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 199 
 
 Cumbria, if the dolts did but know their own interests. 
 Instead they have done nothing but thwart and bully me 
 for twenty years. And young Tatham with his County 
 Council nonsense, 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'm beat. Anyway, 
 I've done. There'll have to be fighting, but some one 
 else must see to it. I intend to put my affairs into fresh 
 hands. It is my purpose to appoint a new agent — and 
 to give him complete control of my property!" 
 
 Melrose stopped abruptly. His hard eyes in their deep, 
 round orbits were fixed on Faversham. The young man 
 was mainly conscious of a half-hysterical inchnation to 
 laugh, which he strangled as he best could. Was he to be 
 offered the post.f^ 
 
 "And, moreover," Melrose resumed, "I want a secre- 
 tary — I want a companion — I want some one who will 
 help me to arrange the immense, the priceless collections 
 there are stacked in this house — unknown to anybody — 
 hardly known, in the lapse of years, even to myseK. I 
 desire to unravel my own web, so to speak — to spin off 
 my o^\Ti silk — to examine and analyze what I have 
 accumulated. There are rooms here — containing master- 
 pieces — unique treasures — that have never been opened 
 for years — whose contents I have myself forgotten. 
 That's why people call me a madman. Why? What 
 did I want with a big establishment eating up my income? 
 — with a lot of prying idiots from outside — museum 
 bores, bothering me for loans — common tourists, offer- 
 ing impertinent tips to my housekeeper, or picking and 
 stealing, perhaps, when her back was turned! I bought 
 
200 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 the things, and shut them up. They were safe, anyway. 
 But now that process has gone on for a quarter of a cen- 
 tury. You come along. A chance — a freak — a ca- 
 price, if you hke, makes me arrange these rooms for you. 
 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 extra- 
 ordinary collections — have been the nuts — 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 marqueterie table 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 my- 
 self. I offer you a salary of three thousand a year — 
 three thousand pounds, a year — if you will undertake the 
 management of my estates, and be my lieutenant in the 
 arrangement of my collections. I wish — as I have said 
 — to unpack this house; 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 proper pro- 
 vision, by contract, or otherwise, so that in the event of 
 any sudden termination of our agreement — my death 
 for instance — you should be adequately protected. 
 Well, there, in outline, is my proposal!" 
 
 During this extraordinary speech Faversham's coun- 
 tenance had reflected with tolerable clearness the various 
 impressions made by it — incredulous or amused astonish- 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 201 
 
 ment — bewilderment — deepening gravity — coming 
 round again 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 Dovedale stole him from me — bribed him 
 by higher pay. Since then I have had nothing 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 cocksure fellow, with brand-new ideas 
 lording it over me. I should advise you of course." 
 
 " But — at the same time — I should not be content 
 with a mere clerk's place, Mr. Melrose," said Faver- 
 sham, a momentary flash in his dark eye. "I am one of 
 those men who are better as principals than as subordi- 
 nates. Otherwise I should be in harness by now." 
 
 Melrose eyed him askance for a moment — then said: 
 "I understand. I should be willing to steer my course 
 accordingly — to give you a reasonable freedom. There 
 are two old clerks in the estate-office, who know every- 
 thing that is to be known about the property, and there 
 are my solicitors both in Carlisle and Pengarth. For the 
 rest, you are a lawyer, and there are some litigations 
 pending. Your legal knowledge would be of considerable 
 service. If you are the clever fellow I take you for, a 
 month or two's hard work, the usual technical books, 
 some expert advice — and I have little doubt you would 
 make as good an agent as any of them. Mind, I am not 
 
202 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 prepared to spend unlimited money — nor to run my 
 estates as a Socialist concern. But I gather you are as 
 good a Conservative as myself." 
 
 Faversham was silent a moment, observing the man 
 before him. The whole thing 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 unheard 
 of." 
 
 "For an agent, yes — for a secretary, yes — for a com- 
 bination of the two, under the peculiar circumstances, the 
 market offers no precedents. You and 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 / did 
 this thing, sir, I should want to do it in a businesslike 
 way." 
 
 "You want an office.'' Take your choice." Melrose's 
 gesture indicated the rest of the house. "There are 
 rooms enough. But you will want some place, I imagine, 
 where you can be at home, receive friends — hke the 
 young lady and 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 expect that for a time you would devote 
 yourself wholly to the organization of the collections, 
 inside the house, and to the work of the estate, outside it. 
 But you are of an age when a man hopes to marry. I 
 should of course take that into account. In a year or 
 two " 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 203 
 
 "Oh, I have no immediate ideas of that kind," said 
 Favershara, hastily. 
 
 There was a pause. At the end of it Faversham turned 
 on his companion. A streak of feverish colour, a sparkling 
 vivacity in the eyes, showed the ejffect produced by the 
 conversation. But he had kept his head throughout the 
 whole interview, and a certain unexpected strength in his 
 personality had revealed itself to Melrose : 
 
 "You will hardly expect me, sir, to give an immediate 
 ansv\^er to these proposals?" 
 
 "Take your time — take your time — in moderation," 
 said Melrose, drumming on the table before him. 
 
 "And there are of course a few things that I on my 
 side should wish to know." 
 
 A series of inquiries followed: as to the term of the 
 proposed engagement; the degree of freedom that would 
 be granted him; the date at which his duties would 
 begin, supposing he undertook them — ("To-morrow, if 
 it pleases you!" said Melrose, jovially) — passing on to 
 the general circumstances of the estates, and the nature 
 of the pending litigations. The questions were put with 
 considerable tact, but were none the less shrewd. Mel- 
 rose's strange character with its mixture of sagacity, folly, 
 and violence, had never been more acutely probed — 
 though quite indirectly. 
 
 At the end of them his companion rose. 
 
 "You have a talent for cross-examination," he said 
 with a rather sour smile. "I leave you. We have talked 
 enough." 
 
 "Let me at least exjDress before you go the gratitude I 
 feel for proposals so flattering — so generous," said Faver- 
 
204 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 sham, not without emotion; "and for all the kindness I 
 have received here, a kindness that no man could ever 
 forget." 
 
 Melrose looked at him oddly, seemed about to speak 
 — then muttered something hardly intelligible, ceased 
 abruptly, and departed. 
 
 The master of the Tower went slowly to his library 
 through the splendid gallery, where Mrs. Dixon and 
 the new housemaid were timidly dusting. But he 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. He was exhausted, and his seventy years 
 asserted themselves. The radical alteration in his habits 
 and outlook which the preceding six weeks had produced, 
 the excitement of unpacking the treasures now displayed 
 in the gallery, the constant thinkings and plannings con- 
 nected with Faversham and the future, and, lastly, the 
 interview just concluded, had tried his strength. Certain 
 symptoms — symptoms of old age — annoyed him though 
 he would not admit it. No doubt some change was 
 wanted. He must smoke less — travel less — give him- 
 self more variety and more amusement. Well, if Faver- 
 sham consented, he should at least have bought for 
 himself a companionship that was agreeable to him, and 
 relief from a number of routine occupations which he 
 detested. 
 
 Suddenly — a child's voice — a child's shrill voice, 
 ringing through the gallery — followed by scufflings and 
 bushings, on the part of an older person — then a wail — 
 and silence. Melrose had risen to his feet with an excla- 
 
THE INIATING OF LYDIA 205 
 
 mation. Some peculiar quality in the voice — some 
 passionate, thrilling quality — had produced for the mo- 
 ment an extraordinary illusion. 
 
 He recovered himself in a moment. It was of course 
 the child of the upholstress who had been working in the 
 house for a week or so. He remembered to have noticed 
 the httle girl. But the sound had inevitably suggested 
 thoughts he had no wish to entertain. He had a letter in 
 his pocket at that moment which he did not mean to 
 answer — the first he had received for many years. If 
 he once allowed a correspondence to grow up — with 
 that individual — on the subject of money, there would 
 be no end to it; it would spread and spread, till his free- 
 dom was once more endangered. He did not intend that 
 persons, who had been once banished from his life, should 
 reenter it — on any pretext. Netta had behaved to him 
 like a thief and a criminal, and with the mother went the 
 child. They were 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 logs before 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 a magnetic 
 power, he went to the Riesener table, and unlocked the 
 drawer which held the gems. 
 
 Bringing them back to the fireside he watched the play 
 of the flames on their shining surfaces, delighting greedily 
 in their beauty; in the long history attaching to each one 
 of them, every detail of which he knew; in the sense of their 
 uniqueness. Nothing like them of their kind, anywhere; 
 
206 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 and there they were in his hand, after these years of fruit- 
 less coveting. He had often made Mackworth offers for 
 them; and Mackworth had laughed at him. 
 
 Well, he had bid high enough this time, not for the 
 gems themselves, but for the chance of some day persuad- 
 ing their owner to entertain the notion of selling them. It 
 pleased him to guess at what had been probably Faver- 
 sham's secret expectation that morning of a proposal for 
 them; and to think that he had baffled it. 
 
 He might, of course, have made some quite preposterous 
 offer which would have forced the young man's hand. But 
 that might have meant, probably would have meant, the 
 prompt departure of the enriched Faversham. But he 
 wanted both Faversham and the gems; as much as pos- 
 sible — that is, for his money. The thought of returning 
 to his former solitariness was rapidly becoming intolerable 
 to him. Meanwhile the adorable things were Still under 
 his roof; and with a mad pleasure he relocked the drawer. 
 
 Faversham spent the rest of the morning in cogitations 
 that may be easily imagined. He certainly attributed 
 some share in the extraordinary proposal that had been 
 made to him, to his possession of the gems, and to Mel- 
 rose's desire to beguile them from him. But what then? 
 Sufficient for the day! He would decide how to deal 
 with that crisis when it should arrive. 
 
 Meanwhile, the amazing proposal itself was before him. 
 If it were accepted, he should be at once a comparatively 
 rich man, with an infinity of chances for the future; for 
 Melrose's financial interest and influence were immense. 
 If not free to marry immediately, he would certainly be 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 207 
 
 free — as Melrose himself had hinted — to prepare for 
 marriage. But could he do the work? — could he get on 
 with the old man? — could he endure the life? 
 
 After luncheon Dixon, with the subdued agitation of 
 manner which showed the advent of yet another change 
 in the household, came in to announce that a motor had 
 come from Carhsle, that Mr. Melrose did not propose to 
 use it himself, and hoped that Mr. Faversham would 
 take a drive. 
 
 It was the invahd's first excursion into the outer world. 
 
 He sat breathing in great draughts of the scented 
 summer air, feeling his hfe and strength come back into 
 him. 
 
 The rain had passed, and the fells rose clear and high 
 above the moist hay meadows and the fresh-leaved trees. 
 
 As they emerged upon the Keswick road he tapped 
 the chauffeur on the shoulder. "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 excite- 
 ment he had some difficulty in conceahng; the physical 
 excitement of change and movement, of this reentry 
 upon a new world, which was the old; and the mental 
 excitement of his own position. 
 
 At the cottage door, he dismounted slowly. The maid- 
 servant said she thought Mrs. Penfold was in the garden. 
 Would the gentleman please come in? 
 
 Faversham, leaning on his stick, made his way through 
 
208 THE :\L\TIXG OF LYDIA 
 
 the tiny hall of the cottage, and the drawing-room door 
 was thrown open for him. A young lady was sitting 
 at the farther end, who rose with a sUght cr\- of astonish- 
 ment. It was Lydia. 
 
 Through her reception of him Faversham soon learnt 
 what are the pri%-ileges of the wounded, and how glad are 
 all good women of excuses to be kind. Lydia placed him in 
 the best chair, in front of the best %-iew, ordered tea, and 
 hovered round him with an eager benevolence. Her 
 mother, she said, would be in directly. Faversham. on 
 his side, could only secretly hope that Mrs. Penfold's 
 walk might be prolonged. 
 
 They were not interrupted. Lydia, with concern, con- 
 jectured that Mrs. Penfold and Susan had gone to \isit 
 a couple of maiden ladies, h\-ing half a mile off along the 
 road. But she showed not the smallest awkwardness in 
 entertaining her guest. The rain of the morning had 
 left the air chilly, and a wood fire burnt on the hearth. 
 Its pleasant flame gave an added touch of intimity to 
 the httle drawing-room, with its wild flowers, its books, 
 its water-colours, and its modest furnishings. After the 
 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, he told her of the offer 
 which had been made to him. 
 
 Lydia's embroidery dropped on her lap. 
 
 "Mr. Melrose's agent I" she repeated, in wonder. "He 
 has offered you that?" 
 
 "He has — on most generous terms. Shall I take it?" 
 
 She flushed a httle, for the ardent deference in his 
 
THE ]\L\TING OF LYDIA 209 
 
 eyes was not easy to ignore. But she examined his news 
 seriously — kindhng over it. 
 
 "His agent — agent for his miserable, neglected prop- 
 erty! Heavens, what a chance!" 
 
 She looked at him. her soul in her face. Something 
 warned him to be cautious. 
 
 "You think it so neglected.'" 
 
 "I know it: but ask Lord Tatham! He's chairman of 
 some committee or other — he'll tell you." 
 
 "But perhaps I shall have to fight Tatham.^ Suppose 
 that turns out to be my 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 the shade of depreciation. "He is the 
 kindest, dearest fellow! I agree — it's provoking not to 
 be able to sniff at him — such a Prince Charming — with 
 all the world at his feet. But one can't — one really 
 can't!" 
 
 Jealousy sprang up sharply in Faversham, though a 
 wider experience of the sex might have suggested to him 
 that women do not generally shower public praise on the 
 men they love. Lydia. however, quickly left the subject, 
 and returned to his own affairs. Nothing, he confessed, 
 could have been friendlier or sincerer than her interest in 
 them. They plunged into the subject of the estate; and 
 Faversham stood amazed at her knowledge of the dales- 
 folk, their lives and their grievances. At the end, he drew 
 a Ions; breath. 
 
210 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 "By George ! — can I do it? " 
 
 "Oh, yes, yes, yes!" said Lydia eagerly, driving her 
 needle into the sofa cushion. "You'll reform him!" 
 
 Faversham laughed. 
 
 "He's a tough customer. He has already warned me 
 I am not to manage his estates like a Socialist." 
 
 "No — but like a human being!" cried Lydia, indig- 
 nantly — "that's all we want. Come and talk to Lord 
 Tatham!" 
 
 "Parley with my employer's opponent!" 
 
 "Under a flag of truce," laughed Lydia, "and this 
 shall be the neutral ground. You shall meet here — and 
 mamma and I will hold the lists." 
 
 "You think — under those circumstances — we should 
 get through much business?" His dark eyes, full of 
 gaiety, searched hers. She flushed a little. 
 
 "Ah, well, you should have the chance anyway." 
 
 Faversham rose unwilhngly to go. Lydia bent for- 
 ward, listening. 
 
 "At last — here comes my mother." 
 
 For outside in the little hall there was suddenly much 
 chatter and swishing of skirts. Some one came laughing 
 to the drawing-room and threw it 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 hlies. 
 
 "You said you'd like to see those old drawings of 
 Keswick — by I forget whom. Lady Tatham has sent 
 you the whole set — they had them — you may keep 
 
THE JVIATING OF LYDIA 211 
 
 them as long as you like. And Lord Tatham has sent 
 flowers. Just look at those roses!" Mrs. Penfold put 
 down the basket heaped with them at Lydia's feet, while 
 Susy — demurely — did the same with the lilies. "And 
 there is a fascinating parcel of books for Susy — all the 
 new reviews ! . . . Oh! Mr. Faversham — I declare — 
 why, I never saw" you ! " 
 
 Voluble excuses and apologies followed. Meanwhile 
 Lydia, with a bright colour, stood bewildered, the flowers 
 all about her, and the drawings in her hands. Faversham 
 escaped as soon as he could. As he approached Lydia to 
 say good-bye, she looked up, put the drawings aside, and 
 hurriedly came 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 
 falhng fast and deep in love; next, that — by the look of 
 things — he had a rival, with whom, in the opinion of all 
 practical people, it would be mere folly for him to think 
 of competing. 
 
BOOK II 
 
WHILE Faversham was driving back to Threlfall, 
 his mind possessed by a tumult of projects and 
 images — which was a painful tumult, because 
 his physical strength was not yet equal to coping with it 
 — a scene was passing in a bare cottage beside the Ulls- 
 water road, whence in due time one of those events was 
 to arise which we call sudden or startling only because we 
 are ignorant of the slow avd^K-q which has produced 
 them. 
 
 An elderly man had just entered the cottage after his 
 day's work. He was evidently dead tired, and he had 
 sunk down on a chair beside a table which held tea things 
 and some bread and butter. His wife could be heard 
 moving 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 sunlight that had found 
 its way into the darkened room. For the western sua 
 was blazing on the front, the blinds were down, and the 
 httle room was like an oven. The cottage was a new one 
 and stood in a bare plot of garden, unshaded and unshel- 
 tered, on a stretch of road which crossed the open fell. It 
 was a labourer's cottage, but the furniture of the living- 
 room was superior in quality to that commonly found in 
 
 215 
 
216 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 the cottages of the neighbourhood. A piano was crowded 
 into one corner, and a sideboard, too large 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 as Messrs. Carter, 
 tailors, of Pengarth, were accustomed to sell to their 
 farmer 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 on the drooped brow shone 
 beads of sweat. John Brand was not much over fifty, 
 but he was tired out in mind and body; and his soul was 
 bitter within him. 
 
 A year before this date he had been still the nominal 
 owner of a small freehold farm between Pengarth and 
 Carlisle, bordering on the Threlfall property. But he 
 was then within an ace of ruin, and irreparable calamity 
 had since overtaken him. 
 
 How it was that he had fallen into such a pHght was 
 still more or less mysterious to a dull brain. Up to the age 
 of forty-seven, he had been employed on his father's land, 
 with little more than the wages of a labourer, possessing 
 but small authority over the men working on the farm, 
 and no liberty but such as the will of a tyrannical master 
 allowed him. Then suddenly the father died, and Brand 
 succeeded to the farm. All his long-checked manhood 
 asserted itself. There was a brief period of drinking, 
 betting, and high living. The old man had left a small 
 sum of ready money in the bank, which to the son, who 
 had always been denied the handling of money, seemed 
 riches. It was soon spent, and then unexpected burdens 
 
THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 217 
 
 and claims disclosed themselves. There was a debt to the 
 bank, which there were no means of paying. And he 
 discovered to his dismay that a spinster cousin of his 
 mother's had lent money to his father within the preceding 
 five years, on the security of his stock and furniture. 
 Where the borrowed money had gone no one knew, but 
 the spinster cousin, alarmed perhaps by exaggerated 
 accounts of the new man's drinking habits, pressed for 
 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 had been held up to middle 
 age had enfeebled such natural powers as he possessed. 
 His knowledge was old-fashioned, his methods slovenly; 
 and his wife, as harmless as himself, but no cleverer, could 
 do nothing to help him. By dint, however, of living and 
 working hard he got through two or three j^ears, and might 
 just have escaped his fate — for his creditors, at that 
 stage, were all ready to give him time — had not ill- 
 fortune thrown him across the path of Edmund Melrose. 
 The next farm to his belonged to the Threlfall estate. 
 Melrose's methods as a landlord had thrown out one 
 tenant after another, till he could do nothing but put in a 
 bailiff and work it himself. The bailiff was incompetent, 
 and a herd of cattle made their way one morning through 
 a broken fence that no one had troubled to mend, and did 
 serious damage to Brand's standing crops. Melrose was 
 asked to compensate, and flatly declined. The fence 
 was no doubt his; but he claimed that it had been broken 
 by one of Brand's men. Hence the accident. The 
 statement was false, and the evidence supporting it 
 
218 THE iVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 corrupt. Moreover the whole business was only the last 
 of a series of unneighbourly acts on the part both of the 
 baihff and landowner, and a sudden fury blazed up in 
 Brand's slow mind. He took his claim to the county court 
 and won his case; the judge allowing himseh a sharp sen- 
 tence or two on the management of the ThreKall property. 
 Brand spent part of his compensation money in enter- 
 taining a group of friends at a Pengarth pubhc. But 
 that was the last of his triumph. Thenceforward things 
 went mysteriously wrong with him. His creditors, first 
 one, then all, began to tighten their pressure on him; and 
 presently the bank manager — the Jove of Brand's little 
 world — passed abruptly from civility or indulgence, to a 
 peremptory reminder that debts were meant to be paid. 
 A fresh bill of sale on furniture and stock staved o£P dis- 
 aster for a time. But a bad season brought it once more a 
 long step nearer, and the bank, however urgently appealed 
 to, showed itself adamant, not only as to any further 
 advance, but as to any postponement of their otsti claim. 
 Various desperate expedients only made matters worse, 
 and after a few more wretched months during which his 
 farm deteriorated, and his business went still further to 
 TVTCck, owing largely to his own distress of mind, Brand 
 threw up the sponge. He sold his small remaining interest 
 in his farm, which did not even suffice to pay his debts, 
 and went out of it a bankrupt and broken man, pre- 
 maturely aged. A neighbouring squire, indignant with 
 what was commonly supposed to be the secret influences 
 at 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 Ullswater road. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 219 
 
 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 left the 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 of Threlfall before in various litigations con- 
 nected with his estates, such as the respectable family 
 lawyers in Carlisle and Pengarth would have nothing to 
 do with. Nash told his intimates that night that Brand 
 would rue his audacity, and the prophecy soon dismally 
 fulfilled itself. The local bank to which Brand owed 
 money had been accustomed for years to deal with very 
 large temporary balances — representing the rents of 
 haK the ThreKall estates. Nash was well known to the 
 manager, as one of those backstairs informants, indispen- 
 sable in a neighbourhood where every farmer wanted 
 advances — now on his crops — now on his stock — 
 and the leading bank could only escape losses by the 
 maintenance of a surprising amount of knowledge as to 
 each man's circumstances and character. Nash was 
 observed on one or two occasions going in and out of the 
 bank's private room, at moments corresponding with 
 some of the worst crises of Brand's fortunes. And v/ith 
 regard to other creditors, no one could say precisely how 
 they were worked on, but they certainly showed a sur- 
 prising readiness to join in the harrying of a struggling 
 and helpless man. 
 
 In any case Brand believed, and had good cause for 
 beheving, that he had been ruined by Melrose in revenge 
 for the county court action. His two sons believed it 
 also. 
 
220 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 The tired man sat brooding over these things in the 
 little hot room. His wife came in, and stood at the door 
 observing him, twisting her apron in a pair of wet hands. 
 
 "Yo'U have your tea.?" 
 
 "Aye. Where are t' lads.? " 
 
 "Johnnie's gotten his papers. He's gane oot to speak 
 wi' the schoolmaster. He's thinkin' o' takkin' his pas- 
 sage for t' laast week in 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 parents could not stand in the 
 way. 
 
 "An' Will?" 
 
 "He's cleanin' hissel'." 
 
 As she spoke, wavering steps were heard on the stairs, 
 and while she returned to her kitchen the younger son. 
 Will Brand, opened the door of the 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 neighbours had always 
 regarded him as feeble-witted; and about a year before 
 this time an outburst of rough practical joking on the lad's 
 part — sudden jumpings out from hedges to frighten 
 school-children going home, or the sudden whoopings and 
 bowlings of a wliite-sheeted figure, for the startling of 
 lovers in the gloaming — had drawn the attention of the 
 Whitebeck policeman to his "queerness." Only his 
 parents knew of what fits 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. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 221 
 
 "What you been after. Will?" 
 
 "Helpin' Wilson." 
 
 Wilson was a neighbouring keeper, who in June and 
 July, before the yoiuig pheasants were returned to the 
 woods, occasionally employed Will Brand as a watcher, 
 especially at night. 
 
 Brand made no reply. His wife brought in the tea, and 
 he and Will helped themselves 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 and flickering 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 upon his 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 hinder me? Mebbe yo' 
 think Melrose 'uU be aboot." 
 
 "Howd your tongue, Wilhe," 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 
 
222 THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 fresh supply. His mother endeavoured to soothe him by 
 changing the subject. But neither husband nor son en- 
 couraged her. A gloomy silence fell over the tea-table. 
 Presently Brand moved, and with halting step went to the 
 Uttle horsehair sofa, and stretched himself full length upon 
 it. Such an action on his part was unlieard of. Both wife 
 and son stared at him without speaking. Then Mrs. 
 Brand got up, fetched an old shawl, and put it over her 
 husband who had closed his eyes. Will left the room, and 
 sitting on a stool outside the cottage door, with the old 
 gun between his knees, he watched the sunset as it flushed 
 the west, and ran along the fell-tops, till little by little 
 the summer night rose from the purple valley, or fell 
 softly 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 to Lady Tatham's annoyance. And certain neigh- 
 bours were coming to dine; among them Mrs. Penfold and 
 her daughters. 
 
 Dinner was laid in a white-pillared loggia, built by an 
 "ItaUanate" Lord Tatham in the eighteenth century on 
 the western side of the house, communicating with the 
 dining-room behind it, and with the Italian garden in 
 front. It commanded the distant blue line of the Kes- 
 wick and Ullswater mountains, and a foreground of wood 
 and crag, while the Italian garden to which the marble 
 steps of the loggia descended, with its formal patterns of 
 bright colour, blue, purple, and crimson, lay burning in 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 223 
 
 the afterglow of sunset light, which, in a northern July, 
 will let you read till ten o'clock. 
 
 The guests gathered on the circle of smooth-shaven 
 grass that in the centre made a space around a fountain, 
 with a gleaming water nymph. A broad grass pathway 
 led them to the house, so that guests emerging from it 
 arrived in rather spectacular fashion — well seen, against 
 the ivied walls of the castle, to the unfair advantage, as 
 usual, of grace and good looks. 
 
 Before hostess or neighbours appeared, however, Mr. 
 Delorme and a certain Gerald Tatham, Lady Tatham's 
 brother-in-law, had the green circle to themselves. Gerald 
 Tatham was one of the uninvited guests. He considered 
 himself entitled to descend on Duddon twice a year, and 
 generally left it having borrowed money of his nephew, 
 in elaborate forgetfulness of a similar transaction twelve 
 months earlier still undischarged. He was married, but 
 his wife did not pay visits with him. Victoria greatly 
 preferred her — plain and silent as she was — to her hus- 
 band; but realizing what a relief it must be to a woman to 
 get such a man off her hands as often as possible, she 
 never pressed her to come to Duddon. Meanwhile 
 Gerald Tatham passed as an agreeable person, well versed 
 in all those affairs of his neighbours which they would 
 gladly have kept to themselves, and possessed of certain 
 odd pockets of knowledge, sporting or financial, which 
 helped him to earn the honest or doubtful pennies on 
 which his existence depended. 
 
 Delorme and he got on excellently. Gerald respected 
 the painter as a person whose brush, in a strangely consti- 
 tuted world, was able to supply him with an income which 
 
£24 THE jVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 even the sons of land or commerce might envy; and 
 secretly despised him for a lack of grandfathers, for his 
 crop of black curls, his southern complexion and his 
 foreign birth, Delorme thought Gerald an idler of no 
 account, and perceived in him the sure signs of a de- 
 cadence which was rapidly drawing the English aristo- 
 cratic class into the hmbo of things that were. But 
 Gerald was an insatiable hawker of gossip; and a fashion- 
 able painter, with an empire among young and 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 power- 
 ful hand before him, exclaimed on the beauty of the castle 
 and its surroundings. 
 
 "Yes — a pretty place," said Gerald, carelessly, "and, 
 for once, money enough to keep it up." 
 
 "Your nephew is a lucky fellow. Why don't they 
 marry him." 
 
 "No hurry! When it does come oflf my sister-in-law 
 will do something absurd." 
 
 "Something sentimental.'* I'll bet you she doesn't! 
 Democracy is all very well — except when it comes to 
 marriage. Then even idealists like Lady Tatham 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 dishke an heiress. Jolly 
 easy to take that sort of line — on forty thousand a year! 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 225 
 
 But as to birth, the family, in my opinion, has a right to be 
 considered." 
 
 Delorme hesitated a moment, then threw a provocative 
 look at his companion, the look of the alien to whom Eng- 
 lish assumptions are sometimes intolerable. 
 
 "Pretty mixed — your stocks — some of them — by 
 now!" 
 
 " Not ours. You'd find, if you looked into it, that we've 
 descended very straight. There's been no carelessness." 
 
 Delorme threw up his hands. 
 
 " Good heavens! Carelessness, as you call it, is the only 
 hope for a family nowadays. A strong blood — that's 
 what you want — a blood that will stand 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 the house. The rector and Mrs. Deacon — 
 the gold cross on the rector's waistcoat shining in the 
 diffused light. Lady Barbara Woolson, the other unin- 
 vited guest, Victoria's first cousin; a young man in a 
 dinner jacket and 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 all the rest appeared to be mere escort 
 and attendance; so vivid, so charged with meaning they 
 seemed, among the summer flowers, and under the 
 summer sky. 
 
 A slender girl in white, and a tall youth looking down. 
 upon her, treading the grass just slightly in advance of her, 
 with a happy deference, as though he led in the fairy 
 
226 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 queen. So delicate were her proportions, so bright her 
 
 hair, and so compelling the charm that floated round her, 
 
 that Delorme, dropping his cigarette, hastily put up his 
 
 eyeglasses, and fell into his native tongue. 
 "Sapristi! — quelle petite fee avez-vous la?" 
 
 "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 \'ic- 
 
 toria." But his tone was doubtful. It was not easy to 
 
 have things out with Victoria. 
 
 The dinner under the loggia went gaily. Not many 
 courses; much fruit; a shimmer of tea-roses before the 
 guests; and the scent of roses blowing in from 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 his cousin. Lady Barbara, 
 whom he cordially disliked. Her yearly visit, always 
 fixed and announced by herself, was a time of trial both 
 for him and his mother, but they endured it out of a senti- 
 mental and probably mistaken belief that the late Lord 
 Tatham had — in her youth — borne her a cousinly 
 affection. Lady Barbara was a committee- woman, inde- 
 fatigable, and indiscriminate. She lived and gloried in a 
 chronic state of overwork, for which no one but herself 
 saw the necessity. Her conversation about it only con- 
 firmed the frivolous persons whom she tried to convert to 
 
THE JVIATING OF LYDIA 227 
 
 "social service," in their frivolity. After a quarter of an 
 hour's conversation with her, Tatham was generally 
 dumb, and as nearly rude as his temperament allowed. 
 WTiile, as to his own small efforts, his cottages. County 
 Council, and the rest, no blandishments would have 
 drawn from him a word about them; although, like many 
 of us. Lady Barbara would gladly have purchased leave 
 to talk about her own achievements by a strictly moderate 
 amount of Ustening 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 a shy 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 four years 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 her still the perfume of a quiet life 
 begun among the hills of Vermont, and in sight of the 
 Adirondacks; a Hfe fundamentally Puritan and based on 
 Puritan ideals; yet softened and expanded by the modern 
 forces of art, travel, and books. Lucy Manisty had 
 attracted her husband, when he, a weary cosmopolitan, 
 had met her first in Rome, by just this touch of something 
 austerely sweet, like the scent of lavender or dewy grass; 
 and she had it still — mingled with a kind humour — in 
 her middle years, which were so lonely but for her boy. 
 She and Victoria Tatham had made friends on the warm 
 soil of Italy, and through a third person, a rare and charm- 
 
«28 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 ing woman, whose death had first made them really known 
 to each other. 
 
 "I never saw anything so attractive!" Mrs. Manisty 
 was murmuring in Tatham'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 an artist.''" 
 
 "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 owai business." 
 "A Miss Penfold.''" said Lady Barbara, putting up 
 her eyeglass. "You say she paints. The modern girl 
 must always do something! My girls have been brought 
 up for home." 
 
 A remark that drove Tatham into a rash defence of the 
 modern girl to which he was quite unequal, and in which 
 indeed he was half-hearted, for his fundamental ideas 
 were quite as old-fashioned as Lady Barbara's. But 
 Lydia, for him, was of no date; only charm itself, one 
 with all the magic and 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. He smiled in return, 
 but inwardly he was discontented. x\lways this gay 
 camaraderie — like a boy's. Not the slightest tremor in 
 it. Not a touch of consciousness — or of sex. He could 
 not indeed have put it so. All he knew was that he was 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 229 
 
 always thirstily seeking something she showed no signs of 
 giving him. 
 
 But he himself was being rapidly swept off his feet. 
 Since their meeting at Threlfall, which had been inter- 
 rupted by Melrose's freakish return, there had been other 
 meetings, as delightful as before, yet no more conclusive or 
 encouraging. He and l^ydia had indeed grown intimate. 
 He had revealed to her thoughts and feehngs which he had 
 unveiled for no one else — not even for Victoria — since 
 he was a boy at school with boyish friendships. And she 
 had handled them with such delicacy, such sweetness; 
 such frankness too, in return as to her own "ideas," those 
 stubborn intractable ideas, which made him frown to 
 think of. Yet all the time — he knew it — there had 
 been no flirting on her part. Never had she given him 
 the smallest ground to think her in love with him. On 
 the contrary, she had maintained between them for all her 
 gentleness, from beginning to end, that soft, intangible 
 barrier which at once checked and challenged him. 
 
 Passion ran high in him. And, moreover, he w as begin- 
 ning to be more than vaguely jealous. He had seen for 
 himself how much there was in common between her and 
 Faversham; during the last fortnight he had met Faver- 
 sham at the cottage on several occasions; and there had 
 been references to other visits from the new agent. He 
 understood perfectly that Lydia was broadly, humanly 
 interested in the man's task: the poet, the enthusiast in 
 her was stirred by what he might do, if he would, for the 
 humble folk she loved. But still, there they were — 
 meeting constantly. "And he can talk to her about all 
 the things I can't!" 
 
230 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 His earlier optimism had quite passed by now; prob- 
 ably, though unconsciously, under the influence of Lydia's 
 nascent friendship with Faversham. There had sprung 
 up in him instead a constant agitation and disquiet that 
 could no longer be controlled. No help — but rather 
 danger — lay in waiting. . . . 
 
 Delorme had now turned away from Lydia to his 
 hostess, and Lydia was talking to Squire Andover on her 
 other side, a jolly old boy, with a gracious, absent look, who 
 inclined his head to her paternally. Tatham knew very 
 well that there was no one in the county who was more 
 rigidly tied to caste or rank. But he was kind always to 
 the outsider — kind therefore to Lydia. Good heavens ! 
 — as if there was any one at the table fit to tie her shoe- 
 string ! 
 
 His pulses raced. The heat, the golden evening, the 
 flowers, all the lavish colour and scents of nature, seemed 
 to be driving him toward speech — toward some expres- 
 sion of himseK, which must be risked, even if it lead him 
 to disaster. 
 
 The dinner which appeared to Tatham interminable, 
 and was really so short, by Victoria's orders, that Squire 
 Andover felt resentfully he had had nothing to eat, at 
 last broke up. The gentlemen lingered smoking on the 
 loggia. The ladies dispersed through the garden, and 
 Delorme — after a look round the male company — quietly 
 went with them. So did the gentleman in the dinner jacket 
 and black tie. Tatham, impatiently doing his duty as host, 
 could only follow the fugitives with his eyes, their pale silks 
 and muslins, among the flowers and under the trees. 
 
THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 231 
 
 But his guests, over their cigars, were busy with some 
 local news, and, catching Faversham's name, Tatham 
 presently recalled his thoughts sufficiently to listen to 
 what was being said. The topic, naturally, was Faver- 
 sham's appointment. Every landowner there was full of 
 it. He had been seen in Brampton on market day driv- 
 ing in a very decent motor; and since his accession he had 
 succeeded in letting two or three of the derelict farms, on a 
 promise of repairs and improvements which had been at 
 last wrung out of Melrose. It was rumoured also that the 
 most astonishing 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 the neigh- 
 bourhood. He and Victoria Tatham were the best of 
 friends. They differed on almost all subjects. He was a 
 mass of prejudices, large and small, and Victoria laughed 
 at him. But when she wanted to help any particularly 
 lame dog over any particularly high stile, she always 
 went to Colonel Barton. A cockney doctor attached to 
 the Workhouse had once described him to her as — 
 " 'eart of gold, 'edd of feathers " — and the label had stuck. 
 
 "A Londoner, picked up badly hurt on the road, by 
 Undershaw, I understand, and carried into the lion's den," 
 said Andover, in answer to Barton. "And now they say 
 he is obtaining the most extraordinary influence over the 
 old boy." 
 
 "And the house — turned into a perfect palace!" said 
 the rector, throwing up his hands. 
 
232 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 The others, except Tatham, crowded eagerly round, 
 wliile the rector described a visit he had paid to Faver- 
 sham, within a few days of the agent's appointment, on 
 behalf of a farmer's widow, a parishioner, under notice to 
 quit. 
 
 "Hadn't been in the house for twenty years. The place 
 is absolutely transformed ! It used to be a pigsty. Now 
 Faversham's rooms are fit for a prince. Nothing short of 
 one of your rooms here" — he addressed Tatham, with a 
 laughing gesture toward the house — "comparable to his 
 sitting-room. Priceless things in it! And close by, an 
 excellent oflBce, with room for two clerks — one already at 
 work — piles of blue-books, pamphlets, heavens knows 
 what! And they are fitting up a telephone between 
 Threlfall and some new rooms that he has taken for 
 ■estate business in Peugarth." 
 
 "A telephone — at Threlfall!" murmured Andover. 
 
 "And Undershaw tells me that Melrose has taken the 
 most extraordinary fancy for the young man. Everything 
 is done for him. He may have anything he 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 at college. 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 decent fellow, as Tatham says, he won't stay long. Do 
 you imagine Melrose is going to change his spots.'' — not 
 he!" 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 233 
 
 "Somebody must really go and talk to this chap," 
 said Barton gloomily. "I believe Melrose will lose us the 
 next election up here. You really can't expect people 
 to vote for Tories, if Tories are that sort." 
 
 The talk flowed on. But Tatham had ceased to listen. 
 For some little time there had been no voices or steps in 
 the garden outside. They had melted into the wood 
 beyond. But now they had returned. He perceived a 
 white figure 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 Tatham appeared had subsided languidly into allowing 
 Lady Barbara to talk to him. 
 
 "Oh! but so amusing!" cried Lydia, her face twinkling. 
 "We've picked all the 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 clipped yews and cypresses, 
 and reached a broad terrace whence the undulations of the 
 park stretched westward and upward into the purple 
 fissures and clefts of the mountains. Trees, fells, grass 
 were steeped in a wan, gold light, a mingling of sunset and 
 
234 THE JNIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 moonrise. The sky was clear; the gradations of colour 
 on the hills ethereally distinct. From a clump of trees 
 came a soft hooting of owls; and close behind them a tall 
 hedge of roses red and white made a bower for Lydia's 
 light form, and filled the night with perfume. 
 
 "What do great men matter.?" said Tatham inco- 
 herently as they paused; "what does anything matter — 
 but — Lydia! " 
 
 It was a cry of pain. A hand groped for hers. Lydia 
 startled, looked up to see the face of Tatham looking 
 down upon her through the warm dusk — transfigured. 
 
 "You'll let me speak, won't you.? I daresay it's much 
 too soon — I daresay you can't think of it — yet. But I 
 love you. I love you so dearly ! I can't keep it to myself. 
 I have — ever since I first saw you. You won't be angry 
 with me for speaking.? You won't think I took you by 
 surprise.? I don't want to hurry you — I only want you 
 to know " 
 
 Emotion choked him. Lydia, after a murmur he 
 couldn't catch, hid her face in her hands. 
 
 He waited; and already there crept through him the 
 dull sense of disaster. The impulse to speak had been 
 irresistible, and now — he wished he had not spoken. 
 
 At last she looked up. 
 
 "Oh, you have been so good to me — so sweet to me," 
 and before he knew what she was doing, she had lifted one 
 of his hands in her two slender ones and touched it with 
 her lips. 
 
 Outraged — enchanted — bewildered — he tried to catch 
 her in his arms. But she slipped away from him and 
 with her hands behind her, she looked at him, smiling 
 
THE MATING OF lADIA 235 
 
 through tears, her fair hair blown back from her temples, 
 her deHcate face ahve with feeling. 
 
 "I can't say yes — it wouldn't be honest if I did — it 
 wouldn't be fair to you. But, oh, dear, I'm so sorry — so 
 dreadfully sorry — if it's my fault — if I've misled you. 
 I thought I'd tried hard to show what I really felt — 
 that I wanted to be friends — but not — not this. Dear 
 Lord Tatham, I do 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 you without — without that feeling 
 — you have a right to — I should be doing wrong — to 
 you — and to myself. You see" — she looked down, the 
 points of her white shoe drawing circles on the grass, as 
 though to help out her faltering speech — "I — I'm not 
 what I believe you think me. I've got all sorts of hard, 
 independent notions in my mind. I want to paint — and 
 study — and travel — I want to be free " 
 
 "You should be free as air!" he interrupted passion- 
 ately. 
 
 "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. Why should you be.?" said poor 
 Tatham, with a new and desperate humility. "^Miy on 
 earth should you be? But I'd adore you — I'd give you 
 anything in the world you wanted." 
 
 Sounds of talking and footsteps emerged from the dusk 
 
236 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 behind them; the high notes of Lady Barbara and the 
 answering bass of Delorme. 
 
 "Don't let them find us," said Lydia impetuously — 
 "I've so much to say." 
 
 Tatham turned, and led the way to the pillared darkness 
 of a pergola to their 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 the park, and on the 
 garden front of Duddon. There it lay, the great house, 
 faintly lit; and there in front stretched its demesne, 
 symbol of its ancient rule and of its modern power. A 
 natural excitement passed through Lydia as they paused, 
 and she caught its stately outline through the night. And 
 then, the tameless something in her soul, which was her 
 very self, rose up, rejoicing in its own strength, and yet 
 — wistful, full of tenderness. Now ! — let her play her 
 stroke — her stroke in the new great game 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 what 
 we couldn't give. We could be lovers; we weren't good 
 enough — we hadn't stuff enough — to be friends. ]^ut 
 
 now — dear Lord Tatham — just try me " She held 
 
 out to him two hands, which he took against his will. "I 
 like you so much ! — I know that I should love your mother. 
 Now that we've had this out, why shouldn't we build up 
 Something quite fresh? I want a friend — so badly! " 
 
 "And I want something — so much more than a 
 friend!" he said, pressing her hands fiercely. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 237 
 
 "Ah, but give it up!" she pleaded. "If you can't, 
 I mustn't come here any more, nor you to us. And why? 
 It would be such a waste — of what our friendship might 
 be. You could teach me so many things. I think I 
 could teach you some. " 
 
 He dropped her hands, mastering himself with dif- 
 ficulty. 
 
 "It's nonsense," he said shortly; "I know it's nonsense! 
 But — if I promised not to say anything of this kind 
 again for a year.'' " 
 
 She pondered. There were compunctions, remorses, in 
 her. As Susan had warned her, was she playing with a 
 man's heart and life? 
 
 But her trust in her own resources, the zest of spiritual 
 adventure, and a sheer longing to comfort him pre- 
 vailed. 
 
 "You'll promise that; and I'll promise — just to be as 
 nice to you as ever I can ! " She paused. They looked at 
 each other; the trouble in his eyes questioning the smile 
 in hers. "Now please! — my friend!" — she slid dex- 
 terously, though very softly, into the everyday tone — 
 "will you advise me? Mr. Delorme has asked me to sit 
 to him. Just a sketch in the garden — 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 a child. Yet there was a condition impUed 
 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. 
 
238 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 I'm free. And so are you. Shall I come to-morrow? " she 
 asked again, with quiet insistence. 
 
 There was a gulp in Tatham's throat. Yet he rose — 
 dismally — to her challenge. 
 
 "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'd paint you." 
 
 "Then that's settled!" she said, with a httle sigh of 
 satisfaction. 
 
 "And what, please, am I to do — that youd like?" 
 She looked up mischievously. 
 
 " Call me Lydia — forget that you ever wanted to 
 marry me — and don't mind a rap 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 De- 
 lorme had smoked their last interminable cigars, and 
 Delorme had made his last mocking comments on the 
 "old masters" who adorned the smoking-room, Tatham 
 saw him safely to bed, and returned to his sitting-room 
 on the ground floor. The French window was open, and 
 he passed out into the garden. Soon, in his struggle with 
 himself, he had left the garden and the park behind, and 
 was chmbing the slope of the fells. The play of the soft 
 summer winds under the stars, the scents of bracken and 
 heather and rushes, the distant throbbing sounds that 
 rose from the woods as the wind travelled through them — 
 and soon, the short mountain turf beneath his feet, and 
 
THE IVLVTING OF LYDIA 239 
 
 around and below him, the great shapes of the hills, 
 mysteriously still, and yet, as it seemed to him, mys- 
 teriously 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 safe hidden in a hollow of the lonely fell, 
 face downward among the moonlit rocks, some young and 
 furious tears fell upon the sod. That quiet strength of 
 will in so soft a creature — a will opposed to his will — 
 had brought him up against the unyieldingness of the 
 world. The joyous certainties of life were shaken to their 
 base; and yet he could not, he did not, cease to hope. 
 
XI 
 
 VICTORIA was sitting to Delorme in a corner of the 
 Italian garden. He wished to paint her en plein 
 aiTy and he was restlessly walking to and fro, 
 about her, choosing a point of view. Victoria was 
 vaguely pleased by the pictiu-esqueness of his lion head 
 set close on a pair of powerful shoulders, no less than by 
 the vivacity of his dark face and southern gesture. He 
 wore a hnen jacket with bulging pockets, and a black 
 skullcap, which gave him a masterful, pontifical air. To 
 Victoria's thinking, indeed, he "pontified" at all times, 
 a great deal more than was necessary. 
 
 However she sat resigned. She did not Hke Delorme, 
 and her preference was all for another school of art. She 
 had moreover a critical respect for her own features, and 
 she did not want at all to see them rendered by what 
 seemed to her the splashing violence of Delorme's brush- 
 work. But Harry had asked it of her, and here she 
 was. 
 
 Her thoughts, moreover, were full of Harry's affairs, 
 so that the conversation between her and the painter was 
 more or less pretence on her part. 
 
 Delorme, meanwhile, was divided between the passion 
 of a new subject and the wrath excited in him by a 
 newspaper article which had reached him at breakfast. 
 
 "A Httle more to the left, please, Lady Tatham. Ad- 
 
 240 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 241 
 
 mirable! 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 a fool ! — knows nothing, and writes hke God 
 Almighty. A httle more full face. That's it! I sup- 
 pose all professions are full of these jealous beasts. Ours 
 is cluttered up with them — men who never sell a picture, 
 and make up by living on the compliments of their own 
 little snarhng set. But, upon my word, it makes one 
 rather sick. Ah, that's good ! You moved a trifle — 
 that's better — just a moment!" 
 
 "I'm glad you let me sit," said Victoria absently. "I 
 stood to Whistler once. It nearly killed me." 
 
 "Ah, Jimmy!" said Delorme. "Jimmy was a Tartar!" 
 
 He went off at score into recollections of Whistler, 
 drawing hard all the time. 
 
 Victoria did not hsten. She was thinking of those 
 sounds of footsteps she had heard under her window at 
 dawn, and passing her room. This morning Harry looked 
 as usual, except for something in the eyes, which none but 
 she would notice. WTiat had he been doing all those 
 hours? There was nothing erratic or abnormal about 
 Harry. Sound sleep from the moment he put his head 
 on his pillow to the moment at eight o'clock when his 
 servant with great difficulty woke him, was the rule with 
 him. 
 
 WTiat could have happened the night before — while 
 he and Lydia Penfold were alone together .f^ Victoria 
 had seen them come back into the general company, had 
 indeed been restlessly on the watch for their return. It 
 
242 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 had seemed to her — though how be sure in that mingled 
 hght? — both at the moment of their leappearance and 
 afterward, that Harry was somewhat unusually pale and 
 quiet, while the girl's look had struck her as singular — 
 exaltee — the eyes shining — yet the manner composed an 
 and sweet as usual. She already divined the theorist in 
 Lydia, the speculator with Kfe 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 do when the wave of energy — 
 spiritual and physical — has risen or is rising to its 
 height in the young creature, and the only question is 
 how and where it shall break; in crash and tempest, or in a 
 summer sea.'* 
 
 Delorme suddenly raised liis 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! \Miy do women 
 paint. ^" 
 
 Victoria, roused, hotly defended the right of her sex to 
 ply any honest art in the world that might bring them 
 either pleasure or money, 
 
 "Mais la peiniure!" Delorme's shoulder shrugged still 
 higher. " It is an infernal thing, milady, painting. \Miat 
 can a woman make of it.f* She can only 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! WTiat, in God's name, 
 has she do to with paying the rent? Let her dance and 
 sing — have a train of lovers — look beautiful!" 
 
THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 243 
 
 "The whole duty of woman!" laughed Victoria with a 
 touch of scorn; "for our grandmothers." 
 
 "No: for all time," said Delorme stoutly. "Ask 
 milord." He looked toward the house, and Victoria saw 
 Tatham emerging. But she had no intention whatever 
 of asking him. She rose hastily, excused herself on the 
 score of needing a few minutes' rest, and went to meet 
 her son. 
 
 "I forgot to tell you, mother," he said, as they ap- 
 proached each other, "Faversham's coming this after- 
 noon. 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, Victoria shot a glance at her son, then slipped her 
 hand into his arm, and walked back with him to his library. 
 
 He sat down silently to his books and papers. A 
 couple of official reports lay open, and Victoria knew that 
 he was going to an important county meeting that even- 
 ing, where he was to be in the chair. Many older men, 
 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 would take the lead. They desired 
 to see him treading in the steps of his forefathers. 
 
 Perched on the end of his writing table, she watched 
 her son a moment. It seemed to her she saw already 
 what the young face would be hke when it was old. A 
 pang struck her. 
 
 "Harry — is there anything wrong.''" 
 
 He looked up quite simply and stretched his hand to 
 her. 
 
244 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 "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 she doesn'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 face wath 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 other girls. When she says a thing — she 
 means it. But so long as I can see her — 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 say anything to her. Promise me. She 
 said last night — she loved you. She wants to come here. 
 
 Let's give her a jolly time. Perhaps " 
 
 •■ The patience in his l)lue eyes nearly made her cry. 
 And there was also the jealousy that no fond mother 
 escapes, the commonest of all jealousies. He was passing 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 245 
 
 out of her hands, this creature of her own flesh. Till now 
 she had moulded and shaped him. Henceforward the 
 lightest influence rained by this girl's eyes would mean 
 more to him than all the intensity of her own affection. 
 
 Victoria's mind for the rest of the sitting was in a 
 state of abstraction, and she sat so still that Delorme was 
 greatly pleased with her. At luncheon she was still 
 absent-minded, and Lady Barbara whispered in Gerald 
 Tatham's ear that Victoria was always a poor hostess, 
 but this time her manners were really impossible. 
 
 "But you intend to stay a fortnight, don't you.?" said 
 Gerald, not without malice. 
 
 "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 for another fort- 
 night, and Duddon's Castle was more agreeable and more 
 economical than either lodgings or a hotel. 
 
 Meanwhile a pair of eyes belonging to the young man 
 whose dinner jacket and black tie had marked him out 
 amid the other male guests of the night before were 
 observing matters with a more subtle and friendly spirit 
 behind them. Cyril Boden was a Fellow of All Souls, a 
 journalist, an advanced Radical, a charmer, and a fanatic. 
 He hated no man. That indeed was 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 to seize. He had a smooth and ruddy face, in 
 which the eyebrows seemed to be always rising interroga- 
 tively; longish hair; stooping shoulders, and an amiable, 
 lazy, mocking look that belied a nature of singular passion. 
 
246 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 always occupied with the most tremendous problems of 
 life, and afraid of no 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 a motherly way, 
 and he to her. They sparred a good deal; she attacking 
 "agitators" and "demagogues," he, fierce on "feudal 
 tyranny," especially when masked in the beauties and 
 amenities of such a place as Duddon. But they were 
 friends all the same, exchanging the unpaid services of 
 friends. 
 
 In the afternoon, before Lydia Penfold appeared, 
 Boden found amusement 'in teasing Delorme — an old 
 acquaintance. Delorme was accustomed to pose in all 
 societies as Whistler's lawful and only successor. "Pat- 
 tern" and "harmony" possessed him; "finish" was only 
 made for fools, and the story-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 a masterpiece. 
 And, like Wliistler, he had no sooner painted it than he 
 scraped it out; which most sitters found discouraging. 
 
 Boden, meanwhile, made amends for all that was 
 revolutionary in his politics or economics, by reaction on 
 two subjects — art and divorce. He had old-fashioned 
 ideas on the family, and did not want to see divorce made 
 easy. And he was quaintly Ruskinian in matters of art, 
 believing that all art should appeal to ethical or poetic 
 emotion. 
 
 "Boden admires a painter because he is a good man 
 and pays his washing bills," drawled Delorme behind his 
 cigarette, from the lazy depths of a garden chair. "His 
 
.THE MATING OF LYDIA 247 
 
 very colours are virtues, and his pictures must be master- 
 pieces, because he subscribes to the Dogs' Home, and 
 doesn't beat his wife." 
 
 "Excellently put," said Boden, his hat on the back of 
 his head, his eyes beginning to. shine. "Do men gather 
 grapes off thistles?"^ ' 
 
 "Constantly. Th.ere is no relation whatever between 
 art and morality." Delorme smoked pugnaciously. "The 
 greater the artist, generally speaking, the worse the man." 
 
 "I say! Reaily as Jbad as that?" 
 
 Boden waved a languid hand toward the smoke-' 
 wreathed phantom of Delorme. The circle round th^ 
 two laughed, languidly also, for it was almost too hot 
 laugh. The circle consisted of Victoria, Gerald Tatham, 
 Mrs. Manisty, and Colonel Barton, who had reappeared 
 at luncheon, in order to urge Tatham 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 paints anaemic knights in 
 sham armour and I paint whatT see." 
 
 "The one absolutely fatal course! Don't you agree.''" 
 
 Boaen turned smiling to Mrs. Manisty, of whose lovely 
 head and soft eyes he was conscious through all the 
 chatter. 
 
 The eyes responded. 
 
 "\^^lat do we see?" she said, with her shy smile. 
 "Surely we only see what we think — or dream!" 
 
 "True!" cried Delorme; "but a painter thinks in 
 paint.'' 
 
 "There you go," said Boden, "with your esoteric stuff. 
 
248 THE IMATING OF LYDIA 
 
 All your great painters have thought and felt with the 
 multitude — painted for the multitude." 
 
 "Never." The painter jerked away his cigar, and sat 
 up. "The multitude is a brute beast!" 
 
 "A just beast," murmured Boden". 
 
 "Anything but ! " said the painter. " But you know my 
 views. In every generation, so far as art is concerned, 
 there are about thirty men who matter — in all the world! " 
 
 "Artists.'*" The voice was Lucy Manisty's. 
 
 "Good heavens, no! Artists — and judges — together. 
 The gate of art is a deal straiter than the gate of 
 Heaven." 
 
 Boden caught Victoria's laugh. 
 
 "Let him alone," he said, indulgently. "His is the 
 only aristocracy I can stand — 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 the sunshine, then to his hostess. 
 
 "Not yet. But you're doomed. As the old Yorkshire- 
 man said to his son, when they were watching the tri- 
 umphs of a lion-tamer in the travelling menagerie — 
 that 'genelman's to be wooried soom day.' When the real 
 Armageddon comes, it'll not find you in possession. 
 You II have gone down long before." 
 
 "Really.? Then who will be in possession?" asked 
 Gerald Tatham, a very perceptible sneer in his disagreeable 
 voice. He disliked Boden as one of "the infernal Radi- 
 cals" whom Victoria would inflict on the sacred precincts 
 of Duddon, but he was generally afraid of him in con- 
 versation. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 24» 
 
 "Merely the rich" — the tone was still nonchalant — 
 "the Haves against the Haven'ts. No nonsense left, by 
 that time, about 'blood' and 'family.' Society will 
 have dropped all those little trimmings and embroider- 
 ies. We shall have come to the naked fundamental 
 things." 
 
 "The struggle of rich and poor.f* " said Delorme. "Pre- 
 cisely. That's what all you fellows who go and preach 
 revolution to dockers are after. And what on earth 
 would the world do without wealth.'' Wealth is only 
 materiahzed intelligence! What's wrong with it?" 
 
 "Only that we're dying of it." 
 
 The young man paused. He sat silently smoking, 
 his eyes — unseeing — fixed upon the house. Lucy 
 Manisty looked at him with sympathy. 
 
 "You mean," she said, "that no one who has the 
 power to be rich has now ever the courage to be 
 poor.'' 
 
 He nodded, and turning to her he continued in a lower 
 voice: "And think what's lost! Are we all to be smoth- 
 ered in this paraphemaha of servants, and motor cars and 
 gluttonous living .f* There's scarcely a man — for instance 
 — among my friends who'll dare to marry ! Hundreds 
 used to be enough — now they must have thousands — or 
 say their wives must. And they'll sell their souls to get 
 the thousands. WTio's the better — who's the happier 
 for it in the end? We have left ourselves nothing to love 
 with — nothing to be happy w ith. ^Tiat does natural 
 beauty — or human feeling — 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 that 
 
250 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 destroys 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 walked through while you were all at church 
 this morning? — the most God-forsaken place I ever saw! 
 — a horrible, insanitary hole!" 
 
 "Mainstairs!" said Barton, promptly, waking up. 
 "That's the only village hereabout that fits the descrip- 
 tion. But Melrose owns two or three of them." 
 
 "The man that owns that village ought to be hung," 
 said Boden with quiet ferocity. "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, to put those cottages in repair. No 
 use. Now, we've told him that we shall repair 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 the whole village. But the people won't 
 go. There are no other cottages for miles — they've 
 taken to stoning our inspectors." 
 
 "And you think our land system's going to last on 
 these terms?" said Boden, 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 for the Melrose estate." 
 
THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 251 
 
 "But the exception is damning! It compromises yoit 
 all. That such a place as Mainstairs should be possible — 
 that's the point!" 
 
 "For you Socialists, I daresay!" cried Barton. "The 
 rest of us know better 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. No hope — unless we are 'behind 
 you with a bradawl ! ' " 
 
 "On the contrary! We marched before you Socialists 
 were thought of. Who have put the bulk of the cottages 
 of England in repair during the last half century, I should 
 like to know — and built most of the new ones.'^ The 
 landlords of England! Who stands in the way of reform 
 at the present moment? The small owner. And who are 
 the small owners.'* Mainly Radical tradesmen." 
 
 Boden looked at him — then queer ly smiled. "I dare- 
 say. I trust no man — further than I can see him. But 
 if what you say is true, why don't you Conservatives — 
 in your own interest — coerce men like Melrose.'' He's 
 giving you away, every month he exists." 
 
 "Well, Tatham's at it," said Barton quietly; "we're 
 all at it. And there's a new agent just appointed. Some- 
 thing to be hoped from him." 
 
 "Who is it.?" 
 
 "You didn't hear us discussing him last night.'' A man 
 called Claude Faversham." 
 
 "Claude Faversham? A tall, dark fellow — writes a 
 little — does a little law — but mostly unemployed? Oh, 
 I know him perfectly. Faversham? You don't mean 
 
252 THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 it!" Boden threw himseK back in his chair with a sar- 
 castic Hp, and reht his pipe. As he watched the spirals 
 of smoke he recalled the few incidents of his acquaintance 
 with the young man. They had both been among the 
 original members of a small club in London, frequented 
 by men of letters and junior barristers. Faversham had 
 long since dropped out of the club, and was now the 
 companion, so Boden understood, of much richer men, 
 and a great frequenter of the Stock Exchange, where 
 money is mysteriously made without working for it. 
 That fact alone was enough for Cyril Boden. He felt an 
 instinctive, almost a fanatical, antipathy toward the new 
 agent. On the one side the worshippers of the Unbought 
 and the Unpriced; on the other Mammon and all his 
 troop. It was so that Boden habitually 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 slowly approaching the castle through the avenue of 
 splendid oaks which led up to it. Faversham was walk- 
 ing beside her. He had overtaken her at the beginning of 
 the avenue, and had sent on his motor that he might ha\e 
 the pleasure of her society. 
 
 The daintiness of her white dress, with aU its pretty 
 details, the touch of blue in her hat, and at her waist, 
 delighted his eyes. It pleased him that there was not a 
 trace in her of Bohemian carelessness in these respects. 
 Everything was simple, but everything was considered. 
 She knew her own beauty; that was clear. It gave her 
 self-possession; but, so far as he could see, without a 
 
THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 253 
 
 trace of conceit. He had never met a young girl with 
 whom he could talk so easily. 
 
 She had greeted him with her most friendly smile. 
 But it seemed to him nevertheless 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 sub- 
 mit much longer!" 
 
 "You're really getting strong .''" 
 
 Her kind eyes considered him. He had often mar- 
 velled that one so young should be mistress of such a look 
 
 — so softly frank and unafraid. 
 
 "A Hercules! Besides, the work's so interesting, one's 
 no time to think of one's game leg!" 
 
 "You're getting to know the estate .'*" 
 
 "I've been motoring about it for a fortnight, that's 
 something for a beginning. And I've got plenty of things 
 to tell you. 
 
 He plunged into them. It was evident that he was 
 resuming topics familiar to them both. Their talk indeed 
 showed them already intimate, sharers in a common enter- 
 prise, where she was often inspiration, and he executive 
 and practical force. Ever since, indeed, she had said to 
 him wdth that kindled, eager look — "Accept! Accept!" 
 
 — he had been sharply aware of how best to approach, to 
 attract her. She was, it seemed, no mere passive girl. 
 She was in her measure a thinker — a character. He per- 
 ceived in her — deep down — enthusiasms and compas- 
 sions, that seemed often as though they shook her beyond 
 
^54 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 her strength. They made him uncomfortable; they were 
 strange to his own mind; and yet they moved and in- 
 fluenced him. During the short time, for instance, that 
 she had Hved in their midst, she had made friends every- 
 where — so he discovered — among these Cumbria folk. 
 She never harangued about them; a few words, a few 
 looks, burning from an inward fire — these expressed her: 
 as when, twice, he had met her at dusk, with the aspect 
 of a wounded spirit, coming out of hovels that he him- 
 self must now be ashamed of, since they were Melrose's 
 hovels. 
 
 "I've just come from Mainstairs," he said to her 
 abruptly, as the house in 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 his poor daughter, and I went into most of 
 the cottages." 
 
 Somewhat to his dismay he saw the delicate face 
 beside him quiver, and the eyes cloud. But the emotion 
 was driven back. 
 
 "You're too late — for Bessie!" she said — how sadly! 
 The accent touched him. 
 
 "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? — they call it the Innocents' Corner. Thirty 
 children died in that village last year and the year before." 
 
 There was silence a little. 
 
 "I wonder what I can do," said Faversham, at last, 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 255 
 
 reflectively. "I have been 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 of responsibilities. I shall try to show 
 him that bad citizenship costs more money than good." 
 
 "I hope — oh! I hope — you'll succeed!" she said 
 fervently. Her emotion infected him. He smiled down 
 upon her. 
 
 "That ought to make me succeed! But of course I 
 have no experience. I am a towTisman." 
 
 "You've always been a Londoner.'*" 
 
 "Practically, always. But I was tired of London 
 before all this happened — dying to get out of it." 
 
 And he began a short account of himself, more intimate 
 than any he had yet given her; to which Lydia listened 
 with her open, friendly look, perhaps a little shyer than 
 before. And so difiFerent, instinctively, is the way in 
 which a man will tell his story to a woman, from that in 
 which he tells it to a man, that the same half-ironic, half- 
 bitter narrative which had repelled Tatham, attracted 
 Lydia. Her sympathy rose at once to meet it. He was 
 an orphan, and till now lonely and unsuccessful; tor- 
 mented, too, by unsatisfied ideals and ambitions. Her 
 imagination was pitiful and quick; she imagined she 
 understood. She liked his frankness; it flattered and 
 touched her. She hked his deep rich voice, and his dark 
 face, with its lean strength, and almost southern colour. 
 During his illness he had grown a small peaked beard. 
 
256 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 and it pleased her artistic sense, by giving him a look of 
 Cardinal Richelieu — as that great man stood figured in 
 an old French print she had picked up once in a box on the 
 Paris quays. Moreover his friendship offered her so much 
 fresh knowledge of the world and life. Here, again, was 
 comradeship. She was lucky indeed. Harry Tatham — 
 and now this clever, interesting man, entering on his task. 
 It was a great responsibility. She would not fail either 
 of her new friends ! They knew — she had made — she 
 would make it quite plain, that she was not setting her 
 cap at either. Wider insights, fresh powers, honourable, 
 legitimate powers, for her sex — it was these she was after. 
 
 In all all this Lydia was perfectly sincere. But the 
 Comic Spirit sitting aloft took note. 
 
 They paused a moment on the edge of the plateau on 
 which the house stood — the ground breaking from it to 
 the west. A group of cottages appeared amid the woods 
 far away. 
 
 "If all estates were hke this estate!" cried Lydia, 
 pointing to them, "and all cottages hke their cottages!" 
 
 Faversham flushed and stiffened. 
 
 "Oh! the Tathams are always perfection!" 
 
 Lydia's eyebrows lifted. 
 
 "It is a crime.f^" 
 
 "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 her pony -cart at the steps of the castle, 
 her breath fluttermg a little. WTiat had happened? 
 
 "Her ladyship is in the garden," said the footman who 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 257 
 
 received them. And he led the way through a door in 
 the wall of the side court. They followed — in a con- 
 strained 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. But somehow Lydia was conscious of a note 
 of stormy self-assertion in him, which was new to her; 
 something strong and stubborn, which refused to take her 
 lead as usual. 
 
 Lady Tatham advanced. The eyes of a group of people 
 sitting in a circle under the shade of a spreading yew tree 
 turned toward them. 
 
 Boden, who had given Faversham a perfunctory greet- 
 ing, fell back into his chair again, and, watched the new 
 agent's reception with coolly smiling eyes. 
 
 Tatham came hurrying up to greet them. No one but 
 Lydia could have distinguished 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 every- 
 where about you!" 
 
 Tatham stood, with his straw hat tilted toward the 
 back of his head, and his hands on his sides, observing 
 his guest. 
 
 Faversham shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "I feel horribly nervous!" 
 
258 THE JVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 "Well you may!" laughed Tatham. "Never mind. 
 We'll all back you up, if you'll let us." 
 
 "As far as I am concerned — the smallest contributions 
 thankfullj^ received. WTio are these people here.^" 
 
 Tatham introduced him. 
 
 Then to Lydia: 
 
 "Delorme is waiting for you." He carried her off. 
 
 By this time Mr. Andov'er, the old grizzled squire who 
 had been Lydia's partner at dinner the night before, had 
 dropped in, and various other residents from the neigh- 
 bourhood. They gathered eagerly round Faversham, in 
 the deep shade of the yews. 
 
 And before long, the new man had produced an excel- 
 lent first impression upon these country gentlemen who 
 were now to be his neighbours. It was evident that he 
 was anxious to remove grievances. His tone as to his 
 employer was guarded, but not at all servile; and he 
 made the impression of a man of abihty accustomed to 
 business, though modestly avowing his ignorance of rural 
 affairs; independent, yet anxious to do his best with a 
 great trust. 
 
 After half an hour's discussion, Barton drew Victoria 
 aside, and said to her excitedly that the new agent was 
 "a capital fellow!" 
 
 "He'll do the job, you'll see! Melrose is breaking 
 up — thank God! Every one who's seen him lately says 
 he's not half the man he was. He'll have to 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 manage Melrose even moriturixs. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 259 
 
 Meanwhile it had not escaped her that the new agent 
 and Lydia Penfold had arrived together. It had struck 
 her also that their manner toward each other, as she 
 went to meet them, had been the manner of persons just 
 emerged from a somewhat intimate conversation. And 
 she already perceived the nascent jealousy in Harry. 
 
 Well, no doubt the agent also was to be practised 
 on by these newfangled arts. For no girl could have 
 had the audacity to make the compact Lydia Penfold 
 had made with Harry, if she were already in love with 
 another man! No. Faversham, it was plain, would be 
 the next added to her train. Victoria beheld the golden- 
 haired creature as the modern Circe, surrounded by 
 troops of ex-suitors — lovers transmogrified to friends — 
 docile at the heel of the sorceress. You took your chance, 
 received your "No," and subsided cheerfully into the pen. 
 ^'ictoria vowed to herself that her Harry should do 
 nothing of the kind ! 
 
 She looked round her for the presumptuous maiden. 
 There she was, under a fountain wall in the Italian garden, 
 her white dress gleaming from the warm shadow in which 
 the stone was steeped; Delorme, with an easel, in front. 
 He was making a rapid charcoal sketch of her, and she 
 was sitting daintily erect, talking and smiling at intervals. 
 A little way off, a group of people, critical observers 
 of the proceeding, lounged on the grass or in garden 
 chairs; among them, Tatham. And as he sat watching 
 the sitting, his hat drawn forward over his brow and eyes, 
 although he chatted occasionally with Mrs. Manisty 
 beside him, his mother was miserably certain that he was 
 in truth alive to nothing but the white vision under the 
 
260 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 wall — the delicate three-quarter face, with its pointed 
 chin, and the wisps of gold hair blowing about the temples. 
 
 And the owner of the face! Was she quite unmoved 
 by a situation which might, Victoria felt, have strained 
 the nerves even of the experienced? 
 
 A sHght incident seemed to show that she was not 
 unmoved. Lydia had shown a keen, girlish pleasure in 
 the prospect of sitting to Delorme, the god, professionally, 
 of her idolatry. Yet the sketch, for that afternoon, came 
 to nothing. For after an hour's sitting Delorme, as 
 usual, became restless and excited, exclaimed at the 
 difficulty of the subject, cursed the light, and finally, in a 
 fit of disgust, wiped out everything he had done. Lydia 
 rose from her seat, looking rather white, and threw a 
 strange, appealing glance — the mother caught it — at her 
 young host. Tatham sprang up, released her instantly 
 and peremptorily, though Delorme implored for another 
 haK-hour. Lydia, unheard by the artist, gave soft thanks 
 to her dehverer, and, presently, there they were — she and 
 Harry — stroUing up and down the rose-aUeys together, 
 as though nothing, absolutely nothing, had happened. 
 
 And yet Harry had only asked her to marry him the 
 night before, and she had only refused! Impossible to 
 suppose that it was the mere plotting of the finished 
 coquette. This lover required neither teasing nor kind- 
 ling. 
 
 However, there it was. This httle struggling artist had 
 refused Harry; and she had refused Duddon. 
 
 For one could not be so absurd as to ignore that. Vic- 
 toria, sitting in the shade beside Lady Barbara, who had 
 gone to sleep, looked dreamily round on the rose-red 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 261 
 
 pile of building, on the great engirdling woods, the hills, 
 the silver reaches of river — interwoven now with the 
 dark tree-masses, now with glades of sunlit pasture. 
 Duddon was one of the great possessions of England. And 
 this slip of a girl, with her home-made blouses, and her 
 joy in making twenty pounds out of her drawings, where- 
 with to pay the rent, had put it aside, apparently without 
 a moment's hesitation. Magnanimity — or stupidity? 
 
 The next moment Victoria was despising her own 
 amazement. "One takes one's own lofty feehngs for 
 granted — but never other people's ! She says she doesn't 
 love him — and that's the reason. And I straightway 
 don't believe her. What snobs we all are! One's as- 
 tonishment betrays one's standard. Gerald says, ' What 
 have the poor to do with fine feehngs? ' and I detest him 
 for it. But I'm no better," 
 
 Suddenly, on the other side of the yew hedge behind 
 her — voices. Harry and Lydia Penfold, in eager and 
 laughing discussion. And all at once a name 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 nor tender. It simply meant, of course, that 
 the young woman was breaking him in to her ideas; her 
 absurd ideas, from which Harry must be protected. 
 
 They emerged from the shrubbery and came toward 
 
262 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 her. Lydia timidly approached Victoria. With Tatham 
 she had not apparently been tiniid. But for his mother 
 she was all deference , 
 
 "Isn't there a flower-show here to-morrow.'* May 
 Susan and I come and help.''" 
 
 The speaker raised her eyes to Lady Tatham, and 
 Victoria read in them something beautiful and appealing, 
 that at once moved and angered her. The girl seemed 
 to offer her heart to Tatham's mother. 
 
 "/ can't marry your son! — but let me kwe you — be your 
 friend! — the friend of both." 
 
 Was that what it meant? 
 
 What could Victoria do.' There was Harry hovering 
 in the background, with that eager, pale look. She was 
 helpless. Mechanically she said, "We shall be dehghted 
 — grateful. I will send for you." 
 
 Thenceforward, however, Lydia allowed Tatham no 
 more private speech with her. She made herself agreeable 
 to all Victoria's guests in turn. Delorme fell head over 
 ears in love with her, so judicious, yet so evidentlj^ sin- 
 cere were the flatteries she turned upon him, and so docile 
 her consent to another sitting. Sweet, grave liUcy Man- 
 isty watched her with fascination. The Manisty boy 
 dragged her to the Long Pond, to show her the water- 
 beasts there, as the best way of marking his approval. 
 Colonel Barton forgot politics to chat with her; and the 
 mocking speculation in Cyril Boden's eyes gradually 
 softened, as the girl's charm and beauty penetrated, little 
 by little, through all the company. 
 
 Faversham alone seemed to have no innings with her 
 till he was about to take his departure. Then Victoria 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 263 
 
 noticed that Lydia made a quick movement toward him, 
 and they stood together a few minutes, talking — cer- 
 tainly not as strangers. 
 
 Gerald Tatham also noticed it. There M^ere few things, 
 within his powers, that he left unnoticed. 
 
 "Now thai would be suitable!" he said in Lady Bar- 
 bara's ear, nodding toward the pair. "You saw how 
 they came in together. But of course it's a blind. Any 
 one with half an eye can see that she's just fishing fo2 
 Harry!" 
 
XII 
 
 FAVERSHAM sped home through the winding 
 Cumbrian lanes, driven by the new chauffeur just 
 imported from Manchester. The hedges were 
 thick with meadow-sweet and its scent, mingled with that 
 of new-mown hay, hung in the hot, still air. In front of 
 him the Ulls water mountains showed dimly blue. It was 
 a country he was beginning to love. His heart rose to it. 
 Small wonder in that ! For here, in this northern land- 
 scape, so strange to him but three months ago, he had 
 iirst stumbled on Success — and he had first met Lydia. 
 Was there any chance for him? Through all his talks 
 wiih. the country neighbours, or with Lady Tatham, he 
 had been keenly on the watch for anything that miglit 
 show him what Lydia's position in the Duddon Castle 
 circle 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 the cottage, through every channel 
 — courtesies or gifts — that the Tathams' dehcacy could in- 
 vent, or the Penfolds' dehcacy accept, had convinced him 
 on that point. And Faversham had seen for himself 
 at Duddon that Tatham hung upon her every move- 
 ment and always knew where she was and to whom she 
 was talking; nor had the long conversation in the rose- 
 walk escaped him. 
 
 Well, of course, in the case of any other girl in the world 
 
 264 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 265 
 
 than Lydia, such things would be conclusive. Who was 
 likely to refuse Tatham, plus the Tatham estates? But 
 unless he had mistaken her altogether — her detachment, 
 her unworldliness, her high spirit — Lydia Penfold was 
 not the girl to marry an estate. And if Tatham himself 
 had touched her heart — "would she have allowed me the 
 play with her that she has done this last fortnight.?" 
 She would have been absorbed, preoccupied; and she had 
 been neither. He thought of her kind eyes, her frank, 
 welcoming ways, her intense interest in his fortunes. 
 Impossible — if she were in love with or on the point of 
 an engagement to Harry Tatham. 
 
 She had forgiven him for his touch of jealous ill-temper ! 
 As they stood together at the last in the Duddon garden, 
 she had said, "I miLst hear about to-night ! send me a 
 word!" And he carried still, stamped upon his mind, 
 the vision of her — half shy, half eager — looking up. 
 
 For the rest, the passion that was rapidly rising in the 
 veins of a man full of life and will, surprised the man 
 himself, excited in him a new complacency and self- 
 respect. For years he had said to himself that he could 
 only marry money. He remembered with a blush one 
 or two rather sordid steps in that direction — happily 
 futile. But Lydia was penniless; and he could make her 
 rich. For his career was only beginning; and on wealth, 
 the wealth which is power, he was more than ever deter- 
 mined. 
 
 A turn in the road brought Threlfall into view. The 
 new agent sat with folded arms, gazing at the distant 
 outline, and steadily pulUng himseK together to meet the 
 ordeal of the evening. It was by Melrose's own wish he 
 
266 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 had drawn up a careful scheme of the alterations and 
 improvements which seemed to him imperatively neces- 
 sary in the financial interests of the estate; and he had 
 added to it a statement — very cautious and diplomatic — 
 of the various public and private quarrels in which Melrose 
 was now concerned, with suggestions as to what could be 
 done to straighten them out. With regard to two or 
 three of them litigation was already going on; had, 
 indeed, been going on interrainabl3^ Faversham was 
 certain that with a little good-will and a very moderate 
 amount of money he could settle the majority of them in 
 a week. 
 
 So far Melrose had been fairly amenable — had given a 
 curt assent, for instance, to the conditions on which 
 Faversham had proposed to relet two of the vacant farms, 
 and to one or two other changes. But Faversham realized 
 that he possessed no true knowledge of the old man's 
 mind and temperament. Exultant though he often felt 
 in his new office, and the preposterously large salary at- 
 tached to it, he reminded himself constantly that he trod 
 on unsure ground. Once or twice he had been conscious 
 of a strange sense as of some couchant beast beside him 
 ready to 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 de- 
 pended on. His memory was often faulty, and his irri- 
 tability hardly sane. 
 
 Faversham indeed was certain, from his own observa- 
 tion, that the mere excitement of opening and exploring 
 the huge collections he had accumulated, during these 
 twenty years, in the locked rooms of the house, had im- 
 
THE IMATING OF LYDIA 267 
 
 posed a sharp nervous strain on a man now past seventy, 
 who for all the latter part of his hfe had taken no exercise 
 and smoked incessantly. 
 
 Supposing he were suddenly to fall ill and die — what 
 would happen to the house and its collections, or to the 
 immense fortime, the proportions of which the new agent 
 was now slowly begirming to appreciate? All sorts of 
 questions with regard to the vanished wife and child were 
 now rising insistently in Faversham's mind. Were they 
 really dead, and if so, how and where? Once or twice, 
 since his acceptance of the agency, Melrose had repeated 
 to him with emphasis: "I am alone in the world." 
 Dixon and his wife preserved an absolute silence on the 
 subject, and loyalty to his employer forbade Faversham 
 to question them or any other of Melrose's dependents. 
 It struck him, indeed, that Mrs. Dixon had shown a 
 curious agitation when, that morning, Faversham had 
 conveyed to her Melrose's instructions to prepare a 
 certain room on the first floor as the agent's future bed- 
 room. 
 
 "Aye, sir, aye — but it wor Mrs. Melrose's room," she 
 had said, looking down, her lip twitching a little, her old 
 hands fumbling with the strings of her apron. 
 
 Faversham had asked uncomfortably whether there 
 were not some other room in a less conspicuous part 
 of the house to which he might be transferred, the once 
 dismantled drawing-room being now wanted to house the 
 fine things that were constantly coming to fight. Mrs. 
 Dixon shook her head. All the available rooms were still 
 full of what she called "stoof." And then she had 
 abruptly left him. 
 
268 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 The light was fast faihng as he approached the house. 
 By the shearing away of trees and creeper, at least from 
 all its central and eastern parts, Threlfall had now lost 
 much of its savage picturesqueness ; the formal 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 of the west wing was still practically 
 untouched. There they still were — the shuttered and 
 overgrown windows. Faversham looked at them ex- 
 pectantly. The exploration of the house roused in him 
 now the same kind of excitement that drives on the 
 excavators of Delphi or Ephesus, or the divers for Spanish 
 treasure. He and Melrose had already dug out so many 
 precious things — things many of them which had long 
 sunk below the surface of the old man's memory — that 
 heaven only knew what might turn up. The passion of 
 adventure ran high; he longed to be at the business again 
 and was sorry to think it must some day have an end. 
 
 That broken window, for instance, now widely open in 
 the west wing, was the window of the room they had 
 forced on the previous day. In general, ]Melrose pos- 
 sessed some rough record of the contents of the locked 
 rooms, and their labelled keys; but in this case both 
 record and label had been lost. A small amount of 
 violence, however, had suJBSced to open the half-rotten 
 door. Inside — thick darkness, save for one faint gleam 
 through a dilapidated shutter. As Faversham advanced, 
 groping into the room, there was a sudden scurry of mice, 
 and a sudden flapping of something in a corner, which 
 turned out to be a couple of bats. When he made for the 
 window, dense cobwebs brushed against his face, and half 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 269 
 
 the shutter on which he laid his hand came away at his 
 touch and lay in fragments at his feet. The rain had 
 come in for twenty years through a broken pane, and had 
 completely rotted the wood. Strange noises in the chim- 
 ney showed that owls had built there; and as the shutter 
 fell a hideous nest of earwigs was disturbed, and ran hither 
 and thither over the floor. 
 
 And when Faversham turned to look at the contents of 
 the room, he saw Melrose in his skullcap, poking about 
 among a medley of black objects on the floor and in a 
 open cupboard, his withered cheeks ghastly in the sudden 
 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 ewer and basin, whence some ragged 
 coverings fell away. It was almost entirely black; but 
 the exquisite work of it — the spiral fluting of the ewer, its 
 shell-like cover, the winged dragon on the handle, and, 
 round the oval basin, the rim of chasing dolphins, could 
 still be seen. 
 
 "That came from the Wolfgang sale — I gave six 
 hundred for it. It's worth six thousand now — you can't 
 find such a piece anyw^here. Ah! by George!" — with a 
 stifled shout — "and that's the Demidoff tazza!" — as 
 Faversham lifted up a thing lying in a half-open box that 
 might have been ebony — a shallow cup on a stem, with a 
 young vine-crowned Bacchus for a handle. Melrose took 
 it eagerly, put up his eyeglass, and, rubbing away with 
 his handkerchief, searched for the mark. "There it is! — 
 
270 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 a Caduceus and 1620. And the signature — see! — 'A. 
 D. Viana.' There was a cup signed by Viana sold last 
 week at Christie's — fetched a fabulous sum! Every 
 single thing in this room is worth treble and quadruple 
 what I gave for it. 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 on some trestle tables and in the cup- 
 boards of the room. A number of smaller boxes and 
 packages still remained to be looked through. Faver- 
 sham, by Melrose's directions, had written to a London 
 firm of dealers in antique silver, directing them to send 
 down two of their best men to clean, mend, and catalogue. 
 Proper glazed cupboards, baize-lined, were to be put up 
 along each side of the room; the room itself was to be 
 repaired, whitened, and painted. Faversham already 
 foresaw the gleaming splendour of the show, when all 
 should be done, and these marvels of a most lovely art — 
 these silver nymphs and fauns, these dainty sea-horses and 
 dolphins, these temples and shrines, now holding a Her- 
 cules, now a St. Sebastian, these arabesques, garlands, 
 festoons, running in a riot of beauty over the surface of 
 cup and salver — had been restored to daylight and men's 
 sight, after the burial of a generation. 
 
 But the value of what the house contained! In these 
 days of huge prices and hungry buyers, it must be simply 
 enormous. 
 
 Faversham often found himself speculating eagerly 
 upon it, and always with the query in the background 
 "For whom is it all piling up?" 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 271 
 
 As they left the silver room, Melrose had made the 
 grim remark that the contents of that room alone would 
 make it prudent to let loose an extra couple of blood- 
 hounds in the park at night. Dixon's frowning counte- 
 nance as he followed in their wake showed an answering 
 anxiety. For he had now been made guardian of the 
 collections; and a raw nephew of his, chosen apparently 
 for his honesty and his speechlessness, had been put on as 
 manservant, Mrs. Dixon had two housemaids under her, 
 and a girl in the kitchen. It was sometimes evident to 
 Faversham that the agitation of these changes which had 
 come so suddenly upon them, had aged the two old ser- 
 vants, 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 the library after dinner. 
 
 Faversham made a quick and sparing meal in his own 
 room, and then adjourning to his newly furnished office 
 ran eagerly through the various papers and proposals 
 which he had to lay before his employer. 
 
 As he did so, he was more conscious than ever before 
 of the enormity of Melrose's whole career as a landowner. 
 The fact was that the estate had been for years a mere 
 field for the display of its owner's worst qualities — 
 caprice, miserliness, jealous or vindictive love of power. 
 The finance of it mattered nothing to him. Had he been 
 a poorer man his landed property might have had a 
 chance; he would have been forced to run it more or less 
 on business lines. But his immense income came to him 
 apparently from quite other sources — mines, railways. 
 
272 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 foreign investments; and with all the human relations^ 
 involved in landowning he was totally unfit to deal. 
 
 Hence these endless quarrels with his tenants to whom 
 he never allowed a lease; these constant evictions; these 
 litigations as to improvements, compensation, and heaven 
 knows what. The land was naturally of excellent quahty, 
 and many a tenant came in with high hopes, only to find 
 that the promises on the strength of which he had taken 
 his farm were never fulfilled, and that if it came to lawyers, 
 Melrose generally managed "to best it." Hence, too, the 
 rotten, insanitary cottages — maintained, Faversham 
 could almost swear, for the mere sake of defying the local 
 authorities and teaching "those Sociahst fools" a lesson. 
 Hence the constant charges of persecution for poHtical 
 reasons; and hence, too, tliis bad case of the Brands, which 
 had roused such a strong and angry sympathy in the 
 neighbourhood that Faversham felt the success of his own 
 regime must be endangered unless some means could be 
 found, compatible with Mehose's arrogance, of helping 
 the ruined family. 
 
 Well, there in those clear typewritten sheets, lay his 
 suggestions for dealing with these various injustices 
 and infamies. They were moderate. Expensive for the 
 moment, they would be economical in the long run. He 
 had given them his best brains and his hardest work. And 
 he had taken the best advice. But they meant, no doubt, 
 a complete change in the administration and 'personnel of 
 the estate. 
 
 Faversham stepped into the garden, and, hanging over 
 the low wall which edged the sandstone cliff, he looked 
 out over the gorge of the river, across the woods, into 
 
THE JVIATING OF LYDIA 273 
 
 the ravines and gullies of the fells. Mountain and wood 
 stood dark against a saffron sky. In the dim blue above 
 it Venus sailed. A light wind stirred the trees and the 
 stream. Along the river meadows he could hear the cows 
 munching and see their dusky forms moving through a 
 thin mist. The air was amethyst and gold, and the 
 beautiful earth shone through it, ennobled by the large 
 indistinctness, the quiet massing of the evening tones. 
 
 His heart withdrew itself into some inner shrine where 
 it might be with Lydia. She represented to him some 
 force, some help, to which he turned. 
 
 Please God, he would win her! — and through a piece of 
 honourable work — the cleansing of an ugly corner of 
 human life. A nobler ambition than he had ever yet 
 been conscious of, entered in. He felt himself a better 
 man, with a purpose in the world. 
 
 Nor, at this critical moment, did he forget his uncle — 
 the man who had been a father to him in his orphaned 
 boyhood. What pleasure the dear old fellow would have 
 taken in this new opening — and in Melrose's marvellous 
 possessions! By the way — Melrose had said nothing 
 about the gems for a long time past, and Faversham was 
 well content to leave them in his temporary keeping. 
 But his superstitious feeling about them — and all men 
 have some touch of superstition — was stronger than ever. 
 It was as though he protested anew to some hovering 
 shape, which took the aspect now of Mackworth, now of 
 Fortuna — "Stand by me! — even as I hold by them." 
 
 The chiming clock in the gallery — a marvel of French 
 horlogeriey made for the Begent Orleans — had just 
 
274 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 finished striking eleven. Melrose, who had been speaking 
 with energy through the soft, repeated notes, threw him- 
 self back in his chair, and lit a cigarette. His white hair 
 shone against the panelled backgTound of the room, and, 
 beneath it, framed in bushy brows still black, a pair of 
 menacing eyes fixed themselves on Faversham. 
 
 Faversham remained for a minute at the table, looking 
 down upon it, his hand resting on the document from 
 which he had been reading. Then he too pushed his chair 
 slowly backward, and looked up. 
 
 "I understand then, Mr. Melrose, that these proposals 
 of mine do not meet with your approval .f*" 
 
 "I have told you what I approve." 
 
 "You have approved a few matters — of minor im- 
 portance. But my chief proposals" — he ran his finger 
 lightly over the pages of his memorandum, enumerating 
 the various headings — "these, if I have understood you 
 correctly, 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 my estate run on any 
 damned Socialist principles." 
 
 Faversham smiled; but he had grown very pale. "Your 
 financial profit, Mr. Melrose, and the business manage- 
 ment of your property have been my sole concern." 
 
 "I am sure that you think so. But as to what is profit 
 and what is business, you must allow me to be the final 
 judge." 
 
 Faversham thought a moment, then rose, and walked 
 
Faversham ! Don't be a fool ! I have something to 
 say to you a deal more important than this 
 damned nonsense ' ' 
 
THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 275 
 
 quietly up and down the length 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 a multitude of miscellaneous ohjets 
 (Tart, conspicuous among them a pair of Tanagra figures, 
 white visions of pure grace, amid the dusty confusion of 
 their surroundings. 
 
 Suddenly Melrose flung his cigarette vehemently away. 
 
 "Faversham! Don't be a fool! I have something 
 to say to you a deal more important than this damned 
 nonsense! " He struck his hand on the open memorandum. 
 
 Faversham turned in astonishment. 
 
 "Sit down again!" said Melrose peremptorily, "and 
 listen to me. I desire to put things as plainly and simply 
 as possible. But I must have all your attention." 
 
 Faversham sat down. Melrose was now standing, his 
 hands on the back of the chair from which he had risen. 
 
 "I have just made my will," he said abruptly. "To- 
 morrow I hope to sign it. It depends on you whether I 
 sign it or not." 
 
 As the speaker paused, Faversham, leaning back and 
 fronting him, grew visibly rigid. An intense and startled 
 expectancy dawned in his face; his lips parted. 
 
 "My will," Melrose continued, in a deliberately even 
 voice, "concerns a fortune of rather more — than a mil- 
 lion sterling — allowing little or nothing for the contents 
 of this house. I inherited a great deal, and by the 
 methods I have adopted — not the methods, my dear 
 Faversham, I may say, that you have been recommending 
 to me to-night. I have more than doubled it. I have 
 
276 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 given nothing away to worthless people, and no sloppy- 
 philanthropies have stood between me and the advantages 
 to which my knowledge and my brains entitled me. 
 Hence these accumulations. Now, the question is, what 
 is to be done with them? I am alone in the world. I 
 have no interest whatever in building universities, or 
 providing free hbraries, or subsidizmg hospitals. I didn't 
 make the world, and I have never seen why I should spend 
 my energies in trying to mend what the Demiurge has 
 made a mess of. In my view the object of everybody 
 should be to live, as acutely as possible — to get as many 
 sensations, as many pleasant reactions as possible — out 
 of the day. Some people get their sensations — or say 
 they do — out of fussing about the poor. Forty years ago 
 I got them out of politics — or racing — or high play. 
 For years past, as you know, I have got them out of col- 
 lecting works of art — and fighting the other people in the 
 world who want the same things that I do. Perfectly 
 legitimate in my belief! I make no apology whatever for 
 my existence. Well, now then, I begin to be old — don't 
 interrupt me — I don't hke it, but I recognize the fact. 
 I have various ailments. Doctors are mostly fools; but 
 I admit that in my case they may be right; though I 
 intend to live a good while yet in spite of them. Still — 
 there it is — who is to have this money ■ — and these col- 
 lections.'' Sooner than let any rascally Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer get at them, I would leave them to Dixon. 
 But I confess I think Dixon would be embarrassed to 
 know what to do with them. I don't think I possess a 
 single relation that I don't dislike. So now we come to the 
 point. With your leave — and by your leave — I pro- 
 
THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 277 
 
 pose to leave the money and the collections — to you!" 
 The young 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 to suit me — to 
 interest me. *Provvy* as Bentham would say, seems 
 to point to you. Here — in this drawer" • — he brought 
 his hand down strongly on the writmg table — "is a will 
 which I wrote last night. It leaves the whole of my 
 property to you, subject to certain directions as to the 
 works of art — to a provision for old Dixon, and so on. 
 You can't witness it, of coiu-se, nor can Dixon; otherwise 
 it might be signed to-night. But if we come to an under- 
 standing to-night, I can sign it to-morrow morning and 
 get a couple of men from the farm to witness it. I think 
 I can promise to Hve so long!" 
 
 There was silence. With an uncertain, swaying move- 
 ment Melrose returned to his chair. The physical weak- 
 ness betrayed by the action was strangely belied, however, 
 by his imperious aspect, as of an embodied Will. His 
 eyes never left Faversham, even while he rested heavily 
 on the table before 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. Pie threw himself back, however, with a smile. 
 
 " You have been listening I see to the stories that people 
 tell." 
 
278 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 Faversham bent forward and spoke earnestly: "I 
 understand that your wife and child left you twenty years 
 ago. Are they still living?" 
 
 Melrose shrugged his shoulders. "^^Tiether they are 
 or not, really matters nothing at all either to you or me. 
 Mrs. Melrose left this house of her own free will. That 
 ended the connection between us. In any case, you need 
 have no alarm. There is no entail — even were there a 
 son, and there never was a son. I do what I will with my 
 own. There is no claim on me — there would be no 
 claim on you." 
 
 "There must be — ^ there would be — a moral claim I" 
 
 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 cliose jvgee. And no one who wishes to remain 
 a friend of mine" — he spoke with emphasis — "will ever 
 attempt to raise ghosts that are better left in their graves. 
 I repeat — my property is unencumbered — my power to 
 deal with it absolute. I propose to make you my heir — 
 on conditions. The first is " — he looked sombrely and 
 straight at his companion — " that I should not be 
 harassed or distressed by any such references as those 
 you have just made." 
 
 Faversham made no sound. His chin was propped on 
 his hand, and his eyes pursued the intricacies of a silver 
 cup studded with precious stones which stood on the table 
 beside him. He thought, "The next condition will be — 
 the gems." 
 
 "The second," Melrose resumed, after a somewhat long 
 pause, and with a sarcastic intonation, "is that you should 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 279 
 
 resist the very natural temptation of exhibiting me to the 
 world as a penitent and reformed character. In that 
 document you have just read you suggest to me — first, 
 that I should retire from three lawsuits in which, what- 
 ever other people may think, I conceive that I have a per- 
 fectly good case; second" — he ticked the items off on the 
 long tapering finger of his left hand — " that I should re- 
 build a score or two of cottages it would not pay me to 
 rebuild — in which I force no one to live — and which I 
 shall pull down when it pleases me, just to teach a parcel 
 of busybodies to mind their own business; third — that 
 I should surrender, hands down, to a lot of trumpery com- 
 plaints and grievances got up partly to spite a landlord, 
 partly to get money out of him; and fourthly — with 
 regard to the right of way — that I should let that young 
 prig Tatham, a lad just out of the nursery, dictate to me, 
 bring the whole country about my ears, and browbeat me 
 out of my rights. Now — I warn you — I shall do none 
 of these things!" 
 
 The speaker paused a moment, and then turned im- 
 petuously on his companion, 
 
 " Have you any reason so far to complain of my conduct 
 toward you.''" 
 
 "Complain? You have been only too amazingly, in- 
 credibly generous." 
 
 Melrose's hand made a disdainful movement. 
 
 "I did what sutited me. And I told you, to begin with, 
 it would not suit me to run my estate as though it were a 
 University Settlement. Handle me gently — that's all. 
 You've had your way about some of the farms — 
 you'll get it no doubt with regard to others. But don't 
 
280 THE MATING OF LYDL\ 
 
 go about playing the reformer — on this dramatic scale! 
 
 — at my expense. I don't believe in this modern wish- 
 wash; and I don't intend to don the white sheet." 
 
 He rose, and hghting another cigarette, he dropped a 
 log on the fire, and stood with his back to it, quietly smok- 
 ing. But his eyes were aU fierce fife under the dome of his 
 forehead, and his hand shook a httle. 
 
 Faversham sat absolutely still. Rushing through his 
 veins was the sense of something incredible and intoxicat- 
 ing. The word "million" rang in his ears. He was 
 conscious of the years behind him — their poverty, their 
 thwarted ambitions, their impotent discontent. And sud- 
 denly the years before him lit up; all was possible; all was 
 changed. Yet as he sat there his 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 a paralyzed girl, paralyzed after diphtheria 
 
 — the useless hands — the vacant, miserable look — 
 other beds in the same room filling it up — the roof so low 
 that it seemed to be crushing down on the ghl — holes 
 in the thatch rudely mended. 
 
 Again — a corner in the Mainstairs chm-chyard, filled 
 with small, crowded graves, barely grass-gro^vn; the 
 "Innocents' Corner." 
 
 And again, a ^Tetched one-roomed cottage in the same 
 row of hovels, kitchen, bedroom, and living-room in one, 
 mud-floored, the outer door opening into it, the bed at the 
 back, and an old husband and wife, crippled with rheuma- 
 tism, sitting opposite each other on a day of pouring rain, 
 shivering in the damp and the draughts. 
 
THE IMATING OF LYDIA 281 
 
 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 honest folk. 
 
 And last, but flashing through all the rest, Lydia's 
 eyes — the light in them — and the tones of her voice — 
 "You'll do it!— you'll do it! — you'll set it all right!" 
 
 He perfectly reaHzed at that moment — before the brain 
 had begun to refine on the situation — what was asked of 
 him. He was to be Melrose's tool and accomphce in all 
 that Melrose's tyrannical caprice chose to do with the lives 
 of human beings; he was to forfeit the respect of good 
 men; he was to make an enemy of Harry Tatham; and he 
 was to hurt — • and possibly alienate — Lydia. 
 
 And the price of it was a million. 
 
 He rose rather heavily to his feet, and gathered up his 
 papers — a slim and comely figure amid the queer medley 
 of the room. 
 
 '"I must have some time to think about what you have 
 said to me, ]\Ir. Melrose. You'^'e 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. And for the present 
 
 — please ! — silence ! " 
 
 They exchanged good-nights. ISIelrose looked oddly 
 after the young man, as the door closed. 
 
 "He took it well. I suppose he's been sitting up nights 
 over that precious memorandum. He was to be the 
 popular hero, and I the 'shocking example.' Well, he'll 
 
282 THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 get over it. I think — I have — both him — and the 
 Medusa. 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 the Styx ! " 
 
 Faversham wandered out once more into the summer 
 night. A little path along the cliff took him down to 
 the riverside, and he paced beside the dimly shining 
 water, overhung by the black shadow of the woods. 
 When he returned to the Tower, just as the hght was 
 altering, and the chill of dawn beginning, a long process of 
 tumultuous reflection had linked the mood of the preced- 
 ing evening to the mood of this new day, and of the days 
 that were to follow. He had determined on his answer to 
 Melrose; and he was exultantly sure of his power to deal 
 with the future. The scruples and 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 con- 
 noisseurship — what could he really do in the way of 
 effective supervision of his agent? A little tact, a little 
 prudent manoeuvring; some money here, possibly out of 
 his, Faversham's, own pocket; judicious temporizing 
 there; white lying when necessary — a certain element of 
 intrigue in Faversham rose to the business with alacrity. 
 In the pride of his young brain and his recovered strength 
 he did not regard it as possible that he should fail in it. 
 After all, the law was now squeezing Melrose; and might 
 be gently and invisibly assisted. If, as to the will itself, his 
 lips were sealed, it would be possible to give some hint 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 283 
 
 to Lydia, for friendship to interpret; to plead with her for 
 patience, in view of the powers, the beneficent powers, that 
 must be his — aye and hers — the darhng ! — some day. 
 
 The thought of them was intoxicating! A man to 
 whom wealth had always appeared as the only gate of 
 opportunity, was now to be rich beyond the utmost dream 
 of his ambition. The world lay at his feet. He would use 
 it well; he would do all things honourably. Ease, travel, 
 a political career, wide influence, the possession of beauti- 
 ful things — in a very short time they would all be in hi& 
 grasp; for Melrose was near his end. Some difliculty first, 
 but not too much; the struggle that leads to the prize! 
 
 As he softly let himself in at the side door of the Tower, 
 and mounted to his new room, his whole nature was like a 
 fiercely sped arrow, aflight for its goal. Of what obstacles 
 might He between him and his goal he had ceased to take 
 account. Compunctions had disappeared. 
 
 Only — once — as he stood dreamily looking round the 
 strange bedroom to which his personal possessions had 
 been transferred, an image crossed his mind which was dis- 
 agreeable. It was that of Nash, the shady solicitor in 
 Pengarth, Melrose's factotum in many disreputable affairs, 
 and his agent in the ruin of the Brands. A little reptile 
 if ever there was one! Faversham had come across the 
 creature a good deal since his appointment as agent; and 
 was well aware that he had excited Nash's jealousy and 
 dislike. 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 oak panelling sucked all the hght from his 
 
284 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 pair of candles. That would be altered as soon as the 
 electric installation, for which Melrose had just signed the 
 contract, was complete. In the centre of the wall opposite 
 the window, through which a chiU dawn was just begin- 
 ning to penetrate, stood a fine armoire of carved Norman 
 work. Faversham went to look at it, and vaguely opened 
 one of its drawers. 
 
 There was something at the back of the drawer, a 
 picture, apparently an old photograph, lying face down- 
 ward. 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 about a year old, an elf 
 with dehcately proud features, and a frowning, passionate 
 look. 
 
 Wlio 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's room, which, according to Mrs. 
 Dixon, had been closed for years, from the date of her 
 flight. The photograph must have been hers; the child 
 was hers — and Melrose's! The Ukeness indeed cried out. 
 
 He replaced the photograph, his mind absorbed in the 
 excitement of its discovery. Where were they now — 
 the forlorn pair.^* He had no doubt whatever that they 
 were ahve — at the old man's mercy, somewhere. 
 
 He let in the dawn, and stood long in thought beside the 
 open window. But in the end, he satisfied himself. He 
 would find a way of meeting all just claims, when the time 
 arrived. WTiy not? 
 
BOOK III 
 
XIII 
 
 WHEN Delorme left Duddon, carrying with him 
 a huge full-length of Victoria, which must, 
 Victoria felt, entirely cut her off from London 
 during 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 with it — he left behind 
 him a cordial invitation to the "little painting girl" to 
 come and work in his Somersetshire studio — where he 
 was feverishly busy with a great commission for an 
 American to\\'n-hall for the remainder of August and 
 September. Such invitations were extraordinarily cov- 
 eted; and Lydia, "advanced" as she was, should have 
 been jubilant. She accepted for 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 and rather irritable mystification with regard 
 to Lydia, noticed the fact at once. She consulted 
 Susy. 
 
 "I can't make her out!" said the mother plaintively. 
 "Oh, Susy, do you know what's been going on.^ Lydia 
 has been at Duddon at least six times this last fortnight — 
 and Lord Tatham has been here — and nothing happens. 
 And all the time Lydia keeps teUing me she's not in love 
 with him, and doesn't mean to marry him. But what's 
 he doing .^" 
 
 287 
 
288 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 Susan was looking dishevelled and highly strung. She 
 had spent the afternoon in writing the fifth act of a tragedy 
 on Belisarius; and it was more than a fortnight since Mr. 
 Weston, the young vicar of Dunscale, had been to call. 
 Her cheeks were sallow; her dark eyes burnt behind their 
 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 down gently." 
 
 "And never said a word to you or me! Oh, Susy, she 
 couldn't be so unkind." 
 
 Mrs. Penfold's pink and whit6 countenance, on which 
 age had as yet laid so light a finger, showed the approach 
 of tears. She and Susy were sitting in a leafy recess of 
 the garden; Lydia had gone after tea to see old Dobbs 
 and his daughter. 
 
 "That's all this friendship business, she's so full of," 
 said Susy. "If she'd accepted him, she'd have told us, of 
 course. Now he's plucked as a lover, and readmitted as 
 a friend. And one doesn't betray a friend's secrets — 
 even to one's relations. There it is." 
 
 "I never heard such nonsense," cried Mrs. Penfold. 
 "I used to try that kind of thing — making friends with 
 young men. It was no use at all. They always pro- 
 posed." 
 
 Susan's state of tension — caused by the fact that her 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 289 
 
 Fifth Act had been a veritable shambles — broke up in 
 laughter. She couldn't help kissing her mother, 
 
 "You're priceless, darling, you really are. I wouldn't 
 say anything to her about it, if I were you," she added, 
 more seriously. "I shall attack her, of course, some 
 day." 
 
 "But she still goes on seeing him," said Mrs. Penfold, 
 pursuing her own bewildered thoughts. 
 
 " That's her theory. She sees him — they write to each 
 other — they probably call each other ' Lydia' and 
 'Harry.' " 
 
 "Susy!" 
 
 "Why not.' Christian names are very common now- 
 adays." 
 
 "In my youth if any girl called a 5'oung man by his 
 Christian name, it meant she was engaged to him," said 
 Mrs. Penfold with energy, her look clearing. "And if 
 they do call each other 'Lydia' and 'Harry' you may say 
 what 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 her alone!" 
 
 Mrs, Penfold sighed deeply. 
 
 "Just think, Susy, what it would be like" — she dropped 
 her voice — "'Countess Tathani!' — can't you see her 
 going to the drawing-room — with her feathers and her 
 tiara.'' Wouldn't she be lovely — wouldn't she have 
 the world at her feet? Think what your father would 
 have said." 
 
 "I don't believe those things ever enter Lydia's mind!" 
 
 Mrs. Penfold slowly shook her head. 
 
290 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 "It isn't human," she said plaintively, "it really 
 isn't." And in a mournful silence she returned to her 
 embroidery. 
 
 Susan invaded her sister's bedroom late that night, 
 and found Lydia before her looking-glass enveloped in 
 shimmering clouds of hair. The younger 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 you want to go," 
 
 Lydia turned with a start. 
 
 "But of course I want to go! It's the greatest chance. 
 I shall learn a heap 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 hke Mr. Delorme.^ The greatest egotist I 
 ever saw," said the uncompromising Susan, who, as a 
 dramatist, prided herself on a knowledge of character. 
 
 "Ah, but a grea,t, 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 go away," 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 because you're so desperately interested in 
 Mr. Faversham." 
 
 "Really, Susan!" The cloud of hair was thrown back, 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 291 
 
 and Lydia's face emerged, the clear, indignant eyes shining 
 in the candleHght. 
 
 "Ob, I don't mean that you're in love with him — 
 wish you were! But you're roping him in — just Hke 
 Lord Tatham. And as he's the latest, he's the most — 
 well, exciting!" 
 
 Susan with her chin in her hands, and her dusky coun- 
 tenance very much alive, seemed to be playing her sister 
 with cautious mockery — feeling her way. 
 
 "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 and take care of us. We know we're 
 stupids compared to you. But really mamma and 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 Susan severely — "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 it possible 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 like us?" 
 
 "Oh, no, not like us," said Susan hastily — "never." 
 
 Lydia smiled. 
 
 "Well, enough like us, anyway. Do you ever think. 
 
292 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 Susy!" she seized her sister's wrist and looked her in the 
 eyes — "that there are a million more women than men 
 in this country? It is evident we can't all be married. 
 Well, then, I withdraw from the competition! It's de- 
 moralizing to women; and it's worse for men. But I 
 don't intend to confine myself to women friends." 
 
 "They bore you," said Susy sharply; "confess it at 
 once!" 
 
 "How unkind of you!" Lydia's protest was almost 
 tearful. "You know I have at least four" — she recalled 
 their names — "who love me, and I them. But neither 
 men nor women should live in a world apart. They 
 complete each other." 
 • "Yes — in marriage," said Susan. 
 
 "No! — in a thousand other ways — we hardly dream 
 of yet. Not marriage only — but comradeship — help — 
 in all the great — impersonal — delightful things!" 
 
 "You look like a prophetess," said Susan, appraising her 
 sister's kindled beauty, with an artistic eye; "but I should 
 like to know what Lady Tatham has to say!" 
 
 Lydia was silent, her lip quivering a little. 
 
 "And I warn you," Susan continued, greatly daring, 
 "that Faversham won't let you do what you like with 
 him!" 
 
 Lydia rose slowly, gathered up her golden veil into one 
 big knot without speaking, and went on with her prepara- 
 tions for bed. 
 
 Susy too uncoiled her small figure and stood up. 
 
 "I've told mamma not to bother you," she said 
 abruptly. 
 
 Lydia threw an arm round her tormentor. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 293 
 
 " Dear Sue, I don't want to scold, but if you only knew 
 how you spoil things!" 
 
 Susy's eyes twinkled. She let Lydia kiss her, and then 
 walking very slowly to the door, so as not to have an 
 appearance of being put to flight, she disappeared. 
 
 Lydia was left to think — and think — her eyes on the 
 ground. Never had life 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 was ruled 
 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 a woman's sym- 
 pathy', all that mind and spirit could do to help him in his 
 heavy and solitary task she would do. Toward Tatham 
 she felt with a tender sisterliness; anxious often; yet con- 
 fident in herself, and in the issue. 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 thrust upon 
 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 reached her the morning after his interview with 
 Mr. Melrose. 
 
 'T didn't find Mr. Melrose in a yielding mood last night. 
 I beg of you don't expect too much. Please, please be 
 patient, and remember that if I can do as yet but little, I 
 honestly believe nobody else could do anything. We 
 must wait and watch — here a step, and there a step. 
 But I think I may ask you to trust me; and, if you can, 
 suggest to others to do the same. How much your 
 sympathy helps me I cannot express." 
 
394 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 Of course she would be patient. But she was trium- 
 phantly certain of him — and his power. What Susy said 
 to her unwillingness to go south was partly true. She 
 would have liked to stay and watch the progress of things 
 on the Melrose estates; to be at hand if Mr. Faversham 
 wanted her. She thought of Mainstairs — that dying 
 girl — the sickly children — the helpless old people. In- 
 dignant pity gripped her. That surely would be the first 
 — the very first step; a mere question of weeks — or 
 days. It was so simple, 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, the sooner would it be possible for Lady 
 Tatham to induce her son to migrate to the Scotch moor 
 where, as a rule, she and he were always to be found 
 settled by the first days of August. It was evident that 
 she was anxious to be gone. Lydia confessed it, sorely, 
 to herself. It seemed to her that she had been spending 
 some weeks in trying hard to make friends with Lady 
 Tatham; and she had not succeeded. 
 
 "Why won't she talk to me!" she thought; "and I 
 daren't — to her. It would be so easy to understand 
 each other!" 
 
 Three days later. Green Cottage was in the occupation 
 of a Manchester solicitor, who was paying a rent for it, 
 which put Mrs. Penfold in high spirits; especially when 
 coupled with the astonishing fact that Lydia had sold all 
 her three drawings which had been sent to a London 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 295 
 
 exhibition — also, apparently, to a solicitor. Mrs. Pen- 
 fold expressed her surprise to her daughter that the 
 practice of the law should lead both to a love of scenery 
 and the patronage of the arts; she had been brought up 
 to think of it as a deadening profession. 
 
 Lydia had gone south; Mrs. Penfold and Susy were 
 paying visits to relations; and Duddon was closed till the 
 end of September. It was known that Mr. Melrose had 
 gone off on one of his curio-hunting tours; and the new 
 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 lodge filled up with guests, and one charm- 
 ing girl succeeded another, by Victoria's careful contriv- 
 ance. None of your painted and powdered campaigners 
 with minds torn between the desire to "best" a rival, and 
 the terror of their dressmakers' bills; but the freshest, 
 sweetest, best-bred young women she could discover 
 among the daughters of her friends. Tatham was de- 
 lightful with them all, patiently played golf with them, 
 taught them to fish, and tramped with them over the 
 moors. And when they said good-bye, and the motor 
 took them to the station, Victoria believed 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 would have 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 
 confided in her, she had been certain that no nice girl 
 
296 THE jVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 could long resist him, if only she, Harry's mother, gave 
 opportunities and held the lists. It would not be neces- 
 sary for her to take any active steps. Mere propinquity 
 would do it. Then, when Tatham stumbled prematurely 
 into his proposal, ^"ictoria might 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 
 place of lover and wife. But she had claimed and was 
 now holding a place only less intimate, only less impor- 
 tant; and Victoria felt herself disarmed and powerless. 
 To try and separate them was to deal a blow at her son 
 of which she was incapable; and at the same time there 
 was the gnawing anxiety lest their absurd "friendship" 
 should stand in the way of her boy's marriage — should 
 ^'cjueer the pitch" for the future. 
 
 Meanwhile, day by day, Tatham's letters travelled 
 south to Lydia, and twice a week or thereabout, letters 
 addressed in a clear and beautiful handwriting arrived 
 by an evening post from the south. And gradually 
 Victoria became aware of new forces and new growths 
 in her son. "What does she write to you about.'*" she 
 had said to him once, with her half-sarcastic smile. And 
 after a little hesitation — silently, Tatham had handed 
 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 of fun. The humours of Delorme's studio — 
 a play she had seen in London — a book she had read — 
 the characteristics of a Somersetshire village — the eager 
 pen ran on without effort, without pretence. But it was 
 
THE ]VL\TING OF LYDIA 297 
 
 the pen of youth, of feeling, of romance; and it revealed 
 the dehcate heart and mind of a woman. There was a 
 liberal education in it; and Victoria watched the process 
 at work, sometimes with jealousy, sometimes with emotion. 
 After all, might it not be a mere stage — and a useful 
 one. She reserved her judgment, waiting for the time 
 when these two should meet again, face to face. 
 
 September was more than halfway through, when one 
 morning Tatham tossed a letter 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 was steadily developing — kept up a 
 fairly regular correspondence with the active young 
 doctor, on medical and sanitary matters, connected with 
 his own estate and the county. 
 
 "Matters are going rather oddly in this neighbourhood. 
 I must say I can't make Faversham out. You remember 
 what an excellent beginning he seemed to make a couple 
 of months ago. Colonel Barton told me that he had 
 every hope of him; he was evidently most anxious to 
 purge some at least of Mr. Melrose's misdeeds; seemed 
 businesslike, conciliatory, etc. Well, I assure you, he 
 has done almost nothing! It is not really a question 
 of giving him time. There were certain scandalous 
 things, years old, that he ought to have put right at once 
 — on the nail — or thrown up his post. The Mainstairs 
 cottages for instance. We are in for another diphtheria 
 epidemic there. The conditions are simply horrible. 
 Melrose, as before, will do nothing, and defies anybody 
 
298 THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 else to do anything; says he has given the tenants notice 
 that he intends to pull the cottages down, and the people 
 stay in them at their own peril. The local authority can 
 do nothing; the people say they have nowhere to go, and 
 cling like limpets to the rock. Melrose could put those 
 sixteen cottages in order for a couple of thousand pounds, 
 which would be about as much to him as half-a-crown to 
 me. It is all insane pride and obstinacy — he won't be 
 dictated to — and the rest, I shall be a land-nationalizer 
 if I hear much more of Melrose. 
 
 "Meanwhile, Faversham will soon come in for his 
 master's hideous unpopularity, if he can't manage him 
 better. He is looking white and harassed, and seems to 
 avoid persons like myself who might attack him. But I 
 gather that he has been trying to come round Melrose by 
 attempting some reforms behind his back, and probably 
 with his o^ai 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 to get at the pollutions infecting the 
 water supply, and repairs were begun on the worst 
 cottage. 
 
 "But in the middle Melrose came home, and was, I 
 believe, immediately informed of what was going on by 
 that low scoundrel Nash who used to be his factotum, and 
 has shown great jealousy of Faversham since his appoint- 
 ment. What happened exactly I can't say, but from 
 something old Dixon said to me the other day — I have 
 been attending him for rheumatism — I imagine there 
 was a big row between the two men. Why Faversham 
 didn't throw up there and then, I can't understand. How- 
 ever there he is still, immersed they tell me in the busi- 
 ness of the estate, but incessantly watched and hampered 
 by Melrose himself, an extraordinary development in so 
 short a time; and able, apparently, even if he is willing, 
 which I assume — to do little or nothing to meet the 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 299 
 
 worst complaints of the tenants. They are beginning to 
 turn against him furiously. 
 
 "Last week the sight of Mainstairs and the horrible 
 suffering there got on my nerves. I sat down and wrote to 
 Melrose peremptorily demanding a proper supply of anti- 
 toxin at once, at his expense. A post-card from him 
 arrived, refusing, and bidding me apply to a Socialist 
 government. That night, however, on arriving at my 
 surgery, I found a splendid supply of antitoxin, labelled 
 'for Mainstairs,' without another word. I have reason 
 to think Faversham had been in Carlisle himself that 
 day to get it; he must have cleared out the place. 
 
 "Next day I saw him in the village. He specially 
 haunts a cottage where there is a poor girl of eighteen, 
 paralyzed after an attack of diphtheria last year, and not, I 
 think, long for this world. The new epidemic has now 
 attacked her younger sister, a pretty child of eight. I 
 doubt whether we shall save her. Miss Penfold has 
 always been very kind in coming to visit them. She will 
 be dreadfully sorry. 
 
 "Faversham, I believe, has tried to move the whole 
 family. But where are they to go? The grandfather is a 
 shepherd on a farm near — too old for a new place. There 
 isn't a vacant cottage in the whole neighbourhood — as 
 you know; and scores that ought to be built. 
 
 "As to the right-of-way business, Melrose's fences are 
 all up again, his rascally lawyers, Nash at the head, are 
 as busy as bees trumping up his case; and I can only 
 suppose that he has been forcing Faversham to write the 
 unscrupulous letters about it that have been appearing in 
 some of the papers, 
 
 "What makes it all rather gruesome is that there are 
 the most persistent rumours that the young man has been 
 adopted by Melrose, and will probably be his heir. I 
 can't give you any proofs, but I am certain that all the 
 people about the Tower believe it. If so, he will no doubt 
 
300 THE JVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 be well paid for his soul! But sell it he must, or go. I 
 have no doubt he thought he could manage Melrose. 
 Poor devil! 
 
 "The whole thing makes me very sick — I liked him so 
 much while he was my patient. And I expect you and 
 Lady Tatham will be pretty disappointed too." 
 
 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." 
 
 "WTiy 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 spent an uncomfortable hour in rumination. 
 Lydia had spoken of Faversham once or twice in her early 
 letters from the south; but lately there had been no refer- 
 ences to him at all. Was she disappointed — or too much 
 interested? — too deeply involved? A vague but gnaw- 
 ing jealousy was fastening on Tatham day by day; and 
 he had not been able to coneal it from his mother. Lydia 
 was free — of course she was free ! But friends have their 
 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 she was going. But that moral and intel- 
 lectual landscape which had lain so clear before her when 
 she left Green Cottage was certainly beginning to blur; 
 the mists were descending upon it. 
 
 She spent the August and September days working 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 301 
 
 feverishly hard in Delorme's studio, and her evenings in a 
 pleasant society of young artists, of both sexes, all gathered 
 at the feet of the great man. But her mind was often far 
 away; and rational theories as to the true relations be- 
 tween men and women were neither so clear nor so sup- 
 porting as they had been. 
 
 She had now two intimate men friends; two ardent and 
 devoted correspondents. Scarcely a day passed that she 
 was not in touch with both of them. Her knowledge of 
 the male temperament and male ways of looking at 
 things was increasing fast. So far she had her desire. 
 And in her correspondence with the two men, she had 
 amply "played up." She had given herself — her thoughts, 
 feelings, imaginations — to both; in different ways, and 
 different degrees. 
 
 And what was happening.^ Simply a natural, irresist- 
 ible discrimination, which was like the slow inflooding of 
 the tide through the river mouth it forces. Tatham's 
 letters were all pleasure. Not a word of wooing in them. 
 He had given his word, and he kept it. But the unveiling 
 of a character so simple, strong, and honest, to the eyes of 
 this girl of four-and-twenty, conveyed of itself a tribute 
 that could not but rouse both gratitude and affection in 
 Lydia. Shd did her best to reward him; and so far her 
 "ideas" had worked. 
 
 Faversham's letters, on the other hand, from the govern- 
 ing event of the day, had now become a pain and a dis- 
 tress. The exultant and exuberant self-confidence of the 
 earlier correspondence, the practical dreams on paper 
 which had stirred her enthusiasm and delight — they 
 came, it seemed to her, to a sudden and jarring end, some- 
 
302 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 where about the opening of September. The change was 
 e^ddently 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. Instead the figure of Melrose 
 rose on the horizon, till he dominated the correspondence, 
 a harsh .Mid fantastic task-master, to whose will and 
 consctence it was useless to appeal. 
 
 When two months of this double correspondence had 
 gone by, and in the absence of I.ydia's usual friends and 
 correspondents from the Pengarth neighbourhood, no 
 other information from the north had arrived to supple- 
 ment Faversham's letters, Susy, who was in the Tyrol 
 with a friend, might have drawn ample "copy," from her 
 sister's condition, had she witnessed it. Lydia was most 
 clearly unhappy. She was desperately interested, and 
 full of pity; yet apparently powerless to help. There 
 was a tug at her heart, a grip on her thoughts, which 
 increased perpetually. Faversham wrote to her often 
 like a guilty man; why, she could not imagine. The 
 appeal of his letters to her had begun to shake her nerves, 
 to haunt her nights. She longed for the October day 
 when Green Cottage would be free from its tenants, and 
 she once more on the spot. 
 
 With the second week of October, Lady Tatham 
 returned to Duddon. Tatham would have been with her, 
 but that he was detained, grumbling, by a political 
 demonstration at Newcastle. Never had he felt political 
 speech-making so tedious. But for a foolish promise to 
 
THE :MATING of LYDIA 303 
 
 talk drivel to a crowd of people who knew even less about 
 the subject than he, he might have been spending the 
 evening with Lydia. For the strangers in Green Cottage 
 had departed, and Lydia was again within his reach. 
 
 The return to Duddon after an absence had never lost 
 its freshness for Victoria. 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 and streams, the 
 sound of the Cumbrian "aa's," and "oo's," the scurrying 
 of the sheep among the fern, the breath of the wind in the 
 Glendarra woods, the scent of moss and heather — these 
 things filled her with just the same thrills and gushes of 
 delight as in her youth. Such thrills and gushes were 
 for her own use only; she never offered them for inspection 
 by other people. 
 
 She had no sooner looked at her letters, and chatted 
 with her housekeeper, on the day of her return, than 
 clothed in her oldest gown and thickest shoes, she went 
 out wandering by herself through the October dusk; 
 ravished by the colour in which autumn had been wrap- 
 ping the Cumbrian earth since she had beheld it last; the 
 purples and golds and amethysts, the touches of emerald 
 green, the fringes of blue and purple mist; by the familiar 
 music of the streams, which is not as the Scotch music; 
 and the scents of the hills, which are not as the scents of 
 the Highlands. 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 disturbance in his manner. 
 
304 THE ^lATING OF LYDIA 
 
 "There are two ladies, my lady, in the drawing-room." 
 
 "Two ladies! — Hurst!" The tone was reproachful. 
 Victoria did not always suffer her neighbours gladly, and 
 Hurst knew her ways. The first evening at home v.as 
 sacred. 
 
 "I could not help it, my lady. I told them you were 
 out, and might not be in till dark. They said they must 
 see you — they had come from Italy — and it was most 
 important." 
 
 "From Italy!" repeated Victoria, wondering — "who 
 on earth Did they give their name?" 
 
 "No, my lady, they said you'd know them quite well." 
 
 Victoria hurried on to the drawing-room. Two figures 
 rose as she entered the 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 was suddenly in a blaze of light. She 
 looked in scrutinizing astonishment at the figure in dingy 
 black, standing before her, and at a girl, looking about 
 sixteen — deathly pale — who seemed to be leaning on a 
 chair in the background. 
 
 That strange, triangular face, with the sharp chin, and 
 the abnormal eyes — where, in what dim past, had she 
 seen it before? For some seconds memory wrestled. 
 Then, old and new came together; and she recognized her 
 \'isitor. 
 
 "Mrs. Melrose!" she said, in incredulous amazement. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 305 
 
 The woman in black came nearer, and spoke brokenly — 
 the bitter emotion beneath gradually forcing its way. 
 
 'T am in great distress — I don't know what to do. 
 My daughter and I are starving — and I remembered 
 you'd came to see me — that once — at Threlfall. I 
 knew all about you. I've asked English people often. I 
 thought perhaps you'd help me — you'd tell me how to 
 make my husband do something for me — for me — and 
 for his daughter! Look at her" — Netta paused and 
 pointed — " 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; some people collected 
 a hundred francs for us; and we just managed to buy our 
 tickets. Felicia didn't want to come, but I made her. I 
 couldn't see her die before my eyes. We've starved for 
 months. We've parted with everything, and I've written 
 to Mr. Melrose again and again. He's never answered — 
 till a few weeks ago, and he said if we troubled him again 
 he'd stop the money. He's a bad, bad man." 
 
 Shaking, her teeth chattering, her hands clenched at 
 her side, the forlorn creature stared at Victoria. She was 
 not old, but she was a wreck; a withered, emaciated wreck 
 of the woman Victoria had once seen twenty 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 have rooms got ready. And this is your 
 daughter.'^" 
 
 She went up to the girl who stood shivering like her 
 mother, and speechless. But her proud black eyes met 
 Victoria's with a passion in them that seemed to resent 
 
306 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 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 controlled herself by an astonishing 
 effort, thanked Victoria in Italian, and curling herself up 
 in a corner she closed her eyes. The white profile on the 
 dark sofa cushion was of a most delicate perfection, and 
 as Victoria helped to remove her hat she saw a small 
 dark head covered with short curls like a boy's. 
 
 Netta Melrose looked round the beautiful room, its 
 pictures, its deep sofas and chairs, its bright fire, and then 
 at the figures of Victoria and the housekeeper in the 
 distance. Victoria was giving her orders. The tears 
 were on Netta's cheeks. Yet she had the vague, ineffable 
 feeling of one just drawn from the waves. She had done 
 right. She had saved herself and Felicia. 
 
 Food was brought, and wine. They were coaxed to eat, 
 warmed and comforted. Then Victoria took them up 
 through the broad, scented passages of 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. My maid will help you. I will 
 come back presently to see you have everything you 
 want." 
 
 Felicia, frowning, wished to unpack their small hand- 
 bag, with its shabby contents, for herself. But she was 
 too feeble, and the maid, in spite of what seemed to the 
 two forlorn ones her fine clothes and fine ways, was kind 
 and tactful. Victoria's wardrobe was soon laid under 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 307 
 
 contribution; beautiful linen, and soft silken things she 
 possessed but seldom wore, were brought out for lier 
 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 of fastidious 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! Your daughter was a little toddling 
 thing." 
 
 " We've had such a life — these last few years — oh, 
 such an awful life ! 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 explain everything 
 — everything." 
 
 It was clear, however, that till sleep had knit up the 
 ravelled nerves of the poor lady, no coherent conversation 
 was possible. Victoria hastened to depart. 
 
 "To-morrow you shall tell me all about yourself. My 
 son will be home to-morrow. We will consult him and see 
 what can be done." 
 
 Mother and daughter were left alone. Felicia rose 
 feebly to go to her own room, which adjoined her mother's. 
 She was wearing a dressing-gown of embroidered silk — 
 pale blue, and shimmering — which Victoria's maid had 
 wrapped her in, after the child's travelling clothes, thread- 
 bare and mud-stained, had been taken off. The girl's 
 tiny neck and wrists emerged from it, her little head, and 
 her face from which weariness and distress had robbed all 
 
308 THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 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 been for years a passion never 
 to be indulged, was suddenly — though all her exhaustion 
 — enchanted with her daughter's appearance. 
 
 "Oh, Fehcia, you look so nice!" 
 
 She took up the silk of the dressing-gown and passed it 
 through her fingers covetously; then her tired eyes ran 
 over the room, the white bed standing ready, the dressing- 
 table wath its silver ornaments and flowers, the chintz- 
 covered sofas and chairs. 
 
 "Why shouldn't we be rich too?" she said angrily. 
 "Your father is richer than 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. Pres- 
 ently they passed a portrait on the wall, an enlarged 
 photograph of a boy in cricketing dress. 
 
 Underneath it was WTitten: 
 
 "Harry. Eton Eleven. July 189 — ." 
 
 Felicia for the first time showed a gleam of interest. 
 She stopped to look at the picture. 
 
 "\Mioisit?" 
 
 "It must be her son. Lord Tatham." 
 
 The girl's sunken eyes seemed to drink in the pleasant 
 image of the English boy. 
 
 "Shall we see him.'*" 
 
 "Of course. To-morrow. Now come to bed!" 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 309 
 
 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 of the bed and the room 
 was inexpressibly delightful and reviving to her. Recol- 
 lections of a small bare house in the Apuan Alps above 
 Lucca, and of all that she and Fehcia had endured there, 
 ran through her mind, mingled with visions of Threlfall 
 as she had known it of old, its choked passages — the 
 locked room from which she had stolen the Hermes — 
 the great table in Edmund's room with its litter of bric-a- 
 brac — Edmund himself . . . 
 
 She trembled; alternately desperate, and full of fears. 
 The thought that Melrose was only a few miles from her — 
 that she was going to face and brave him after all these 
 years — turned her cold with terror. And yet misery had 
 made her recldess. 
 
 "He shall provide for us!" She gathered up her weak 
 soul into this supreme resolve. How wise she had been 
 to follow the sudden impulse which had bade her appeal 
 to the Tathams! Were they not her kinsfolk by mar- 
 riage.'* 
 
 They knew what Edmund was! They were kind and 
 powerful. They would protect her, and take up her 
 cause. Edmund was now an old man. If he died, who 
 else had a right to his money but she and Felicia.? Oh! 
 Lady Tatham 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 following morning. 
 On crossing the hall he perceived in the distance a 
 very slight thin girl, dressed in black, coming out of his 
 mother's sitting-room. When she saw him she turned 
 hurriedly to the stairs and ran up, only pausing once on 
 the first landing to flash upon him a singularly white face, 
 lit by singularly black eyes. Then she disappeared. 
 
 "Who is that lady?" he asked of Hurst in astonish- 
 ment. 
 
 "Her ladyship expects you, my lord," repHed Hurst 
 evasively, throwing open the door of the morning-room. 
 Victoria was disclosed; pacing up and down, her hands 
 in the pockets of her tweed jacket. Tatham saw at once 
 that 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 the fresh experiences of life, 
 and to be exultantly proud and sure of him the while, was 
 all part of her adoration of him. 
 
 "Melrose's wife and daughter! Great Scot! So 
 they're not dead?" Tatham stood amazed. 
 
 "He seems to have done his best to kill them. They're 
 starved — and destitute. But here they are." 
 
 "And why in the name of fortune do they come to us?'* 
 
 310 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 311 
 
 "We are cousins, my dear — and I saw her twenty 
 years ago. It isn't a bad move. 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 she had gathered that 
 morning from Netta in her bed, where she had been 
 forced to remain, at least for breakfast. 
 
 After her flight, Melrose's fugitive wife had settled 
 down with her child in 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 came more or 
 less visibly to grief. Her sisters married men of the same 
 dubious world as themselves, and were always in diffi- 
 culties. Netta's eldest brother got into trouble with the 
 bank where he was employed, and another brother, as a 
 deserter from the army, had to make his escape to South 
 America. The father, Robert Smeath, had found it more 
 and more difficult to earn anything on which to keep his 
 belongings, and as a picture dealer seemed to have fallen 
 into bad odour with the Italian authorities, for reasons of 
 which Netta could give no account. 
 
 "And how much do you think Mr. Melrose allowed 
 his wife and child?" asked Victoria, her eyes sparkling. 
 ^'Eighty founds a year! — on which in the end the whole 
 family seem to have lived. Finally, the mother died, and 
 Mr. Smeath got into some scrape or other — I naturally 
 avoided the particulars — which involved pledging half 
 Mrs. Melrose's allowance for five years. And on the rest 
 — forty pounds — she and her daughter, and her old father 
 
312 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 have been trying to live for the last two. You never 
 heard such a story ! They found a small half-ruined villa 
 in the mountains north of Pisa, and there they somehow 
 existed. They couldn't afford nursing or doctoring for 
 the old father; they were half starved; the mother and 
 daughter have both actually worked in the vineyards; 
 and, of course, they had no servant. You should see the 
 poor woman's hands! Then she began to write to her 
 husband. No reply — for eighteen months, no reply — 
 till just lately, an intimation from the Florentine bank, 
 that if any more similar letters 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 had taken one of the old villas on the Luccan 
 Alps for the summer had come across the forlorn trio. 
 They were scandalized by the story, and they had im- 
 pressed on Mrs. Melrose that she and her daughter had a 
 legal right to suitable maintenance from her husband. 
 Urged by them — and starvation — Netta had at last 
 plucked up courage. The old father was left in the 
 charge of a contadino family, a small loan was raised for 
 them to which the English visitors contributed, and the 
 mother and daughter started for home. 
 
 "But without us, or some one else to help her," said 
 Victoria, "she would never — never! — get through the 
 business. Her terror of JNIelrose is a perfect disease. 
 She shakes if you mention his name. That was what 
 made her think of me — and that visit I paid her. Poor 
 thing! she was rather pretty then. But it was plain 
 enough what their relations were. Well, now, Harry, it's 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 313 
 
 for you to say. But my blood's up! I suggest we see 
 this thing through!" 
 
 The door slowly opened as she spoke, and two small 
 figures came in silently, closing it behind them. There 
 they stood, a story in themselves; Netta, with the bearing 
 and the dress of a shabby little housekeeper; the girl 
 ghastly thin, her shoulder-V>lades cutting her flimsy dress, 
 blue shadows in all the hollows of the face, but with 
 extraordinary pride of bearing, and extraordinary possi- 
 bilities of beauty in the modelling of her delicate features, 
 and splendid melancholy eyes. Tatham could not 
 help staring at her. She was indeed the disinherited 
 princess. 
 
 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 mother and I'll see what can be 
 done. We'll set the lawyers on, if there's nothing else. 
 It's a beastly shame, anyway ! But now, you take it easy. 
 \A'e'll look after you. Sit down, won't you.'* Mother's 
 chairs are the most comfortable 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. Fehcia, sitting in a corner behind 
 her mother's sofa, could not take her eyes from him. 
 The tall, fair English youth, six foot two, and splendidly 
 developed, the pink of health, modesty, and kindly 
 courtesy, was different from all other beings that had 
 ever swum into her view. She watched him close and 
 furtively — his features, his dress, his gestures; com- 
 paring the living man in her mind with the photograph 
 
314 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 upstairs, and so absorbed in her study of him that she 
 scarcely heard a word of the triangular discussion going 
 on between her mother, Tatham, and Victoria. The 
 whole time she was drinking in impressions, as of a god- 
 like creature, all beneficence. 
 
 After an hour's cross-examination of the poor, shrinking 
 Netta, Tatham's blood 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 helpless ones 
 was a duty. Lydia's approval, Lydia's sympathy were 
 certain; he kindled the more. 
 
 "All right!" he said, rising. "Now I think we are 
 agreed on the first step. "Faversham is our man. I 
 must see Faversham at once, and set him to work! If 
 I find him, I will report the result to you, Mrs. Melrose — 
 so far — by luncheon time." 
 
 He departed, to ring up the Threlfall office in Pengarth 
 and inquire whether Faversham could be seen there. 
 Victoria left the room with him. 
 
 "Have you forgotten these rumours of which Under- 
 shaw wrote you?" 
 
 "What, as to Faversham.? No, I have not forgotten 
 them. But I shan't take any notice of them. He can't 
 accept anything for himself till these two have 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 her daughter with trembling lips. 
 
 "I haven't" — half whispering — "told them any- 
 thing about the Hermes!" 
 
THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 315 
 
 "It was no theft!" said Felicia passionately. "I 
 would tell anybody!" 
 
 Netta was silent, her face working with unspoken fear. 
 Suddenly, Felicia said in her foreign English, pronounced 
 with a slight effort, and very precisely: 
 
 "That is a very beautiful young man!" 
 
 Netta was startled. 
 
 "Lord Tatham? Not at all, Felicia. He is very nice, 
 but I do not even call him good-looking." 
 
 "He is a very beautiful young man," repeated Felicia 
 with emphasis, "and I am going to marry him!" 
 
 "Fehcia ! for heaven's sake — do not show your mad 
 ways here!" cried Netta, white with new alarm. 
 
 For the first time for many, many days Fehcia smiled. 
 She got up and went to a glass that hung on the wall. 
 Taking one of the sidecombs from her curls, she began to 
 pull them out, winding them round her tiny fingers, 
 making more of them, and patting them back into place, 
 till her head was one silky mass of ripples. Then she 
 looked at herself. 
 
 "I must have a new dress at once!" she said per- 
 emptorily. 
 
 "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 a little bound, like a kitten. Then she ran 
 back to her mother, took Netta's face in her hands, 
 dashed a kiss at it, and subsided, weak and gasping, on to 
 a sofa. WTien Victoria reappeared Fehcia was motionless 
 as before, but there was a first streak of colour in her thin 
 cheeks, and a queer brightness in her eyes. 
 
316 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 Faversham was sitting in his Pengarth office, turning 
 over the morning's post. He had just ridden in from the 
 Tower. Before him lay a telephone message taken down 
 for him by his clerk, before his arrival: 
 
 "Lord Tatham will be at Mr. Faversham 's office by 
 12:30. He wishes to speak to Mr. Faversham on im- 
 portant business." 
 
 Something, no doubt, to do with the right-of-way 
 proceedings to which Tatham was a party; or, possibly, 
 with a County Council notice which had roused Melrose to 
 fury, to the effect that some Threlfall land would be taken 
 compulsorily for allotments under a recent Act, if the 
 land were not provided by arrangement. 
 
 "Perfectly reasonable! And every complaint that 
 Tatham will make — if he has come to complain — will be 
 perfectly reasonable. And I shall have to tell him to go 
 to the devil!" 
 
 He sat pen in hand, staring at the paper on his desk, 
 his mind divided between a bitter disgust with his day's 
 work and the consciousness of a deep central resolve, 
 which that disgust did not affect, and would not be 
 allowed to affect. He was looking harassed, pale, and 
 perceptibly older. No doubt his general health had not 
 yet fully recovered from his accident. Put 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 pai)ers from various drawers, and 
 arranged them on the office table. They related to the 
 
THE iMATING OF LYDIA 317 
 
 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 doing Scotland 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. I say " — 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 
 v>'ife and daughter?" 
 
 Faversham stared, took a whiff at his cigarette, and 
 put it down. 
 
 "Are you here to tell me anything about them?" 
 
 "They are staying at Duddon at this moment," said 
 Tatham, watching his effect; "arrived last night — penni- 
 less 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, if it weren't that she's little more 
 than skin and bone, would be the image of Melrose — on 
 a tiny scale. Now, look here! this is their story." 
 
318 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 The young man settled down to it, telling it just as it 
 had been told to him, until toward the end a tolerably- 
 hot indignation forced its way, and he used some strong 
 language with regard to Melrose, under which Faversham 
 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 in coming. 
 
 "I was quite aware they were alive," said Faversham, 
 slowly. 
 
 "You were, by Jove!" 
 
 "And I have already appealed to Melrose to behave 
 reasonably toward them," 
 
 "Reasonably! Good heavens!" Tatham had flushed in 
 his turn. "A man is bound 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 a 
 real beauty, or will be, when she's properly fed and 
 dressed. She's a girl anybody might be proud of. And 
 there he's been wallowing in wealth, while his child has 
 been starving. And threatening to stop their wretched 
 allowance! Well, you know as well as I, what public 
 opinion will be, if these facts get about. Pubhc opinion 
 is pretty strong already. But, by George, when this is 
 added to the rest! Can't you persuade him to behave 
 himself before it all gets into the papers? It will get into 
 them of course. There the poor things are, and we mean 
 to stand by them. There must be a proper provision for 
 the wife — that the courts can get out of him. And as to 
 the girl — why, she is his heiress! — and ought to be 
 acknowledged as such." 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 319 
 
 Tatham turned suddenly, as he spoke, and fixed a 
 pair of very straight bhie eyes on his companion. 
 
 "Mr. Meh-ose 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 to leave it to any of us," said Tatham 
 with a grin. "And he's not the kind of gentleman to be 
 endowing missions. Who is there.?" he repeated. 
 
 "Mr. Melrose will please himself," said Faversham, 
 coldly. "Of that we may be sure. Now then — what is 
 it exactly that these ladies have come to ask.?" he con- 
 tinued, in a sharp businesslike tone. "You are aware of 
 course that Mrs. Melrose left her husband of her own free 
 will — without any provocation?" 
 
 "You won't get a judge to believe that very easily — 
 in the case of Melrose! Anyway she's done nothing crimi- 
 nal. And she's willing, poor wretch! to go back to him. 
 But if not, she asks for a maintenance allowance, suitable 
 to his wealth and position, and that the daughter should 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 and contemporary, had 
 unconsciously, in the course of the conversation, assumed 
 a certain tone of authority, as though there spoke through 
 him the force of a settled and traditional society, of which 
 he knew himself to be one of the natural chiefs. 
 
 To Faversham, full of a secret bitterness, this second 
 manner of Tatham's was merely arrogance. His own 
 pride rose against it, and what he felt it implied. Not a 
 
320 THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 sign of that confidence in the new agent which had been so 
 freely expressed at Duddon a couple of months before! 
 His detractors had no doubt been at work with this jolly, 
 stupid fellow, whom everybody hked. He would have to 
 fight for himself. Well, he would fight! 
 
 "I shall certainly support any just claim," he said, 
 as Tatham rose, "but I 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 she will 
 write me a letter, I will see that it gets to Mr. Melrose, and 
 I will do my best for her." 
 
 "No one could ask you to do any more," said Tatham 
 heartily, repenting himself a little. "They will be with us 
 for the present. Mrs. Melrose shall write you a full 
 statement and you will reply to Duddon.?" 
 
 "By all means." 
 
 "There are a good many other things," said Tatham — 
 uncertainly — as he lingered, hat in hand — "that you 
 and I might discuss — Mainstairs, for instance ! I ought 
 to tell you that my mother has just sent two nurses there. 
 The condition of things is simply appalling." 
 
 Faversham straightened his tall figure. 
 
 "Mainstairs is a deadlock. Mr. Melrose won't repair 
 the cottages. He intends to pull them down. He has 
 given the people notice, and he is receiving no rent. They 
 won't go. I suppose the next step will be to apply for an 
 ejectment order. Meanwhile the people stay at their own 
 peril. 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 
 
THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 321 
 
 men. "Yes, you can!" thought Tatham; "you can re- 
 sign your fat post, and your expectations, and put 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; reflecting indeed when he reached the street, 
 that he had not been the most diplomatic of ambassadors 
 on Mrs. Melrose's behalf. 
 
 Faversham, after some ten minutes of motionless reflec- 
 tion, heavily returned to his papers, ordering his horse to 
 be ready in half an hour. He forced himself to write 
 some ordinary business letters, and to eat some lunch, and 
 immediately after he started on horseback to find his way 
 through the October lanes to the village of Mainstairs. 
 
 A man more harassed, and yet more resolved, it 
 would have been difficult to find. For six weeks now he 
 had been wading deeper and deeper into a moral quag- 
 mire from which he saw no issue at all — except indeed by 
 the death of Edmund Melrose! That event would solve 
 all difficulties. 
 
 For some time now he had been convinced, not only 
 that the mother and daughter were living, but that 
 there had been some recent communication between 
 them and Melrose. Various trifling incidents and cryptic 
 sayings of the old man, not now so much on his guard as 
 formerly, had led Faversham to this conclusion. He 
 
322 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 realized that he himself had been haunted 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, as Tatham clearly took for granted? 
 
 — to advise Melrose to tear up his newly made will, and 
 gracefully surrender his expectations as Melrose's heir to 
 this girl of twenty-one.'^ By no means! 
 
 ^Miat is the claim of birth in such a case, if you come to 
 that? Look at it straight in the face. A child is born to a 
 certain father; is then torn from that father against his 
 will, and brought up for twenty years out of his reach. 
 What claim has that child, when mature, upon the father 
 
 — beyond, of course, a claim for reasonable provision — 
 unless he chooses to acknowledge a further obligation? 
 None whatever. The father has lived his life, and accumu- 
 lated his fortune, without the child's help, without the 
 child's affection or tendance. His possessions are morally 
 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 and decently satisfied 
 
 — agreed ! But for the disposal of a man's superfluities, 
 of such a fortune as Melrose's, there is no law — there 
 ought to be no law; and the English character, as distinct 
 from the French, has decided that there shall be no law. 
 "If his hking, or his caprice even," thought Faversham 
 passionately, "chooses to make me his heir, he has every 
 right to give, and I to accept. I am a stranger to him; 
 so, in all but the physical sense, is his daughter. But I 
 am not a stranger to English life. My upbringing and 
 experience — even such as they are — are better qualifica- 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 323 
 
 tions than hers. What can a girl of twenty, partly Italian, 
 brought up away from England, hardly speaking her 
 father's tongue, do for this English estate, compared to 
 what I could do — with a free hand, and a million to 
 draw on? Whom do I wrong by accepting what a 
 miraculous chance has brought me — by standing by it — 
 by fighting for it? No one — justly considered. And I 
 will fight for it — though a hundred Tathams call me 
 adventurer!" 
 
 So much for the root determination of the man; the 
 result of weeks of excited brooding over wealth, and 
 what can be done with wealth, amid increasing difficulties 
 and problems from all sides. 
 
 His determination indeed did not protect him from the 
 attacks of conscience; 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 just and reasonable thing! As I promised 
 Tatham, I shall look into the story of these two women, 
 and if it is what it professes to be, I shall press Melrose 
 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 his effort, while Melrose was away in August, 
 to make at least some temporary improvement in the 
 condition of the Mainstairs cottages — secretly — out of 
 
324 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 his own money — by the help of the cottagers themselves. 
 The attempt had been reported to Melrose by that spying 
 little beast, Nash, and peremptorily stopped by telegram 
 — "Kindly leave my property alone. It is not 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 times had 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, for- 
 ever. It was, of course, the thought of the gifts he had 
 already accepted, and of that vast heritage waiting for him 
 when Melrose should be in his grave, which had restrained 
 him — that alone; no cynic could put it more nakedly 
 than did 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 knew well 
 enough that from that day he had been a lesser and a 
 meaner man. 
 
 But — no silly exaggeration ! He straightened himseK 
 in his saddle. He was doing plenty of good work else- 
 where, work with which Melrose did not trouble himself 
 to interfere; work which would gradually tell upon the 
 condition and happiness of the estate. Put that against 
 the other. Men are not plaster saints — or, still less, 
 live ones, with the power of miracle; but struggling 
 creatures of flesh and blood, who do, not what they will, 
 but what they can. 
 
 And suddenly he seemed once more to be writing to 
 Lydia Penfold. How often he had written to her during 
 these two months ! He recalled the joy of the earlier 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 325 
 
 correspondence, in which he had been his natural self, 
 pleading, arguing, planning; showing all the eagerness — 
 the sincere eagerness — there was in him, to make a decent 
 job of his agency, to stand well with his new neighbours — 
 above all with "one slight girl." 
 
 And her letters to him — sweet, frank, inteUigent, 
 sympathetic — they had been his founts of refreshing, his 
 manna by the way. Until that fatal night, when Melrose 
 had crushed in him all that foolish optimism and self- 
 conceit with which he had entered into the original bar- 
 gain! Since then, 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 of eighteen — Lydia's friend — who had 
 been slowly dying since the diphtheria epidemic of the year 
 before, was dead at last, after much suffering; and he did 
 not expect to find the child of eight, her little sister, still 
 alive. There were nearly a score of other cases, and there 
 were three children down with scarlet fever, besides some 
 terrible attacks of blood-poisoning — one after childbirth 
 
 — due probably to some form of the scarlet fever infec- 
 tion, acting on persons weakened by the long effect of 
 filthy 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 would reach home. After 
 making his inspection he would ride on to Green Cottage 
 and inquire. He dreaded to meet her; and yet he was 
 eager to defend himself; his mind \^■as already rehearsing 
 all that he would say. 
 
 A long lane, shaded by heavy trees, made an abrupt 
 
326 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 turning, and he saw before him the Mainstairs village — 
 one straggling street of wretched houses, mostly thatched, 
 and built of "clay-lump," whitewashed. In a county 
 of prosperous farming, and good landlords, where cottages 
 had been largely rebuilt during the preceding century, 
 this miserable village, with various other hamlets and 
 almost all the cottages attached to farms on the Melrose 
 estate, were the scandal of the countryside. Roofs that 
 let in rain and wind, clay floors, a subsoil soaked in every 
 possible abomination, bedrooms " more like dens for wild 
 animals than sleeping-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 of natural beauty.'' 
 
 Over the village rose the low shoulder of a grassy fell, its 
 patches of golden fern glistening under the October 
 sunshine; great sycamores, with their rounded masses of 
 leaf, hung above the dilapidated roofs, as though Nature 
 herself tried to shelter the beings for whom men had no 
 care; the thatched slopes were green with moss and 
 weed; and the blue smoke wreaths that rose from the 
 chimneys, together with the few flowers that gleamed in 
 the gardens, the picturesque irregularity of the houses, 
 and the general setting of wood and distant mountain, 
 made of the poisoned village a "subject," on which a 
 wandering artist, who had set up his canvas at the corner 
 of the road, was at the moment, indeed, hard at work. 
 There might be death in those houses; but out of the 
 beauty which sunshine strikes from ruin, a man, honestly 
 in search of a few pounds, was making what he could. 
 
THE IMATING OF LYDIA 327 
 
 To Faversham's overstrung mind the whole scene 
 was as the blood-stained palace of the Atreidse to the 
 agonized vision of Cassandra. He saw it steeped in 
 death — death upon death — and dreaded of what new 
 "murder" he might hear as soon as he approached the 
 houses. For what was it but murder.^ His conscience, 
 arguing with itself, did not dispute the word. Had 
 Melrose, out of his immense income, spent a couple of 
 thousand pounds on the village at any time during the 
 preceding years, a score of deaths would have been 
 saved, and the physical degeneracy of a whole population 
 would have been prevented. 
 
 Heavens! that light figure in Dobbs's garden, talking 
 with the old shepherd — 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 not heard his approach, turned with a start. 
 Her face was one of passionate grief — 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," said old Dobbs sharply, straightenmg himself 
 on his stick, at sight of the agent. 
 
 "The nurses are here?" said Faversham after a pause. 
 
3-28 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 "Aye, " said the shepherd, turning toward his cottage, 
 "but they can do nowt. The childer are marked for 
 deein afore they're sick." And he walked away, his inner 
 mind shaken with a passion that forbade him to stay and 
 talk with Melrose's agent. 
 
 Two or three labourers who w^ere lounging in front 
 of their houses came slowly toward the agent. It was 
 evident that there was unemployment as well as disease 
 in the village, and that the neighbouring farms, where 
 there were young children, were cutting themselves ofip, 
 as much as they could, from the Mainstairs infection, by 
 dismissing the Mainstairs men. 
 
 Faversham meanwhile again implored Lydia to go 
 home. "This whole place reeks 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 that the people should go. They are 
 under notice. Every single person is here in 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 that yoursen — an' how are 
 we to be waaldn' fower mile to our work i' t' mornin', an' 
 fower mile back i' t' evening.'' Why, we ha vena got t' 
 strength ! It isna exactly a health resort — yo' ken — 
 Mainstairs!" 
 
 "I'll tell yo' where soom on us might goa, Muster 
 Faversham," said another older man, removing the pipe 
 he had been stolidly smoking; "theer's two farmhouses 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 329 
 
 o' Melrose's, within half a mile o' this place — 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 families in 'em at a pinch, Thattens might 
 dea 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 
 j^oung children that are not yet attacked?" Her eyes 
 hung on him. 
 
 He shook his head. He had already proposed some- 
 thing of the sort to Melrose. It had been vetoed. 
 
 The men watched him. At last one of them — a lanl^y 
 youth, with a frowning, ironic expression and famous 
 as a heckler at public meetings — said with slow em- 
 phasis : 
 
 "There'll coom a day i' this coontry, mates, when men 
 as treat poor foak like Muster Melrose, 'ull be pulled off t' 
 backs of oos an' our like. And may aa live to see 't!" 
 
 "Aye! aye!" came in deep assent from the others, as 
 they turned away. But one white and sickly fellow 
 looked back to say: 
 
 "An' it's a graatpity for a yoong monlike you, sir, to 
 be doin' Muster Melrose's dirty work — taakin' o' the 
 police — as though yo' had 'em oop your sleeve!" 
 
 "Haven't I done what I could for you.''" cried Faver- 
 sham, stung by the reproach, and its effect on Lydia's 
 face. 
 
 "Aye — mebbe — but it's nowt to boast on." The 
 man, middle aged but prematurely old, stood still, trem- 
 bling from head to foot. "My babe as wor born yester- 
 
330 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 day, deed this mornin'; an' they say t' wife 'ull lig beside 
 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 their doors. He himself was paying two 
 nurses, and now Lady Tatham had sent two more. He 
 satisfied himself that they had all the stores which Under- 
 shaw had ordered; he left a donation of money with one of 
 them, and then he returned to Lydia. 
 
 They walked together in silence; while a boy from the 
 village led Faversham's horse some distance in the rear. 
 All that Faversham had meant to say had dropped away 
 from him. His planned defence of himself could find 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 not elsewhere " 
 
 She was silent. He turned upon her. 
 
 " If you are to misunderstand and mistrust me — then 
 indeed I shall lose heart!" 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 331 
 
 The feeling, one might almost say the anguish, in his 
 dark, commanding face moved her strangely. Condem- 
 nation and pity — aye, and something else than pity — 
 struggled within her. For the first time Lydia began to 
 know herself. 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. "I can say truly that things would 
 have been infinitely worse if I had not been here. And I 
 have worked like a horse to better them — before you 
 came." 
 
 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; but where were the ele- 
 ments of consolation.'* Could anything be worse than 
 what she had seen and heard? 
 
 The mingled emotion which silenced her, warned her 
 not to continue the conversation. She perceived the 
 opening of a side-lane leading back to the river and the 
 Keswick road. 
 
 "This is my best way, I think," she said, pausing, and 
 holding out her hand. "The pony-cart is waiting for me 
 at Whitebeck." 
 
 He looked at her in distress, yet also in anger. A 
 friend might surely have 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. 
 
332 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 Lydia walked quickly home, down a sloping lane from 
 which the ravines of Blencathra, edge behind edge, 
 chasm beyond chasm, were to be seen against the sunset, 
 and all the intermediate landscape — wood, and stubble, 
 and ferny slope — steeped in stormy majesties of light. 
 But for once the quick artist sense was shut against 
 Nature's spectacles. She walked in a blind anguish of 
 self-knowledge and self-scorn. She who had plumed her- 
 self on the 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 for him — defend him — apologize 
 for him — and for those awful, awful things ! An agent 
 must." 
 
 And she thought of some indignant talk of Undershaw, 
 which she had heard that morning. 
 
 Her moral seK was full of repulsion; her heart was torn. 
 Friend.'* She owned her weakness, and despised it. 
 Turning aside, she leant a while against a gate, hiding her 
 face from the glory of the evening. Week by week — 
 she knew it now ! — through that frank interchange of 
 mind with mind, of heart with heart, represented by that 
 earlier correspondence, still more 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 and will lay in ruins. Her theories were 
 scattered like the autumn leaves that were scuddering 
 over the fields. His voice, the very roughened bitterness 
 of it; his eyes, with their peremptory challenge, their sore 
 accusingness; the very contradictions of the man's per- 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 333 
 
 sonality, now delightful, now repellent, and, breathing 
 through them all, the passion she must needs divine — 
 of these various impressions, small and great, she was the 
 struggling captive. Serenity, peace were gone. 
 
 Meanwhile, as Faversham rode toward the Tower, 
 absorbed at one moment in a misery of longing, and the 
 next in a heat of self-defence, perhaps the strongest feel- 
 ing that finally emerged was one of dismay that her 
 abrupt leave-taking had prevented him from telling her of 
 that other matter of which Tatham's visit had informed 
 him. She must hear of it immediately, and from those 
 who would judge and perhaps denounce him. 
 
 Nevertheless, as he dismounted at the Tower, neither 
 the burden of Mainstairs, nor the fear of Lydia's dis- 
 approval, nor the agitation of the news from Duddon, had 
 moved him one jot from his purpose. A man surely is a 
 coward and a weakling, he thought, who cannot grasp the 
 "skirts of happy chance," while they are there for the 
 grasping; cannot take what the gods offer, while they 
 offer it, lest they withdraw it forever. 
 
 Yet, suppose, that by his own act, he raised a moral 
 barrier between himself and Lydia Penfold which such a 
 personality would never permit itself to pass .5* 
 
 His vanity, a touch of natural cynicism, refused, in the 
 end, to let him believe it. His hope lay in a frank wrestle 
 with her, a frank attack upon her intelhgence. He 
 promised himself to attempt it without delay. 
 
XV 
 
 THE day following the interview between Tatham 
 and Faversham was a day of expectation for the 
 inmates of Duddon. On the evening before, 
 Tatham with much toil had extracted a more or less, 
 coherent statement from Netta Melrose, persuading her 
 to throw it into the form of an appeal to her husband. 
 "If we can't do anything by reasoning, why then we must 
 try pressure," he had said to her, in his suavest County 
 Council manner; "but we won't talk law to begin with." 
 The statement when finished and written out 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 a letter to Lydia. He had unaccountably 
 missed her that afternoon, for when he arrived at the 
 cottage from Pengarth she was out, and neither Mrs. Pen- 
 fold nor Susy knew where she was. In fact she was at 
 Mainstairs, and with Faversham. She had mistaken a 
 phrase in Tatham 's note of the morning, and did not 
 expect him till later. He had waited an hour for her, 
 under the soft patter of Mrs. Penf old's embarrassed con- 
 versation; and had then ridden home, sorely disappointed, 
 but never for one instant blaming the beloved. 
 
 But later, in the night silence, he poured out to her all 
 his budget: the arrival of the Melroses; their story; his 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 335 
 
 interview with Faversham; and his plans for helping 
 them to their rights. To a "friend" it was only allowed, 
 besides, to give restrained expression to his rapturous joy 
 in being near her again, and his disappointment of the 
 afternoon. He thought over every word, as he wrote 
 it down, his eyes sometimes a little dim in the lamp-light. 
 The very reserve imposed upon him did but strengthen his 
 passion. Nor could young hopes beheve in ultimate 
 defeat. 
 
 At the same time, the thought of Faversham held the 
 background of his mind. Though by now he himself 
 cordially disliked Faversham, he was quite aware of the 
 attraction the new agent's proud and melancholy person- 
 ality might have for women. He had seen it working in 
 Lydia's case, and he had been uncomfortably aware at 
 one time of the frequent references to Faversham in 
 Lydia's letters. It was evident that Faversham had 
 pushed the acquaintance with the Penfolds as far as 
 he could; that he was Lydia's familiar correspondent, and 
 constantly appealing for help to her knowledge of the 
 country folk. An excellent road to intimacy, as Tatham 
 uneasily 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 with Faversham must surely now be 
 chilling and drawing her back? Tatham, the young 
 reformer, felt an honest indignation with the failure of 
 Claude Faversham 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 find Faversham the hero 
 
336 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 of the piece, with a grateful countryside at his feet, his 
 own jealous anxiety would have been even greater than it 
 was. For it was great, argue with himself as he might. 
 A dread for which he could not account often over- 
 shadowed him. It was caused perhaps by his constant 
 memory of Faversham and Lydia on the terrace at Threl- 
 fall — of the two faces turned to each other — of the 
 sudden fusion as it were of the two personalities in a 
 common rush of memories, interests, and sympathies, in 
 which he himself had no part. . . . 
 
 He put up his letter on the stroke of midnight, and 
 then walked his room a while longer, struggling with him- 
 self and the passion of his desire; praying that he might 
 win her. Finally he took a well-worn Bible from a locked 
 drawer, and read some verses from the Gospel of St. John, 
 quieting himself. He never went to sleep without reading 
 either a psalm or some portion of the New Testament. 
 The influence of his Eton tutor had made him a Christian 
 of a simple and convinced type; and his mother's agnosti- 
 cism had never affected him. But he and she never 
 talked of religion. 
 
 Nothing arrived from Threlfall the following day 
 during the morning. After luncheon, Victoria announced 
 her intention of going to call on the Penfolds. 
 
 "You can follow me there in the motor," she said to her 
 son; "and if any news comes, bring it on." 
 
 They were in the drawing-room. Netta, white and 
 silent, was stretched on the sofa, where Victoria had just 
 spread a shawl over her. Felicia appeared to be turning 
 over an illustrated paper, but was in reality watching the 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 337 
 
 mother and son out of the corners of her eyes. Every- 
 thing that was said containing a mention of the Penfolds 
 struck in her an attentive ear. The casual conversation 
 of the house had shown her already that there were three 
 ladies — two of them young — who were living not far 
 from Duddon, and were objects of interest to both Lady 
 Tatham and her son. Flowers were sent them, and new 
 books. They were not relations; and not quite ordinary 
 acquaintances. All this had excited a furious curiosity 
 in Felicia. She wished — was determined indeed — to 
 see these ladies for herself. 
 
 "You will hardly want to go out," said Victoria gently, 
 standmg by Netta's sofa, and looking down with kind eyes 
 on the weary woman lying there. 
 
 Netta shook her head; then putting out her hand she 
 took Victoria's and pressed it. Victoria understood that 
 she was waiting feverishly for the answer from Threlfall, 
 and could do nothing and think of nothing till it arrived. 
 
 "And your daughter?" She looked round for Felicia. 
 
 "I wish to drive in a motor," said Felicia, rising and 
 speaking with a decision which amused Victoria. Pend- 
 ing the arrival from London of some winter costumes on 
 approval, Victoria's maid had arranged for the little 
 Italian a picturesque dress of dark blue silk, from a gown 
 of her mistress', by which the emaciation of the girl's small 
 frame was somewhat disguised; while the beauty of the 
 material, and of the delicate embroideries on the collar and 
 sleeves, strangely heightened the grace of her curly head, 
 and the effect of her astonishing eyes, so liquidly bright, 
 in a face too slight for them. 
 
 In forty-eight hours, even, of comfort and cosseting 
 
338 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 her elfish thinness had become a shade less ghastly; and 
 the self-possession which had emerged from the state of 
 collapse in which she had arrived amazed Victoria. A 
 week before, so it appeared, she had been earning a franc 
 a day in the vineyard of a friendly coniadino. And already 
 one might have thought her bred in castles. She was not 
 abashed or bewildered by the luxm-ies of Duddon, as 
 Netta clearly was. Rather, she seemed to seize greedily 
 and by a natural instinct upon all that came her way — 
 motors, pretty frocks, warm baths in luxurious bath- 
 rooms, and the attentions of Victoria's maid. Victoria 
 believed that she had grasped the whole situation with 
 regard to Threlfall. She was quite aware, it seemed, of 
 the magnitude of her father's wealth; of all that hung upon 
 her own chances 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 by hour, and there 
 were moments when the tiny creature carried herself like a 
 Melrose in miniature. 
 
 Victoria's advent was awaited at Green Cottage, she 
 having telephoned to Mrs. Penfold in the morning, with 
 something of a flutter. Her visits there had not been 
 frequent; and this was the first time she had called since 
 Tatham's proposal to Lydia. That event had never been 
 avowed by Lydia, as we have seen, even to her mother; 
 Lydia and Victoria had never exchanged a word on the 
 subject. But Lydia was aware of the shrewd guessing of 
 her family, and she did not suppose for one moment that 
 Lady Tatham was ignorant of anything that had hap- 
 pened. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 339 
 
 Mrs. Penfold, scarcely kept in order by Susy, was in 
 much agitation. She felt terribly guilty. Lady Tatham 
 must think them all monsters of ingratitude, and she 
 wondered how she could be so kind as to come and see 
 them at all. She became at last so incoherent and tear- 
 ful that Lydia prepared for the worst, while Susy, the 
 professed psychologist, revelled in the prospect of new 
 "notes." 
 
 But when Victoria arrived, entering the cottage draw- 
 ing-room with her fine mannish face, her stately bearing, 
 and her shabby clothes, the news she brought seized at 
 once on Mrs. Penfold's wandering wits, and for the 
 moment held them fast. For Victoria, whose secret 
 object was to discover, if she could, any facts about 
 Lydia's doings and feelings during the interval of separa- 
 tion, that might throw light upon her Harry's predica- 
 ment, made it cunningly appear that she had come 
 expressly to tell her neighbours of the startling event 
 which was now agitating Duddon, as it would soon be 
 agitating the countryside. 
 
 Mrs. Penfold — steeped in long years of three-decker 
 fiction — sat entranced. The cast-off and ill-treated wife 
 returning to the scene of her misery — with the heiress ! — 
 grown up — and beautiful: she saw it all; she threw it all 
 into the moulds dear to the sentimentalist. Victoria 
 demurred to the adjective "beautiful "; suggesting "pretty 
 — when we have fed her!" But Mrs. Penfold, with soft, 
 shining eyes, already beheld the mother and child weeping 
 at the knees of the Ogre, the softening of the Ogre's heart, 
 the opening of the grim Tower to its rightful heiress, the 
 happy ending, the marriage gown in the distance. 
 
340 THE ]\IATING OF LYDIA 
 
 "For suppose!" — she turned gayly to her daughters 
 for sympathy — "suppose she 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 checked Mrs, Penfold's flow, and brought her 
 back, bewildered to realities; to the sad remembrance of 
 Lydia's astonishing and inscrutable behaviour. "Where- 
 upon her manner and conversation became so dishevelled, 
 in her effort to propitiate Lady Tatham without betraying 
 either herself or Lydia, that the situation grew quickly 
 unbearable. 
 
 "May I see your garden?" said Victoria abruptly to 
 Lydia. Lydia rose with alacrity, opened the glass door 
 into the garden, and by a motion of the lips only 
 visible to Susy appealed to her to keep their mother 
 indoors. 
 
 A misty October sun reigned over the garden. The 
 river ran sparkling through the valley, and on the farther 
 side the slopes and jutting crags of 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 pene- 
 trating 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 that morning, the longest perhaps ever written 
 by a man who detested letter-writing, had touched her 
 profoundly, caused her an agonized searching of con- 
 science. Did Lady Tatham blame and detest her,' Her 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 341 
 
 manner was certainly cool. The girl's heart swelled as 
 she walked along beside her guest. 
 
 "Everything depends on Mr. Faversham," said Vic- 
 toria. "You are a friend of his.f*" 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, looking toward the fells, was scarcely visible to her 
 companion. Victoria could only 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 you every day.'*" but she refrained. 
 
 "If he really wants to put things right, why has he done 
 nothing all these seven weeks.?" she asked severely. "I 
 saw Colonel Barton this morning. He and Mr. Andover 
 are in despair. They felt such confidence in Mr. Faver- 
 sham. 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 rushes about — here, there, and 
 everywhere — but with no result, they tell us, as far as any 
 of the real grievances are concerned. Mr. Melrose seems 
 to be infatuated about him personally; will give him 
 
342 THE I^IATING OF LYDIA 
 
 everything he wants; and pays no attention whatever to 
 his advice. And you know the latest report?" 
 
 "No." Lydia's face was bent over the grass, as she 
 tried to aid a humble-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 legs that he tumbled over again. 
 
 "Well, now, we shall test him!" said Victoria quietly. 
 ''We shall see what he does with regard to Mrs. Melrose 
 and her daughter. Harry will have told you how he went 
 to him yesterday. We had a telephone message this 
 morning 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 Fehcia Melrose with him in the car. 
 We thought you would be interested to see her." 
 
 There was a pause. At last Lydia said slowly: 
 
 "How will you test Mr. Faversham.'* I don't under- 
 stand." 
 
 "Unless the man is an adventurer," said Victoria, 
 straightening her shoulders, "he will-, of course, do his 
 best to put this girl — who is the rightful heiress — into 
 her proper place. What business has he with Mr. Mel- 
 rose's estates.''" 
 
 Lady Tatham spoke with imperious energy. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 343 
 
 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 complete stranger — worming himself in a 
 few weeks or months into an old man's confidence — and 
 carrying off the inlieritance from a pair of helpless women ! 
 And making himself meanwhile the tool of a tyrant ! — 
 aiding and abetting him in all his oppressions!" 
 
 "Oh, Lady Tatham! no, no!" cried Lydia — the cry 
 seemed wrung from her — "I — we — have only known 
 Mr. Faversham this short time — but how can one 
 believe " 
 
 She paused, her eyes under their vividly marked eye- 
 brows painfully searching the face of her companion. 
 
 Victoria said to herself, "Heavens! — she is in love 
 with him — and she is 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 whether he is a man with feeling and 
 conscience — a gentleman — or an adventurer!" 
 
 There was silence. Lydia was thinking passionately of 
 Mainstairs and of the deep tones of a man's voice — "If 
 you condemn and misunderstand me — 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-masculine beauty had never been so formidable as it 
 was this afternoon Deep in her heart, she carried both 
 
344 THE IMATING OF LYDIA 
 
 pity for Harry, and scorn for this foolish girl walking 
 beside her, who could not recognize her good fortune when 
 it cried out to her. 
 
 They hastened back to the drawing-room; and at the 
 same moment Tatham and Felicia walked in. 
 
 Fehcia advanced with perfect self-command, her small 
 face flushed with pink by the motion of the car. In 
 addition to the blue frock, Victoria's maid had now pro- 
 vided her with a short cape of black silk, and a wide 
 straw hat, to which the girl herself had given a kind of 
 tilt, a touch of audacity, in keeping with all the rest of 
 her personality. 
 
 As she came in, she glanced round the room with her 
 uncannily large eyes — her mother's eyes — taking in all 
 the company. She dropped a little curtsey to Mrs. Pen- 
 fold, in whom the excitement of this sudden appearance 
 of Melrose's daughter had produced sheer and simple 
 dumbness. She allowed her 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 Lady Tatham. It was evident that she regarded her- 
 self as under that lady's particular protection. 
 
 "Well?" said Lady Tatham in an eager aside to her son. 
 She read his aspect as that of a man preoccupied. 
 
 Tatham shrugged his shoulders with a glance at 
 Felicia. Victoria whispered to Lydia: "Will you tell 
 your mother I want to speak a few words to Harry on 
 business.'*" 
 
 Mother and son passed into the garden together. 
 
 "A declaration of war!" said Tatham, as he handed a 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 345 
 
 letter to her. "I propose to instruct our solicitors at 
 once." 
 
 Victoria read hastily. The writing was Faversham's. 
 But the mind expressed was Melrose's. Victoria read him 
 in every line. She believed the letter to have been simply 
 dictated. 
 
 "Dear Lord Tatham: 
 
 "I have laid Mrs. Melrose's statement before Mr. 
 Melrose. I regret to say that he sees no cause to modify 
 the arrangements made years ago with regard to his wife, 
 except that, in consideration of the fact that Miss Melrose 
 is now grown up, he will add £20 yearly to Mrs. Melrose's 
 allowance, making it £100 a year. Provision will be made 
 for the continuance of this allowance to Mrs. Melrose till 
 her death, and afterward to the daughter for her life- 
 time; on condition that Mr. Melrose is not further molested 
 in any way. Otherwise Mr. Melrose acknowledges and 
 will acknowledge no claim upon him whatever. 
 
 'T am to add that if Mrs. Melrose is in difficulties, it is 
 entirely owing to the dishonest rapacity of her family 
 who have been living upon her. Mr. Melrose is well 
 acquainted with both the past and recent history of Mr. 
 Robert Smeatli, who made a tool of Mrs. Melrose in the 
 matter of a disgraceful theft of a valuable bronze from Mr. 
 Melrose's collection " 
 
 "The Hermes!" cried Victoria. "She has never said 
 one word to me about it." 
 
 "Miss Melrose has been telling me the story," said 
 Tatham, smiling at the recollection. "By George, that's 
 a rum little girl! She glories in it. But she says her 
 mother has been consumed with remorse ever since. Go 
 on." 
 
346 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 "And if any attempt is made to blackmail or coerce 
 Mr. Melrose, he will be obliged, much against his will, to 
 draw the attention of the Italian police to certain matters 
 relating to Mr. Smeath, of which he has the evidence in 
 his possession. He warns Mrs. Melrose that her father's 
 career 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 Melrose a greater power of putting on 
 the screw. Well, now look here — here's something 
 €lse." He drew another letter from his pocket, and 
 handed it to her. 
 
 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! Privately a 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 the 
 future. But she will simply bring disaster on herself if 
 she attempts to force Melrose. She — and you — know 
 what he is. I beg of you to be guided — and to guide 
 her — as I advise. " 
 
 "An attempt, you see, to buy us off," said Tatham 
 scornfully. "I propose to take the night train from Pen- 
 
THE ]VL\TING OF LYDIA 347 
 
 garth this evening, and consult old Fledhow to-morrow 
 morning." 
 
 "Old Fledhow," alias James Morton Fledhow, solicitor, 
 head of one of that small group of firms which, between 
 them, have the great estates of England in their pigeon- 
 holes, had been the legal adviser of the Tatham family 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 you showed 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 had cried a good deal. 
 "Poor papa, poor papa!" pronounced with the accent on 
 the first syllable, seemed to have been all that she had 
 been able to articulate. 
 
 "You know, Harry, there may be a great deal in it?" 
 Victoria's countenance showed her doubts. 
 
 "In the threat about her father? Pure bluff, mother! 
 — absolute bluff ! As for the bronze — a wife can't steal 
 from her husband. And under these circumstances ! ■ — \ 
 should like to see a British jury that would touch her!" 
 
 "But she admits that half the proceeds went to her 
 father." 
 
 "Twenty years ago?" Tatham's shrug was magnifi- 
 cent. "I tell you he'll get no 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 
 
348 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 by the police," said Victoria. She pondered, walking 
 thoughtfully beside a rather thwarted and impatient 
 youth, eager to play the champion of the distressed in 
 his own way; and that, possibly, from more motives than 
 one. Suddenly her face cleared. 
 
 "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 to Threlfall to-morrow evening — quite alone 
 and without notice. I had some influence with him 
 once," she said, with her eyes on the ground. 
 
 Tatham protested warmly. The smallest allusion to 
 any early relation between his mother and Melrose was 
 almost intolerable to him. But Lady Tatham fought for 
 her idea. She pointed out again that Melrose might very 
 well have some information that could be used with 
 ghastly effect even upon a dying man; that Netta was 
 much attached to her father, and would probably not 
 make up her mind to any drastic step whatever in face 
 of Melrose's threats. 
 
 "I don't so much care about Mrs. Melrose," exclaimed 
 Tatham. "We can give her money, and make her com- 
 fortable, if it comes to that. But it's the girl — and the 
 hideous injustice of that fellow there — that Faversham — 
 ousting her from her rights — getting the old man into his 
 power — boning his property — and then ^\Titing hypo- 
 critical notes like that!" 
 
 He stood before her, flushed and excited; a broad- 
 shouldered avenger of the sex, such as any distressed 
 maiden might have been glad to light upon. But again 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 349 
 
 Victoria was aware that the case was not as simple as it 
 sounded. However, she was no less angry than he. 
 Mother and son were on the brink of making common 
 cause against a grasping impostor; who was not to be 
 allowed to go off — either with money that did not belong 
 to him, or with angelic sympathies that still less belonged 
 to him. Meanwhile on this point, whatever may have 
 been in their minds, they said on this occasion not a 
 word. Victoria pressed her plan. And in the end 
 Tatham most reluctantly consented that she should 
 endeavour to force a surprise interview with Melrose the 
 following day. 
 
 They returned to the little drawing-room where Felicia 
 Melrose, it seemed, had been giving the Penfolds a 
 difficult half hour. For as soon as the Tathams had 
 stepped into the garden, she had become entirely mono- 
 syllabic; after a drive from Duddon at Harry Tatham's 
 side, during which, greatly to her host's surprise, she had 
 suddenly and unexpectedly found 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 of Threlfall." Susy, studying her with shin- 
 ing eyes, tried to make her talk, to little purpose. 
 
 But Lydia in particular could get nothing out of her. It 
 seemed to her that Felicia looked at her as though she 
 disliked her. And every now and then the small stranger 
 would try to see herself in the only mirror that the cottage 
 drawing-room afforded; lengthening out her long, thin 
 neck, and turning her curly head stealthily from side to 
 side like a swan preening. Once, when she thought no 
 one was observing her, she took a carnation from a vase 
 
350 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 near her — it had been sent over from Duddon that 
 morning! — and put it in her dress. And the next 
 moment, having pulled off her glove, she looked with 
 annoyance at her own roughened hand, and then at 
 Lydia's delicate fingers playing with a paper-knife. 
 Prowning, she hastily 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, and went to 
 stand by Victoria's side, looking up at her with eager 
 docility and admiration. 
 
 Victoria, however, left her, in order to draw Lydia into 
 a corner beside a farther window. 
 
 "I am sorry to say Harry has received a very unsatis- 
 factory letter from Mr. Faversham." 
 
 "May I ask him about it.f^" 
 
 "He wants to tell you. I am carrying Miss Melrose 
 back with me. But Harry will stay." 
 
 Words which cost Victoria a good deal. If what she 
 now believed was the truth, how monstrous that her 
 Harry should be kept dangling here! Her pride was all 
 on edge. But Harry ruled her. She could make no move 
 till his eyes too were opened. 
 
 Meanwhile, on all counts, Faversham was the enemy. 
 To that chasse first and foremost, Victoria vowed herself. 
 
 "Well, what do you think of her?" said Tatham, good- 
 humouredly, as he raised his hat to Felicia and his mother 
 disappearing in the car. "She's more alive to-day; but 
 you can see she has been literally starved. That brute 
 Melrose!" 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 351 
 
 Lydia made some half audible reply, and with a view to 
 prolonging his tete-a-tete with her, he led her strolling along 
 the road, through a golden dusk, touched with moon rise. 
 She followed, but all her pleasant self-confidence with 
 regard to him was gone; she walked beside him, miserable 
 and self-condemned; a theorist defeated by the incalcu- 
 lable forces of things. How to begin with him — what 
 line to take — how to undo her own work — she did not 
 know; her mind was in confusion. 
 
 As for him, he was no sooner alone vdi\i her than bliss 
 descended on him. He forgot Faversham and the Mel- 
 roses. He only wished to talk to her, and of himself. 
 Surely, so much, "friendship" allowed. 
 
 He began, accordingly, to comment eagerly on her 
 letters to him, and his to her, explaining this, questioning 
 that. Every word showed her afresh that her letters had 
 been the landmarks of his Scotch weeks, the chief events 
 of his summer; and every word quickened a new remorse. 
 At last she could bear it no longer. She broke abruptly 
 on his talk. 
 
 "Mayn't I know what's happened at Threlfall.^ Your 
 mother told me — you had heard." 
 
 He pulled himself together, while many things he would 
 rather have forgotten rushed back upon him. 
 
 "We're no forrader!" he said impatiently. "I don't 
 believe we shall get a brass farthing out of JVIelrose, if 
 you ask me; at least without going to law and making 
 a scandal; partly because he's Melrose, and that sort 
 — sooner die than climb down, and the rest of it — but 
 mostly " 
 
 He broke off. 
 
352 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 "Mostly?" repeated Lydia. 
 
 "I don't know whether I'd better go on. Favershani'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 oi?" 
 
 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, 
 breathing quick; "there he is, getting round an old man, 
 and plotting for money he's no right to! Wouldn't you 
 have thought that any decent fellow would sooner break 
 stones than take the money that ought to have been 
 that girl's — that at least he'd have said to Melrose 
 'provide for her first — your own child — and then do 
 what you like for me.' Wouldn't that have been the 
 honest thing to do? But I went to him yesterday — told 
 him the story — he promised to look into it — and to use 
 his influence. W^e sent him a statement in proper form, a 
 few hours later. It's horrible what those two have 
 suffered ! And then, to-day — it's too dark for you to 
 read his precious letter, but if you really don't mind, I'll 
 tell you the gist of it." 
 
 He summarized it — quite fairly — yet with a contempt 
 he did not try to conceal. The girl at his side, muflSed in a 
 blue cloak, with a dark hood framing the pale gold of the 
 hair, and the delicate curves of the face, listened in silence. 
 At the end she said: 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 353 
 
 "Tell me on what grounds you think Mr. Melrose has 
 left his property to Mr. Faversham.'^" 
 
 "Everybody believes it! My Carlisle lawyers whom 
 I saw this morning are convinced of it. Melrose is said 
 to have spoken quite frankly about it to many persons." 
 
 "Not very strong evidence on which to condemn a man 
 so utterly as you condemn him," said Lydia, with sudden 
 emotion. "Think of the difficulty of his position! May 
 he not be honestly trying to steer his vi'ay? And may not 
 we all be doing our best to make his task impossible, 
 putting the worst construction — the very worst ! — on 
 everything he does.'^" 
 
 There was silence a moment. Tatham and Lydia were 
 looking into each other's faces; the girl's soul, wounded 
 and fluttering, was in her eyes. Tatham felt a sudden and 
 choking sense of catastrophe. Their house of cards had 
 fallen about them, and his stubborn hopes with it. She, 
 with her high standards, could not possibly defend — 
 could not possibly plead — for a man who was behaving so 
 shabbily, so dishonourably, except — for one reason ! He 
 leapt indignantly at certainty; although it was a certainty 
 that tortured him. 
 
 "There is evidence enough!" he said, in a changed 
 voice. "I don t understand how you can stick up for 
 him." 
 
 "I don't," she said sadly, "not if it's true. But I don't 
 want to believe it. Why should one want to beheve the 
 the worst, you and I, about anybody?" 
 
 Tatham kept an explosive silence for a moment, and 
 then broke out hoarsely: 
 
 "Do you remember, we promised we'd be real friends? 
 
354 THE JMATING OF LYDIA 
 
 — we'd be really frank with each other? I've kept my 
 bargain. Are you keeping it? Isn't there something you 
 haven't told me! — something I ought to know?" 
 
 " No, nothing ! " cried Lydia, with sudden energy. " You 
 misunderstand — you offend me." 
 
 She drew her breath quickly. There were angry tears 
 in her eyes, hidden by the hood. 
 
 A gust of passion swept through Tatham, revealing his 
 manhood to itself. He stopped, caught her hands, and 
 held them fiercely, imprisoned against his 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 — ii I do misunderstand — if I'm 
 vv-rong in what I think — for God's sake listen to me — 
 give me back my promise. I can't — I can't keep it!" 
 
 He stooped and kissed the fingers he held, once, twice, 
 repeatedly; then turned 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 voice 
 was 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 say good-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 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 355 
 
 his sides; they walked on together 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 I should go on offending you." 
 
 A chasm seemed to have opened between them. They 
 turned and walked back to the gate of the cottage. 
 When they reached it, Tatham crushed her hand again 
 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 on the name. The lamp 
 at the gate showed him that her eyes were swimming in 
 tears. 
 
 "You'll forgive me?" she said, imploringly. 
 
 He attempted a laugh, which ended in a sound of pain. 
 Then he lifted her hand again, kissed it, and was gone; 
 running — head down — through the dimness of the lane. 
 
 Meanwhile, wrapped in the warm furs of the motor, 
 Felicia and Lady Tatham sped toward Duddon. 
 
 Felicia was impenetrably silent at first; and Victoria, 
 who never found it easy to adapt herself to the young, 
 made no effort to rouse her. Occasionally some passing 
 light showed her the girl's pallid profile — slightly frown- 
 ing brow, and pinched lips — against the dark lining of the 
 car. And once or twice as she saw her thus, she was 
 startled 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?" 
 
356 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 "Her mother is a widow. They have Hved here about 
 two years." 
 
 "She is not pretty. She is too pale. I do not hke 
 that hair," said Fehcia, viciously. 
 
 Victoria could not help an unseen smile. 
 
 "Everybody here thinks her pretty. She is very 
 clever, and a beautiful artist," she said, with slight 
 severity. 
 
 The gesture beside her was scarcely discernible. But 
 Victoria thought it was a toss of the head. 
 
 "Everybody in Italy can paint. It is as common — 
 as common as lizards! There are dozens of people in 
 Lucca who can paint — a whole villa — ceilings, walls — 
 what you like. Nobody thinks anything at all about 
 them. But Italian girls are very clever also ! There were 
 two girls in Lucca — Marchesine — the best family in 
 Lucca. They got all the prizes at the Liceo, and then 
 they went to Pisa to the University; and one of them was a 
 Doctor of Law; and when they came home, all the street 
 in which they lived and their palazzo were lit up. And 
 they were very pretty too ! " 
 
 "And you — did you go to the Liceo, 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 till Christmas. You might get some lessons 
 in Carlisle. We could send you in." 
 
 Felicia, however, made no response to this at all, and 
 Victoria felt that her proposal had fallen flat. But, after 
 a minute or two, she heard: 
 
 "I should like — to learn — to ride!'* 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 357 
 
 Much emphasis on the hist word; accompanied by 
 nodding of the fantastic Httle head. 
 
 "Well, we shall see!" laughed Victoria, indulgently. 
 
 "And then — I would go out — with Lord Tatham!" 
 said Felicia. "Oh, but he is too divine on horseback I 
 There were some Italian cavalry officers at Lucca. I 
 used to run to the window every time to see them pass by. 
 But he is nobler — he is handsomer!" 
 
 \'ictoria, taken by surprise, wondered if it would not 
 be well to administer a little snubbing to compliments so 
 unabashed. She tried. But Felicia interrupted her: 
 
 " Do you not admire him — your son.^ " she said eagerly, 
 slipping up close to Victoria. "Can he jump and swim 
 rivers — on his horse — and come down mountains — on 
 his haunches — like our cavalleria? I am certain he can ! " 
 
 "He can do most things on a horse. When the hunting 
 begins, you will see," said Victoria, smiling in spite of 
 herself. 
 
 "Tell me, please, what is the hunting? And about 
 the shooting, too. Lord Tatham told me — this after- 
 noon — some ladies shoot. Oh, but I will learn to shoot! 
 I swear it — yes! Now tell me!" 
 
 Thus attacked, the formidable \'ictoria capitulated. 
 She was soon in the midst of stories of her Harry, from 
 his first pony upward. And she had not gone far before 
 a tiny hand slipped itself into hers and nestled there; 
 moving and quivering occasionally, like a wild bird 
 voluntarily tame. And when the drive ended, Victoria 
 was quite sorry to lose its lithe softness. 
 
XVI 
 
 VICTORIA very soon perceived that a crisis had 
 come and gone. She had been accustomed for a 
 while before they went to Scotland to send about 
 •once a week a basket of flowers and fruit from the famous 
 gardens of Duddon, with her "kind regards" to Mrs. 
 Penfold. The basket was generally brought into the hall, 
 and Tatham would slip into it the new books or magazines 
 that seemed to him likely to attract the cottage party. 
 He had always taken a particular pleasure in the despatch 
 of the basket, and in the contrivance of some new offering 
 of which it might be the bearer. Victoria, on the other 
 hand, though usually a lavish giver, had taken but a 
 grudging part in the business, and merely to please her 
 son. 
 
 On the day following the visit to the cottage, the basket, 
 in obedience to a standing order, lay in the hall as usual, 
 heaped with a gorgeous mass of the earliest chrj^san- 
 themums. Victoria observed it — with an unfriendly 
 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. "It wouldn't be welcome." 
 
 She started, but made no reply. They went into break- 
 
 358 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 359 
 
 fast. Victoria gave the butler directions that the flowers 
 should be sent to the Rectory. 
 
 After breakfast she followed Tatham into the librarj^ 
 He stood silent a while by the window, looking out, his 
 hands in his pockets; she beside him, leaning her head 
 against his arm. 
 
 " It's all over," he said at last; "we decided it last night." 
 
 "\Miat'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 hang about. We can't — even be 
 friends. It's all my fault." 
 
 "You poor darling!" cried his mother indignantly. 
 "She has played with you abominably." 
 
 He flushed with anger. 
 
 "You mustn't say that — you mustn't think it, mother! 
 All these weeks have been — to the good. They haven't 
 been the real thing. But I shall always have them — to 
 remember. Now it's done with." 
 
 Silence fell upon them again, while their minds went 
 back over the history of the preceding six months. 
 Victoria felt very bitter. And so, apparently, in his own 
 way, did he. For he presently said, with a vehemence 
 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 every chance." 
 
360 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 "It is of course possible," said Victoria grudgingly, 
 "that he has honestly 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 up to Felicia, when he comes into it all." 
 
 Tatham laughed. 
 
 "To throw her a spare bone.'' Very likely. But how 
 are we to know that Melrose won't bind him by all sorts of 
 restrictions. f' A vindictive old villain like that will do 
 anything. Then we shall have Faversham calmly saying, 
 * Very sorry I can't oblige you ! But if I modify the terms 
 of the will in your favour, I forfeit the estates.' Besides 
 isn't it monstrous — damnable — that Melrose's daughter 
 should owe to chanty — the charity of a fellow who had 
 never heard of Melrose or Threlfall six months ago — 
 what is her right — her plain and simple right?" 
 
 Victoria agreed. All these ancestral ideas of family 
 maintenance, and the practical rights dependent on family 
 ties, which were implied in Harry's attitude, were just as 
 real to her as to his simpler mind. Yet she knew very 
 well that Netta and Felicia Melrose were fast becoming to 
 him the mere symbols and counters of a struggle that 
 affected him more intimately, more profoundly than any 
 crusading effort for the legal and moral rights of a couple 
 of strangers could possibly have done. 
 
 Lydia had broken with him, and his hopes were dashed. 
 Wliy.'' Because another man had come upon the scene 
 whose influence upon her was clear — disastrously clear. 
 
 "If he were a decent fellow — I'd go out of her life — 
 without a word. But he's a thievish intriguer! — and I 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 361 
 
 don't intend to hold my hand till I've brought him out in 
 his true colours before her and the world. Then — if 
 she chooses — with her eyes open — let her take him!" 
 It was thus his mother imagined his thought, and she was 
 not far from the truth. And meanwhile 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 to his mother's guests. Netta also was in 
 the depths. She had lost the power of rapid recuperation 
 that youth gave to Felicia, and in spite of the comforts of 
 Threlfall her aspect was scarcely less deplorable than 
 when she arrived. Moreover she had cried much since 
 the delivery of the Threlfall letter the day before. Her 
 eyes were red, and her small face disfigured. Felicia, on 
 the other hand, sat with her nose in the air, evidently 
 despising her mother's tears, and as sharply observant as 
 ever of the sights about her — the quietly moving ser- 
 vants, the flowers, and silver, the strange, nice things to 
 eat. Tatham, absorbed in his own thoughts, did not per- 
 ceive how, in addition, she watched the master of the 
 house; Victoria was uncomfortably aware of it. 
 
 After luncheon Tatham took up a Bradshaw lying on 
 a table in the panelled hall, where they generally drank 
 coffee, and looked up the night mail to Euston. 
 
 "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. 
 
362 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 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 black eyes frowTied. "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 la^\yers!" The girl flushed angrily. "I went 
 to one in Lucca once — we wanted a paper dra\\Ti up. 
 Mamma was ill. I had to go by myself. He was a brute ! " 
 
 "Oh, my old lawyer is not a brute," said Tatham, laugh- 
 ing. "He's a jolly old chap." 
 
 "The man in Lucca was a horrid brute!" repeated 
 Felicia. "He wanted to kiss me! There was a vase of 
 flowers standing on his desk. I threw them at him. It 
 cut him. I was so glad! His forehead began to bleed, 
 and the water ran down from his hair. He looked so 
 ugly and silly ! I walked all the way home up the moun- 
 tains, and when I got home I fainted. We never went 
 to that man again." 
 
 "I should think not!" exclaimed Tatham, with dis- 
 gust. For the first time he looked at her attentively. 
 An English girl would not have told him that story in the 
 same frank, upstanding way. But this little elfish creature, 
 with her blazing eyes, friendless and penniless in the world, 
 had probably been exposed to experiences the English 
 girl would know nothing of. He did not like to think of 
 them. That beast, her father! 
 
 He was going away, when Felicia said, her curly head a 
 little on one side, her tone low and beguiling: 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 363 
 
 "When you come back, will you teach me to ride? 
 Lady Tatham said — perhaps " 
 
 Tatham was embarrassed — and bored — by tlie re- 
 quest. 
 
 "I have no doubt we can find you a pony,"' he said 
 evasively, and taking up the Bradshaw he walked 
 away. 
 
 Felicia stood alone and motionless in the big hall, amid 
 its Gainsboroughs and Romneys, its splendid cabinets and 
 tapestries, a childish figure in a blue dress, with crimson 
 cheeks, and compressed lips. Suddenly she ran up to a 
 mirror on the wall, and looked at herself vindictively. 
 
 "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 that other girl. If I dyed it, he would 
 know — he would laugh. And she is all round and soft; 
 but my bones are all sticking out! I might be cut out of 
 wood. 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 what would cost a lira in 
 Florence. I'll drink a whole cup of it! — I'll eat pounds 
 of butter — and lots, lots of pudding — that's what makes 
 English people fat. I'll be fat too. You'll see!" And 
 she threw a threatening nod at 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 — on the steps of 
 Duddon, watching the bright lights disappearing down 
 the long avenue. What could she do.^* He hated to think 
 
364 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 of her in the old miser's house, browbeaten and perhaps 
 insulted, when he was not there to protect her. 
 
 However she was gone, on what he was certain would 
 prove a futUe errand, and he turned heavily back into the 
 house. 
 
 The head keeper was waiting in the inner hall, in search 
 of orders for a small "shoot" of neighbours on the morrow, 
 planned some weeks before. 
 
 "Arrange it as you like, Thurston!" said Tatham hur- 
 riedly, as he came in sight of the man, a magnificent 
 grizzled fellow in gaiters and a green uniform. "I don't 
 care where we go." 
 
 "I thought perhaps the CoUey Wood beat, my 
 lord " 
 
 "Yes, capital. That'll do. I leave it to you. Sorry 
 I can't stay to talk it over. Good-night!" 
 
 " There's a pair of foxes, my lord, in the Nowers spinney 
 that have been doing a shocking amount of damage 
 lately. . . ." 
 
 But the door of the library was already shut. Thurston 
 went away, both astonished and aggrieved. There were 
 few things he liked better than a chat with the young 
 fellow whom he had taught to hold a gun; and Tatham 
 was generally the most accessible of masters and the 
 keenest of sportsmen, going into every detail of the shoot- 
 ing parties himself, with an unfailing spirit. 
 
 Meanwhile Victoria was speeding eastward in her motor 
 along the Pengarth road. Darkness was fast rushing on. 
 To her left she saw the spreading waste of Flitterdale 
 Common, its great stretches of moss livid in the dusk : and 
 
 # 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 365 
 
 beyond it, westward, the rounded tops and slopes of the 
 range that runs from Great Dodd to Helvellyn. Pres- 
 ently she made out, in the distance, looking southward 
 from the high-level road on which the car was running, the 
 great enclosure of Threlfall Park, on either side of the 
 river which ran between her and Flitterdale; the dim line 
 of its circling wall; its scattered woods; and farther on, 
 the square mass of the Tower itself, black above the 
 trees. 
 
 The car stopped at a gate, a dark and empty lodge 
 beside it. The footman jumped 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 sped the car. 
 
 Victoria sat upright, her mood strung to an intensity 
 which knew no fears. It was twenty years since she had 
 last seen Edmund Melrose, and it was thirty years and 
 more since she had rescued her sister from his grasp, and 
 the duel between herself and him had ended in her final 
 victory. 
 
 How dim they seemed, those far-off days! — when for 
 some two or three years, either in London or in Paris, 
 where her father was Ambassador, she had been in fre- 
 quent contact with a group of young men — of young 
 "bloods" — conspicuous in family and wealth, among 
 whom Edmund Melrose was the reckless leader of a dare- 
 devil set. She thought of a famous picture of the young 
 Beckford, by Lawrence, to which Melrose on the younger 
 side of forty had been frequently compared. The same 
 romantic beauty of feature, the same liquid depth of eye, 
 the same splendid carriage; and, combined with these. 
 
366 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 the same insolence and selfishness. There had been in 
 Victoria's earlier youth moments when to see him enter 
 a ballroom was to feel her head swim with excitement; 
 when to carry him off from a rival was a passionate de- 
 light; when she coveted his praise, and dreaded his sar- 
 casm. And yet — it was perfectly true what she had said 
 to Harry. She had 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 had 
 been torn away by the disclosure of some ugly facts con- 
 cerning him; when she broke with him in disgust, and 
 induced others to break with him; it was not her feelmgs, 
 not her heart, which had suffered. 
 
 Nevertheless, so complex a thing is a woman, that as 
 Victoria Tatham drew nearer to the Tower, and to Melrose, 
 she felt herself strangely melting toward him — a prey to 
 pity and the tears of things. She alone in this country- 
 side had been a witness of his meteorlike youth; she 
 alone could set it beside his sordid and dishonoured age. 
 
 What did she hope to do with him? The plight of his 
 wife and daughter had roused her strongest and most 
 indignant sympathy. The cry of wrong or injustice had 
 always found her fiercely responsive. Whatever an out- 
 sider could do to help Melrose's local victims she had done, 
 not once but many times. Her mind was permanently 
 in revolt against him, both as a man and a landlord. She 
 had watched and judged him for years. Yet, now that 
 yet another of his misdeeds was to bring her again into 
 personal contact with him, her pulse quickened; some 
 memory of the old ascendency survived. 
 
 It was a still and frosty evening. As the motor drew up 
 
THE IMATING OF LYDIA 367 
 
 in the walled enclosure before the Tower, the noise of its 
 brakes echoed through the profound silence in which the 
 Tower was wrapped. No sign of life in the dark front; no 
 ray of light anywhere from its shuttered windows. 
 
 Yet, to her astonishment, as she alighted, and before 
 she had rung the bell, the front door was thrown open, 
 and Dixon with a couple of dogs at his heels ran down the 
 steps. 
 
 At sight however of the veiled and cloaked lady who had 
 descended from the motor, the old man stopped short, 
 evidently surprised. With an exclamation Victoria did 
 not catch, he retreated to the threshold of the house. 
 
 She mounted rapidly, not noticing that a telegraph boy 
 on a bicycle had come wheeling into the forecourt behind 
 her. 
 
 "Is Mr. Melrose at home?" 
 
 As she threw back her veil, Dixon stared at her in dumb 
 amazement. Then she suddenly perceived behind him a 
 tall figure advancing. She made a few steps forward 
 through the dimly lighted hall, and found herself within a 
 foot of Edmund Melrose himself. 
 
 He gave a start — checked himself — and stood staring 
 at her. He wore spectacles, and was leaning on a stick. 
 She had a quick impression of physical 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 me twenty minutes' conversation on some 
 important business?" 
 
 "Excuse me!" he said with a profound bow, and a mo- 
 
368 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 tion of the left hand toward the stick on which he sup- 
 ported himself — "or rather my infirmities." 
 
 Victoria's hand dropped. 
 
 His glittering eyes surveyed her. Dixon approached 
 him holding out a telegram. 
 
 "Allow me," said Melrose, as he tore open the envelope 
 and perused the message. "Ah! I thought so! You 
 were mistaken. Lady Tatham — for another visitor — 
 one of those foreign fellows who waste so nmch of my 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 some business to discuss with 
 me. Kindly step this way." 
 
 He turned toward the gallery. Victoria followed, and 
 Dixon was left in the hall, staring after them in a helpless 
 astonishment. 
 
 The gallery lit by hanging lamps made a swift impres- 
 sion of splendid space and colour on Lady Tatham as she 
 passed through it in Melrose's wake. He led the way 
 without a word, till he reached the door of his own 
 room. 
 
 She passed into the panelled library which has been 
 already described in the course of this narrative. On 
 this October evening, however, its aspect was not that 
 generally presented by Melrose's "den." Its ordinary 
 hugger-mugger had been cleared away — pushed back 
 into corners and out of sight. But on the splendid French 
 bureau, and on various other tables and cabinets of 
 scarcely less beauty, there stood ranged in careful order 
 a. wealth of glorious things. The light of a blazing fire, and 
 of many lamps played on some fifty or sixty dishes and 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 309 
 
 vases from the great days of Italian majolica — speci- 
 mens of Gubbio, Faenza, Caffagiolo, of the rarest and 
 costliest quality. The room glowed and sparkled with 
 colour. The gold of Italian sunshine, the azure of Italian 
 skies, the purple of Italian grapes seemed to have been 
 poured into it, and to have taken shape in these lustrous 
 ewers and plaques, in their glistering greens and yellows, 
 their pale opalescence, their superb orange and blue. 
 While as a background to the show, a couple of curtains — 
 Venetian cut-velvet of the seventeenth century, of faded 
 but still gorgeous blue and rose — had been hung over a 
 tall screen. 
 
 "What marvellous things!" cried Victoria, throwing 
 up her hands and forgetting everything else for the mo- 
 ment but the pleasure of a trained eye. 
 
 Melrose smiled. 
 
 "Pray take that chair!" he said, with exaggerated 
 deference. " Your visits are rare. Lady Tatham ! Is it 
 — twenty years.? I regret I have no drawing-room in 
 which to receive you. But Mr. Faversham and I talk 
 of furnishing it before long. You are, I beheve, ac- 
 quainted with Mr. Faversham.f*" 
 
 He waved his hand, and suddenly Victoria became 
 aware of another person in the room. Faversham standing 
 tall and silent, amid the show of majohca, bowed to her 
 formally, and Victoria slightly acknowledged the greeting. 
 It seemed to her that Melrose's foraging eyes travelled 
 maliciously 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 one of the north 
 
370 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 rooms ever since a sale in Paris at which I bought most of 
 the pieces. Crockett wished to see it" (he named the 
 most famous American collector of the day). "He shall 
 see it. I understand he will be here to-morrow, having 
 missed his train to-day. He will come no doubt with his 
 check-book. It amuses me to lead these fellows on, 
 and then bid them good morning. They have the most 
 infernal assumptions. One has to teach them that an 
 Englishman is a match for any American!" 
 
 Victoria sat passive. Faversham took up a pile of 
 letters and moved toward the door. As he opened it, he 
 turned and his eyes met Victoria's. She wavered a mo- 
 ment under the passionate and haughty resentment they 
 seemed to express, no doubt a reflection of the reply to 
 his letter sent him by Harry that morning. Then the 
 door shut and she was alone with Melrose. 
 
 That gentleman leant back in his chair observing her. 
 He wore the curious cloaklike garment of thin black stuff, 
 in which for some years past he had been accustomed to 
 dress when indoors; and the skullcap on his silvery white 
 hair gave added force to the still splendid head and aqui- 
 line features. A kind of mocking satisfaction seemed to 
 flicker through the wrinkled face; and the general aspect 
 of the man was still formidable indeed. And yet it was 
 the phantom of a man that she beheld. He had plead to 
 the diaphanous whiteness of the Catholic ascetic; his 
 hand shook upon his stick ; the folds of the cloak barely 
 concealed the emaciation of his body. Victoria, gazing 
 at him, seemed to perceive strange intimations and pre- 
 sages, and, in the deep harsh eyes, a spirit at bay. 
 
 She began quietly, bending forward: 
 
THE IVL\TING OF LYDIA 371 
 
 "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 address me 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 called so — once." 
 
 "Long ago! So long ago that — I do not see how 
 anything practical can come of appealing to it," he said, 
 pointedly. "Moreover, the manner in which the friend- 
 ship was trampled on — by you — not once, but twice, not 
 only destroyed it, but — if I may say so — replaced it." 
 
 His hollow eyes burned upon her. Wrapped in his cloak, 
 his white hair gleamimg amid the wonderful ewers and 
 dishes, he had the aspect of some wizard or alchemist, of 
 whom a woman might ask poison for her rival, or a philter 
 for her lover. Victoria, fascinated, was held partly by the 
 apparition before her, partly by an image — a visualiza- 
 tion in the mind. She saw the ballroom in that splendid 
 house, now the British Embassy in Paris, and once the 
 home of Pauline Borghese. She saw herself in white, a 
 wreath of forget-me-nots in her hair. She has just heard, 
 and from a woman friend, a story of lust and cruelty in 
 which Edmund ]Melrose was the principal actor. He 
 comes to claim her for a dance; she dismisses him, in 
 public, with a manner and in words that scathe — that 
 brand. She sees his look of rage, as of one struck in the 
 face — she feels again the shudder passing through her 
 — a shudder of release, horror i)assing into thanksgiving. 
 
372 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 But — what long tracts of life since then ! — what 
 happiness for her ! — what decay and degeneracy for him ! 
 A pang of sheer pity, not so much for him as for the human 
 lot, shot through her, as she realized afresh to what even- 
 ing 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 for you and me to meet." 
 
 "Yes. Edith is dead," she said, with sudden emotion. 
 "And in her last days 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 re- 
 call to you the years when we were cousins and friends 
 together — blotting out all that has happened since. If 
 you remember — twenty years ago, when you and your 
 wife arrived to settle here, I then came to ask you to bury 
 the feud between us, and to let us meet again at least as 
 neighbours and acquaintances. You refused. Then came 
 the breakdowTi of your marriage. I was honestly sorry 
 for it." 
 
 He smiled. She was quite conscious of the mockery in 
 the smile; but she persevered. 
 
 "And now, for many years, I have not known — no- 
 body here has knowm, whether your wife was alive or 
 dead. Suddenly, a few days ago, she and your daughter 
 arrived at Duddon, to ask me to help them." 
 
 "Precisely. To make use of you, in order to bring 
 
 # 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 373 
 
 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 weapon whatever 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 her youth. 
 
 " What did that matter to you.f* In this house! " 
 
 She looked round the room, with its contents. 
 
 "It did matter to me," he said stubbornly. "My col- 
 lections are the only satisfaction left to me — by you, 
 Lady Tatham — and others. They are to me in the 
 place of children. I love my bronzes — and my marbles 
 — as you — I suppose — love your son. It sounds in- 
 credible to you, no doubt" — the sneer was audible — 
 "but it is so." 
 
 " Even if it were so — it is twenty years ago. You have 
 replaced what you lost a hundred times." 
 
 "I have never replaced it. And it is now out of my 
 reach — in the Berlin Museum — bought by that fellow 
 Jensen, their head man, who goes nosing like a hound 
 all over Europe — and is always poaching in my pre- 
 serves." 
 
 Victoria looked at him in puzzled amazement. Was 
 this mad, this childish bitterness, a pose.' — or was there 
 really some breakdown of the once powerful brain? She 
 began again — less confidently. 
 
 " I have told you — I repeat — how sorry she is — how 
 
374 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 fully she admits she was wrong. But just consider how 
 she has paid for it ! Your allowance to her — you must let 
 me speak plainly — could not keep her and her child 
 decently. Her family have been unfortunate; she has had 
 to keep them as well as herself. And the end of it is that 
 she — and your child — your own child — have come 
 pretty near to starvation." 
 
 He sat immovable. But Victoria rose to her task. 
 Her veil thrown back from the.pale austerity of her beauty, 
 she poured out the story of Netta and Felicia, from a 
 heart sincerely touched. The sordid years in Florence, 
 the death of Netta's mother, the bankruptcy of her father, 
 the bitter struggle amid the Apuan Alps to keep them- 
 selves and their wretched invalid alive — she described 
 them, as they had been told to her, not rhetorical^, for 
 neither she nor Netta Melrose was capable of rhetoric, 
 but with the touches and plain details that bring con- 
 viction. 
 
 "They have been hungry — for the peasants' food. 
 Your wife and child have had to be content day after day 
 with a handful of bread and a salata gathered from the 
 roadside; while every franc they could earn was spent 
 upon a sick man. Mrs. jSlelrose is a shadow. I suspect 
 incurable illness. Your httle 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 
 creature she might be — and how full of vivacity and 
 charm. Mr. Melrose — you would be proud of her! She 
 is like you — like what you were, in your youth. When I 
 think of what other people would give for such a daughter! 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 375 
 
 Can you possibly 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 know what you are refusing — how much, 
 and how little. All that is asked is that you should 
 acknowledge them — provide for them. Let them stay 
 here a few weeks in the year — what could it matter to you 
 in this immense house.f* — or if that is impossible, at least 
 give your wife a proper allowance — you would spend it 
 three times over in a day on things like these" — her eye 
 glanced toward a superb ewer and dish, of verre Sglomisee, 
 standing between her and Melrose — "and let your 
 daughter take her place as your heiress! She ought to 
 marry early — and marry brilliantly. And later — per- 
 haps — in her children " 
 
 Melrose stood up, 
 
 "I shall not follow you into these dreams," he said 
 fiercely. "She is not my heiress — and she never will be. 
 The whole of my property" — he spoke with hammered 
 emphasis — "will pass at my death to my friend and 
 agent and adopted son — Claude Faversham." 
 
 He spoke with an excitement his physical state no 
 longer allowed him to conceal. At last — he was defeat- 
 ing this woman who had once defeated him; he was deny- 
 ing 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 to him to 
 
376 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 refuse her something she desired. She had never yet 
 given him the opportunity! In the twenty years since 
 they had last faced each other, he was 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 had probably but a short 
 time, a couple of years at most, to live, only increased his 
 satisfaction in the "No" — the contemptuous and final 
 "No!" that he had opposed, and would oppose, to her 
 impertinent interference with his affairs. 
 
 Victoria sat regarding him silently, as he walked 
 to the mantelpiece, rearranged a few silver objects 
 standing upon it, and then 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 property when 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 — provision for your wafe and daughter.?" 
 
 "Beyond what was indicated in the letter to your son.-^ 
 No! certainly not. I shall take measures against any- 
 thing of the sort." 
 
 Victoria rose. 
 
 "And he accepts your condition — your bequest to him, 
 on these terms?" 
 
 Melrose smiled. 
 
 "Certainly. Why not.?" 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 377 
 
 "I am sorry for Mr. Faversham!" said Victoria, in a 
 different voice, the colour sparkling on her cheek. 
 
 "Because you think there will be a pubhc opinion 
 against him — that he will be boycotted in this precious 
 county? Make yourself easy. Lady Tatham. A fortune 
 such as he will inherit provides an easy cure for such 
 wounds." 
 
 Victoria's self-control began to break dowTi. 
 
 "I venture to think he will not find it so," she said, with 
 quickened breath. "In these days it is not so simple to 
 defy the common conscience — as it once was. I fear 
 indeed that Mr. Faversham has already lost the respect of 
 decent men!" 
 
 "By becoming my agent?" 
 
 "Your tool — for actions — cruel, inhuman things — 
 degrading to both you and him." 
 
 She had failed. She knew it! And all that remained 
 was to speak the truth to him, to defy and denounce him. 
 
 Melrose surveyed her. 
 
 "The ejectment order has been served at Mainstairs 
 to-day, I believe; and the police have at last plucked up 
 their courage to turn those shiftless people out. There, 
 too, I understand. Lady Tatham, you have been med- 
 dling." 
 
 "I have been trying to undo some of your wrong- 
 doing," she said, with emotion. "And now — before I go 
 — you shall not prevent me from saying that I regard it 
 perhaps as your last and worst crime to have perverted 
 the conscience of this young man! He has been well 
 thought of till now: a decent fellow sprung from decent 
 people. You are making an outcast — a pariah of him. 
 
378 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 And you think money will compensate liim! When you 
 and I knew each other, Edmund " — the name slipped out 
 — "you had a mind — one of the shrewdest I ever knew. 
 1 appeal to that. It is not so much now that you are 
 wicked or cruel — you are playing the JooV. And you are 
 teaching this young man to do the same." 
 
 She stood confrontmg him, holding herself tensely 
 erect — a pale, imperious figure — the embodiment of all 
 the higher ideals and traditions of 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 not been able to oblige you. My wife 
 comes from a needy class — accustomed to manage on a 
 little. My daughter has not been brought up to luxury. 
 Had she remained with me, of course, the case would have 
 been different. But you will find they will do very well 
 on what I have provided for them. I advise you not to 
 waste your pity. And as for Mr. Faversham, he will take 
 good care of himself. He frames excellently. And I hope 
 before long to see him married — to a very suitable 
 young lady." 
 
 They remained looking at each other, for a few seconds, 
 in silence. Then Victoria said quietly, with a forward 
 step : 
 
 "I bid you good evening." 
 
 He stood at the door, his fingers on the handle, his 
 eyes glittering and malicious. 
 
 "I should have liked to have showTi you some of my 
 little collections," he said, smiling. "That verrc eglomisee. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 379 
 
 for instance" — he pointed to it — "it's magnificent, 
 though rather decadent. They have nothing hke it in 
 London or Paris. Really — you must go? " 
 
 He threw the door open, bowdng profoimdly. 
 
 "DLxon!" 
 
 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 with hands locked on her knee, possessed by 
 the after tremors of battle. 
 
 In Melrose's inhuman ^411 there was something demonic, 
 which appalled. The impotence of justice, of compassion, 
 in the presence of certain shameless 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 possible marriage — did he, 
 did all the world know, that Harry had been played with 
 and jilted.'' For that, in plain English, was what it came 
 to. Her heart burnt with anger — with a desire to 
 punish. 
 
 The car passed out of the lodge gates. Its brilliant 
 lamps under the trees seemed to strike into the very heart 
 of night. And suddenly, in the midst of the light they 
 made, two figures emerged, an old man carrying a sack, a 
 youth beside him, with a gun over his shoulder. 
 
 They were the Brands — father, and younger son. 
 Victoria bent forward with a hasty gesture of greeting. 
 
380 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 But they never turned to look at the motor. They passed 
 out of the darkness, and into the darkness again, their 
 frowning, unlovely faces, their ragged clothes and stoop- 
 ing gait, illuminated for an instant. 
 
 Victoria had tried that very week, at her son's instance, 
 to try and persuade the father to take a small farm on the 
 Duddon estate, Tatham oiBPering to lend him capital. And 
 Brand had refused. Independence, responsibihty, could 
 no longer be faced by a spirit so crushed. "I darena' my 
 lady," he had said to her. " I'm worth nobbut my weekly 
 wage. I canna' tak' risks — no more. Thank yo' kindly ; 
 but yo' mun let us be!" 
 
xvn 
 
 ON the morning following her vain interview 
 with Mehose, Victoria, sorely conscious of defeat, 
 conveyed the news of it to the depressed and 
 disprited Netta. 
 
 They were in Victoria's sitting-room. Netta sat, a 
 lamentable figure, on the edge of the sofa, twisting her 
 disfigured hands, her black eyes glancing restlessly about 
 her. Ever since she had read Faversham's letter to 
 Tatham she had been an altered being. The threats as 
 to her father, which it contained, seemed to have withered 
 her afresh. All that small and desperate flicker of hope 
 in which she had arrived had died away, and her deter- 
 mination with it. Her consent to Victoria's interview 
 with Melrose had been only obtained from her with dif- 
 ficulty. And HOW she was all for retreat — precipitate 
 retreat. 
 
 " It's no use. I was a fool to come. We must go back. 
 I always told Fehcia it would be no use. We'd better not 
 have come. I'll not have papa tormented ! " 
 
 While she was speaking a footman entered, bringing a 
 telegram for Victoria. It was from Tatham in London. 
 
 "Have just seen lawyers. They are of opinion we could 
 not fail in application for proper allowance and provision 
 for both mother and daughter. Hope you will persuade 
 
 381 
 
382 THE ]VIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 Mrs. Melrose to let us begin proceedings at once. \ ery 
 sorry for your telegram this morning, but only what I 
 expected." 
 
 Victoria read the message to her guest, and then did 
 lier best to urge boldness — an immediate stroke. But 
 Xetta shook her head despairingly. She coiild not and 
 would not have her father harassed. Mr. Melrose would 
 do anything — bribe anybody — to get his way. They 
 would have the pohce coming, and dragging her father to 
 prison. It was not to be thought of. 
 
 Victoria tried gently to investigate what skeleton might 
 be lying in the Smeath closet, whereof Mr. Melrose pos- 
 sessed such very useful information. But Netta held her 
 tongue. "Papa had been very unfortunate, and the Gov- 
 ernment would hke to put him in prison if they could. 
 Edmund had been always so cruel to him." Beyond this 
 Victoria could not get. 
 
 But the determination of the frail, faded woman was 
 unshakable, although she glanced nervously at her daugh- 
 ter from time to time, as if much more in dread of her 
 opinion than of Victoria's. 
 
 Felicia, who had listened in silence to the conversation 
 between her mother and Victoria, turned round from the 
 window in which she was staring, 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 often of an unfilial sharpness, and 
 Victoria was already meditating some gentle discipline on 
 the point. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 383 
 
 "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 sud- 
 denly a bright crimson, "Lord Tatham sent him money 
 — and he's quite comfortable. / am not going home just 
 yet ! I am not going back to Italy — till — I have seen 
 my father!" 
 
 She faced round upon Victoria and her mother, her 
 hands on her hips, her breath fluttering. 
 
 "Felicia!" cried her mother, "you can't. I tell you — 
 you can't! I should never allow it!" 
 
 "Yes, you would, mother! What are you afraid of? 
 He can't kill me. It's ridiculous. 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 u& 
 the 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 anything without my leave. You'll kill me if 
 you do." 
 
 And ashen-pale, she got up and left the room. Victoria 
 glanced at Felicia. 
 
 "Don't do anything against your mother's will," she 
 said gently. "You are too young to decide these things 
 for yourself. But, if you can, persuade her to follow Lord 
 Tatham's advice. He is most anxious to help you in the 
 best way. And he does not believe that Mr. Melrose 
 could hurt your grandfather." 
 
384 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 Felicia shook her curly head, frowning. 
 
 "One cannot persuade mother — one cannot. She is 
 obstinate — oh, so obstinate ! If it were me, I would do 
 anything Lord Tatham asked me ! — anything in the 
 world." 
 
 She stood with her hands behind her back, her slight 
 figure drawn up, her look glowing. 
 
 Victoria bent over her embroidery, smiling a little, 
 unseen, and, in truth, not ill pleased. Yet there was 
 something disturbing in these occasional outbursts. For 
 the little Southerner's own sake, one must take care they 
 led to nothing serious. For really — quite apart from any 
 other consideration — Harry never took the smallest 
 notice of her. And who could know better than his 
 mother that his thoughts were still held, still tormented 
 by the vision of Lydia.'* 
 
 FeUcia slipped out of a glass door that led to the 
 columned veranda outside. Victoria, mindful of the girl's 
 delicate look, hurried after her with a fur wrap. Felicia 
 gratefully but absently kissed her hand, and Victoria left 
 her to her own thoughts. 
 
 It was a sunny day, and although November was well 
 in, there was almost an Italian warmth in this southern 
 loggia where roses were still blooming. Felicia walked 
 up and down, her gaze wandering over the mountain land- 
 scape to the south — the spreading flanks and slopes of 
 the high fells, scarlet with withered fern, and capped with 
 new-fallen snow. Through the distant landscape she per- 
 ceived the line of the stream which ran under Flitterdale 
 Common with its high cliff-banks, and hanging woods, 
 now dressed in the last richness of autumn. That distant 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 385 
 
 wall of trees — behind it, she knew, was Threlfall Tower. 
 Her father — her unkind, miserly father, who hated both 
 Iier 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 her- 
 self passionately; adding with a laugh which swept away 
 heroics, "After all, he might take a fancy to me in these 
 clothes!" 
 
 And she looked down complacently on the pretty 
 tailor-made skirt and the new shoes that showed beneath 
 Victoria's fur cloak. In less than a fortnight her own 
 ambition and the devotion of Victoria's maid, Hesketh, only 
 too delighted to dress somebody so eager to be dressed, 
 for whom the mere operations of the toilette possessed 
 a kind of reUgious joy, on whom, moreover, "clothes" in 
 the proper and civilized sense of the word, sat so amazingly 
 well — had turned the forlorn little drudge into a figure 
 more than creditable to the pains lavished upon her. 
 Felicia aimed high. The thought and trouble which the 
 young lady had spent, since her arrival, on her hair, her 
 hands, and the minor points of Enghsh manners, not to 
 mention the padding and plumping of her small person - — 
 which in spite of all her efforts, however, remained of a 
 most sylphlike slimness — by a generous diet of cream 
 and butter, only she and Hesketh knew. Victoria guessed, 
 and felt a new and most womanish pleasure in the details 
 of her transformation. She realized, poignantly, how 
 pleasant 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 
 
386 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 and sweets, had shown sudden scruples, an unexpected and 
 pretty recoil. 
 
 "Don't give me so many things!" she had said, almost 
 with a stamp, the sudden, 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! I adore 
 them! But I won't be a beggar — no! You will think 
 we only came here for 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. Wliereupon Felicia had thrown herseh 
 impulsively on her knees, with her arms round the speaker, 
 and there had been a mingled moment of laughter and 
 emotion which had left Victoria very much astonished at 
 herself, and given Hesketh a free hand. Victoria's soli- 
 tary pursuits, the awkward or stately reserve of her ordi- 
 nary manner, were deplorably interfered with, indeed, by 
 the advent of this lovely, neglected child, who on her side 
 had fallen passionately in love with Victoria at first 
 sight and seemed to be now rarely happy out of her 
 company. 
 
 After which digression we may return for a moment to 
 Felicia on the loggia, admiring her new shoes. 
 
 From that passing ecstasy, she emerged resolved. 
 
 "We wiU stay here till Christmas — and " 
 
 But on the rest of her purpose she shut her small lips 
 firmly. Before she turned indoors, however, she gave 
 some attention to the course of a white road in the middle 
 distance, on which she had travelled with Lord Tatham 
 the day he had taken her to Green Cottage. The cottage 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 387 
 
 where the yellow-haired girl lived lay beyond that nearer 
 hill. Ah! but nobody spoke of that yellow-haired girl 
 now. Nobody sent flowers or books. Nobody so much 
 as mentioned her name. It was strange — but singularly 
 pleasing. Fehcia raised herself triumphantly on tiptoe, 
 as though she would peer over the hill into the cottage; 
 and so see for herself how the Signorina Penfold took this 
 sudden and complete neglect. 
 
 Tatham returned from London the following day, 
 bringing Cyril Boden — who was again on the sick list — 
 with him. 
 
 He arrived full of plans for the discomfiture of !Melrose, 
 only to be brought up irrevocably against the stubborn 
 resolve which Netta, wrapped in an irritable and tearful 
 melancholy, opposed to them all. She would not hear of 
 the legal proceedings he urged upon her; and it was only 
 on an assurance that nothing could or would be done with- 
 out her consent, coupled with a good report of her father, 
 that she at last consented to stay at Duddon till the New 
 Year, so that further ways of helping her might be dis- 
 cussed. 
 
 Fehcia, when the thing was settled, danced about 
 Victoria's room, kissed her mother and ran oflf at once, 
 with Victoria's permission, to ask the old coachman who 
 ruled the Duddon stables to give her riding-lessons. 
 Victoria noticed that she carefully avoided consulting 
 Tatham in any way about her lessons. Indeed the earlier, 
 half-childish, half-audacious efforts she had made to 
 attract his attention entirely ceased about this time. 
 
 And he, as soon as it was evident that Mrs. Melrose 
 
388 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 would not take his advice, and that legal proceedings must 
 be renounced, felt a natural slackening of interest m his 
 mother's guests. He was perfectly kind and polite to them 
 but Netta's cowardice disgusted him; and it was a personal 
 disappointment to be thus balked of that public campaign 
 against Melrose's enormities which would have satisfied 
 the just and long-baffled feelings of a whole county; and 
 — incidentally — would surely have unmasked a greedy 
 and unscrupulous adventurer. 
 
 Meanwhile the whole story of Mrs. Melrose and her 
 daughter had spread rapidly through the neighbourhood. 
 The local papers, now teeming with attacks on Melrose, 
 and the management of the Melrose property, had fastened 
 with avidity on the news of their arrival. "Mrs. Edmund 
 Melrose and her daughter, after an absence of twenty years 
 have arrived in Cumbria. They are now staymg at 
 Duddon Castle with Countess Tatham. Mr. Claude 
 Faversham is at Threlfall Tower." These few sentences 
 served as symbols of a dramatic situation which was being 
 discussed in every house of the district, in the farms and 
 cottages no less eagerly than by the Andovers and the 
 Bartons. The heiress of ThreKall was not dead! After 
 twenty years she and her mother had returned to claim 
 their rights from the Ogre; and Duddon Castle, the head- 
 quarters of all that was powerful and respected in the 
 county, had taken up their cause. Meanwhile the little 
 heiress had been, it seemed, supplanted. Claude Faver- 
 sham was in possession at Threlfall, and was being treated 
 as the heir. Mr. Melrose had flatly refused even to see his 
 wife and daughter whom he had left in poverty and star- 
 vation for twenty years. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 389 
 
 Upon these facts the twm spirit of romance and hatred 
 swooped vulturehke. Any story of inheritance, especially 
 when charm and youth are mixed up with it, kindles the 
 popular mind. It was soon known that Miss Melrose was 
 pretty, and small; though, said report, worn to a skeleton 
 by paternal ill-usage. Romance hkes its heroines small. 
 The countryside adopted the unconscious FeUcia, and 
 promptly married her to Harry Tatham. What could be 
 more appropriate .f* Duddon could afford to risk a dowry; 
 and what maiden in distress could wish for a better Perseus 
 than the splendid young man who was the general favour- 
 ite of the neighbourhood.'' 
 
 As to the hatred of Melrose w hich gave zest to the tale 
 of his daughter, it was becoming a fury. The whole 
 Mainstairs village had now been ejected, by the help of 
 a large body of police requisitioned from Carhsle for the 
 purpose. Of the able-bodied, some had migrated to the 
 neighbouring towns, some were camped on Duddon land, 
 in some wood and iron huts hastily run up for their accom- 
 modation. And thus a village w^hich might be traced 
 in Doomsday Book had been wiped out. For the sick 
 Tatham had offered a vacant farmhouse as a hospital ; and 
 Victoria, Mrs. Andover, and other ladies had furnished and 
 equipped it. Some twenty cases of enteric and diphtheria, 
 were housed there, a few of them doomed beyond hope. 
 Melrose had been peremptorily asked for a subscription 
 to the fund raised, and had replied in his own handwTiting 
 that owing to the heavy expenses he had been put to by 
 the behaviour of his Mainstairs tenants, as reported to 
 him by his agent, Mr. Faversham, he must respectfully 
 decline. The letter was published in the two local papers 
 
390 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 with appropriate comments, and a week later an indig- 
 nation meeting to protest against the state of the Threlfall 
 property, and to petition the Local Government Board 
 to hold an inquiry on the spot, was held in Carlisle, with 
 Tatham in the chair. And everywhere the public indig- 
 nation which could not get at Melrose, who now, except 
 for railway journeys, never showed himself outside the wall 
 of his park, was beginning to fall upon the "adventurer" 
 who was his tool and accomphce, and had become the 
 supplanter of his young and helpless daughter. Men who 
 four months before had been eager to welcome Faversham 
 to his new office now passed him in the street without 
 recognition. At the County Club to which he had been 
 easily elected. Colonel Barton proposing him, he was con- 
 spicuously cut by Barton himseK, Squire Andover and 
 many others following suit. "An impostor, and a cad!" 
 said Barton fiercely to Undershaw. "He took me in — 
 and I can't forgive him. He is doing all Melrose's dirty 
 work for him, better than Melrose could do it himself. 
 His letters, for instance, to our Council Committee 
 about the allotments we are trying to get out of the 
 old villain have been devilish clever, and devilish im- 
 pudent! Melrose couldn't have written them. And 
 now this business of the ghl! — and the fortune! — 
 sickening ! " 
 
 "He is a queer chap,'* said Undershaw thoughtfully. 
 " I've been as mad with him as anybody — but somehow — 
 I don't know. Suppose we wait a bit. Melrose's life 
 is a bad one." 
 
 But Barton refused to wait, and went off storming. 
 The facts, he vowed, were more than enough. 
 
THE IVL4TING OF LYDIA 391 
 
 The weeks passed on. Duddon knew no longer what 
 Green Cottage was doing, ^'ictor^a, at any rate, was 
 ignorant, and forbore to ask — hy word of mouth; though 
 her thoughts were one long interrogation on the subject of 
 Lydia, both as to the present and the past. Was she still 
 in correspondence with Faversham, as Victoria now under- 
 stood from Tatham she had been all the summer? Was 
 she still defending him.'' Perhaps engaged to him? For 
 a fair-minded and sensible woman, Victoria fell into 
 strange bogs of prejudice and injustice in the course of 
 these ponderings. 
 
 In her drives and walks at this time, Victoria generally 
 avoided the neighbourhood of the cottage. But one 
 afternoon at the very end of October, she overtook — 
 walking — a slight, muffled figure in the TVTiitebeck road, 
 and recognized Susy Penfold. A constrained greeting 
 passed between them, and Lady Tatham learnt that Lydia 
 was away — had been away, indeed, since the day follow- 
 ing her last interview with Harry. The very next morn- 
 ing she and her mother had been summoned to London 
 by the grave illness of Mrs. Penfold's elder sister. And 
 there they were still; though Lydia was expected home 
 shortly. 
 
 Victoria walked on, with relieved feelings, she scarcely 
 knew why. At any rate there had been no personal con- 
 tact between Faversham and a charming though foolish 
 girl, during these weeks of popular indignation. 
 
 By what shabby arts had the mean and grasping 
 fellow now installed at Threlfall ever succeeded in obtain- 
 ing a hold over a being so refined, so fastidious and — to 
 all appearances — so high-minded, as Lydia Penfold? 
 
392 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 To refuse Harry and decline on Claude Faversham! 
 Victoria acknowledged indeed a certain pseudo-Byronic 
 charm in the man. She could not forget the handsome 
 head as she had seen it last at the door of Melrose's hbrary; 
 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, she thought, of a common 
 stamp. 
 
 At last one evening, when Tatham was away on county 
 business, and Fehcia had gone to bed, Victoria suddenly 
 unburdened herself to Cyril Boden, as they sat one on 
 either side of a November fire, while a southwesterly gale 
 from the high fells blustered and raged outside. 
 
 Boden was the confessor of a good many people. Not 
 that he was by any means an orthodox Christian; his 
 ascetic ways had very little to do with any accepted form 
 of doctrine. But there was in him the natural priestly 
 power, which the priest by ordination may have or miss. 
 It was because men and women realized in himself the 
 presence of a travailing, questioning, suffering soul, 
 together with an iron self-repression, that those who 
 suffered and questioned came to him, and threw them- 
 selves upon him; often getting more buffeting than balm 
 for their pains; but always conscious of some mysterious 
 attractions in him, as of one who, like Sir Boris, had seen 
 the Grail, but might never tell of the vision. 
 
 Victoria was truly attached to him. He had been with 
 her during the days of her husband's sudden illness and 
 death; he had advised her with regard to the passing dif- 
 ficulties of Tatham's school and college days and pointed 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 393 
 
 a way for her through many perplexities of her own. 
 Duddon was as much of a home to him, as he probably 
 possessed in the world. When he had worn himself out 
 with some one or other of the many causes he pursued in 
 South London, working with a sombre passion which had 
 in it very little of the mystical joy or hope which sustain 
 others in similar efforts; when he had scarcely a coat to 
 his back, or a shoe to his feet; when his doctor began to 
 talk of tuberculin tests and the high Alps; then he would 
 wire to Duddon, and come and vegetate under Victoria's 
 wing, for just as many weeks as were necessary to send 
 him back to London restored to a certain physical stand- 
 ard. To watch Harry Tatham's wholesome, kindly, pros- 
 perous life, untroubled by any of the nightmares that 
 weighed upon his own, was an unfailing pleasure to a 
 weary man. He loved both Harry and his mother. 
 Nevertheless, as soon as he arrived, both felt him the gad- 
 fly in the house. His mind was nothing if not critical. 
 And undoubtedly the sight of easy wealth was an irrita- 
 tion to him. He struggled against it; but sometimes it 
 would out. 
 
 As he sat this evening crouched over the fire, his hands 
 spread to the blaze, he looked more frail than usual; a 
 fact which perhaps, half-consciously, affected Victoria and 
 drew out her confidence. His dress suit, primevally old, 
 would scarcely, she reflected, hold together another winter. 
 But how it was to be replaced had already cost her and 
 Harry much thought. There was nobody more personally, 
 fanatically proud than Boden toward his well-to-do 
 friends. His clothes indeed were a matter of tender 
 anxiety in the Duddon household, and Tatham's valet 
 
394 THE JMATING OF LYDIA 
 
 and Victoria's maids did him many smaU services, some 
 of which he repaid with a smile and a word — priceless to 
 the recipient; and some he was never aware of. When 
 his visits to Duddon first began, the contents of his glad- 
 stone bag used to provide merriment in the servants' hall, 
 and legend 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 to Coventry by every ser- 
 vant in the house. 
 
 It was to this austere, incalculable, yet always attractive 
 listener, that Victoria told the story of Harry and Lydia, 
 of the Faversham adventure, and the Melrose inheritance. 
 If she wanted advice, a little moral guidance for herself — 
 and indeed she did want it — she did not get any; but of 
 comment there was plenty. 
 
 "That's the girl I saw here last time," mused Boden, 
 nursing his knee — "lovely creature — with some mind 
 in her face. So she's refused Harry — and Duddon?" 
 
 "Which no doubt will commend her to you!" said 
 Victoria, not without a certain bristling of her feathers. 
 
 " It does," said Boden quietly. " Upon my word, it v.'as 
 a fine thing to do." 
 
 "Just because we happen to be rich?" Victoria's eyelids 
 fluttered a httle. 
 
 "No! but because it throws a little Hght on what we 
 choose to call the soul. 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 the world, 
 and a little painting girl who makes a few pounds by her 
 drawings says 'No, thank you!' when they are laid at her 
 feet — because — of a little trifle called love which she 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 395 
 
 can't bring to the bargain. I confess that bucks one up. 
 * The day-star doth his beams restore.' " 
 
 He took up the tongs, and began absently to rebuild 
 the fire. Victoria waited on his remarks with heightened 
 colour. 
 
 "Of course I'm sorry for Harry," he said, after a mo- 
 ment, with his queer smile. "I saw there was something 
 wrong when I arrived. But it's salutary — very salutary ! 
 Hasn't he had everything in the world he wanted from his 
 cradle? And isn't it as certain as anything can be that 
 he'll find 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 this bit of the heroic — 
 this defiance of a miry world, cropping up — to help us 
 out of our mud-holes. I'm awfully sorry for Harry — 
 but I take off my hat to the girl." 
 
 Victoria's expression became sarcastic. 
 
 "Wlio will ultimately marry," she said, "according to 
 my interpretation of the business, a first-class adventurer 
 — possessed of a million of money — stolen from its 
 proper owners." 
 
 " I don't believe it. I've seen her ! But, upon my word, 
 what a queer parable it all is! Shall I tell you how it 
 shapes itself to me?" He looked, tongs in hand, at Vic- 
 toria, his greenish eyes all alive. "I see you all — you, 
 Harry, Faversham, and Melrose, Miss Lydia — grouped 
 round a central point. The point is wealth. You are 
 all in different relations to wealth. You and Harry are 
 indifferent to wealth, because you have always had it. It 
 has come to you without toihng and spinning — can you 
 imagine being without it? — but it has not spoilt you. 
 
396 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 You sit loose to it; because you have never struggled for it. 
 But I doubt whether the Recording Angel, when it comes 
 to reckoning up, will give you very high marks for your 
 indifference! Dear friend!" — he put out a sudden hand 
 and touched Victoria's — "bear with me! There's one 
 thing you'll hear, if any one does, at the last day — T 
 was a stranger and ye took me in.' " His eyes shone upon 
 her. 
 
 After which, he resumed in his former tone: "Then take 
 Melrose. He too is determined by his relation to wealth. 
 Wealth has just ruined him — burnt him up — made out 
 of him so much refuse for the nether fires. Faversham 
 again ! Wealth, the crucial, deciding factor ! The testing 
 with him is still going on. He seems, from your account, 
 to be coming out badly. And lastlj^ the girl — who, like 
 you, is indifferent to wealth, but for different reasons; 
 who probably hates and shrinks from it; Hke a wild bird 
 that fears the cage. You, my dear lady — you and Harry 
 — have got so used to wealth, its trammels no longer gall 
 you. You carry the weight of it, as the horse of the Mid- 
 dle Ages carried his trappings; it's second nature. 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 your soul ! This girl, I take it, is afraid to risk 
 her soul. She is not in love with Harry — worse luck 
 for Harry ! — she is in love — remember I have talked to 
 her a little! — with something she calls beauty, with liberty, 
 with an mifettered 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 kills the butterfly. That's what 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 397 
 
 she's afraid of. As to Faversham" — he got up from his 
 seat, and with his thumbs in his waistcoat began to pace 
 the room — " 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 reserve judgment. 
 If he's in love with that girl, and she with him — I can't 
 make out, however, that you have much reason to think 
 it — but suppose he is, she'll have the handling of him. 
 Sha'n'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 most winning, smile. " Well — there's the par- 
 able — writ large. Mammon I — how you get it — how 
 you use it — whether you dominate it — or it dominates 
 you. Whether it is the greater curse, or the greater bless- 
 ing to men — it was the question in Christ's day — it's 
 the question now. But it has never been put with such 
 intensity, as to this generation! As to your particular 
 version of the parable — I wait to see! The tale's not 
 through yet." 
 
A 
 
 xvm 
 
 FEW days later, Lady Tatham received a letter, 
 which she opened with some agitation. It was 
 from Lydia in London: 
 
 " Dear Lady Tatham : 
 
 "I have waited some weeks before writing to you, 
 partly because, as Susy I hear has told you, I have been 
 busy nursing my mother's sister, but still more because 
 my heart failed me — again and again. 
 
 "And yet I feel I ought to write — partly in justice to 
 myself — partly to ask you to forgive the pain I fear 
 I may have caused you. I know — for he has told me — 
 that Lord Tatham never concealed from you all that has 
 passed between us; and so I feel sure that you know what 
 happened about a month ago, when we agreed that it 
 would be wiser not to meet again for the 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 be comrades 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 it 
 is true, are not some of us justified in making experiments 
 now? Lord Tatham I know will have told you I was quite 
 frank from the beginning. I did not wish to marry; but I 
 meant to be a very true friend; and I wanted to be allowed 
 to love you both, as one loves one's friends, and to share 
 your life a little. And the thing I most wished was that 
 Lord Tatham should marry — some one quite different 
 from myself. 
 
 398 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 399 
 
 "So we agreed that we would write, and share each 
 other's feelings and thoughts as far as we could. And 
 I hoped that any other idea w ith regard to me would soon 
 pass out of Lord Tatham's mind. I did — most sincere!}'; 
 and I think he believes that I did. How good and dear he 
 always was to me! — how much I have learnt from him! 
 And yet I am afraid it was all very bhnd, and ill-considered 
 
 — perhaps very selfish — on my part. I did not under- 
 stand what harm I might do; though I hope with all my 
 heart — and believe — that I have not done anything 
 irreparable. It is very hard for me to regret it; because 
 all my life I shall be the richer and the wiser for having 
 known so good a man; one so true, so unselfish, so high- 
 minded. Women so rarely come to know men, except in 
 marriage, or through books; and your son's character has 
 sweetened and ennobled whole sides of life for me — for- 
 ever. 
 
 "But if — in return — I have given him pain — and 
 you, who love him ! I was always afraid of you — but I 
 would have done anything in the world to serve you. Will 
 you let me have a little word — just to tell me that you 
 forgive, and understand. I ask it with a very sore heart 
 
 — full, full of gratitude to him and to you, for all your 
 goodness." 
 
 Victoria was oddly affected by this letter. It both 
 touched and angered her. She was touched by w^hat it 
 said, deeply touched; and angered by what it omitted. 
 And yet how could the writer have said anything more ! — 
 or anything else! Victoria admitted that her thoughts 
 had run far beyond what she knew — in any true sense — 
 or had any right to conjecture. Nevertheless the fact in 
 her behef remained a fact, that but for Faversham and 
 some disastrous influence he had gained over her almost at 
 once, Harry would have had his chance with Lydia Pen- 
 
400 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 fold. As it was, she had been allowing Harry to offer her 
 his most intimate thoughts and feelings, while she was 
 actually falling in love with his inferior. This was what 
 enraged Victoria. Whatever Cyril Boden might say, it 
 seemed to her maternal jealousy something equivalent to 
 the betrayal of a sacred confidence. 
 
 Yet clearly she could not say so to Lydia Penfold — 
 nor could Lydia confess it! She wrote as follows: 
 
 "My DRA.R 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 might myself have thought 
 wisest or best. But I think we all have to learn that the 
 deepest feelings in life are very .sensitive, and very in- 
 calculable things; and that the old traditions and con- 
 ventions respecting them have probably much more to say 
 for themselves than we like to admit — especially in our 
 youth. Men and women in middle life may have true 
 and intimate friendships without any thought of marriage. 
 I doubt whether this is possible for young people, though I 
 know it is the fashion nowadays to behave as though it 
 were. And especially is it diflficult — or impossible — 
 where there has been any thought of love — on either side. 
 For love is the great, unmanageable, explosive thing,, 
 which cannot be tamed down, at a word, into friendship — 
 not in youth at any rate. The attempt to treat it as a 
 negligible quantity can only bring suffering and mis- 
 understanding. 
 
 "But I must not preach to you like this. I am sure you 
 know — now — that what I say has truth in it. Thank 
 you again for the feeling that dictated your letter. Harry 
 is very well and very busy. We hoped to go to London 
 before Christmas, but this most difficult and unhappy 
 affair of Mrs. Melrose and her daughter detains us. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 401 
 
 Whether we shall obtain justice for them in the end I do 
 not know. At present the adverse influences are very 
 strong — and the indignation of all decent people seems 
 to make no difference. Mr. Faversham's position is 
 indeed difficult to understand. 
 
 " Please remember me kindly to your mother and sister. 
 Next year I hope we shall be able to meet as usual. But 
 for the present, as you and Harry have agreed, it is better 
 not." 
 
 Victoria was extremely dissatisfied with this letter when 
 she had done it. But she knew very well that Harry 
 would have resented a single harsh word from her toward 
 the misguided Lydia; and she did not know how better to 
 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 of the observer. Ever since the evening oi 
 Lady Tatham's visit when Lydia had come back with 
 white face and red eyes from her walk with Harry Tatham, 
 and when the following night had been broken for Susy by 
 the sound of her sister's weeping in the room next to her, it 
 had been recognized by the family that the Tatham affair 
 had ended in disaster, and that Duddon was henceforth 
 closed to them. I^ydia told her mother enough to plunge 
 that poor lady into even greater wonder than before at the 
 hopeless divergence of young people to-day from the ways 
 and customs of their grandmothers; and then begged 
 piteously that nothing more might be said to her. Mrs. 
 
402 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 Penfold cried and kissed her; and for many days tears fell 
 on the maternal knitting needles, as the fading vision of 
 Lydia, in a countess' coronet, curtesying to her sovereign, 
 floated mockingly through the maternal mind. To Susy 
 I>ydia was a little more explicit; 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 a broken 
 heart, but a sore conscience — a warm, natural penitence, 
 that she beheld. Lydia was not yet "splendid," and 
 Susy could not make anything tragic out of her. 
 
 At least, on what appeared. And not even Susy's im- 
 patience could penetrate beyond appearance. She longed 
 to say, "Enough of the Tatham affair — now let us come 
 to business. How do you stand with Claude Faversham ^ " 
 A number of small indications pointed her subtly, irre- 
 sistibly in that direction. But the strength of Lydia 's 
 personality stood 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 the County 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 the sitting-room; Susy was writing 
 upstairs. The letter ran : 
 
 " I hear you have returned to-day. May I come and see 
 you to-morrow afternoon — late.''" 
 
 To which Lydia replied in her firmest handwriting, 
 "Come by all means. I shall be here between five and 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 403 
 
 six to-morrow." After which she went about with 
 head erect and shining eyes, Hke one who has secretly 
 received and accepted 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 for 
 London, she had heard nothing from him; and during her 
 weeks of nursing in a darkened room, she had sounded the 
 dim and perilous ways of her own heart as best she could. 
 
 She spent the following day in sketching the Helvellyn 
 range, still radiant under its first snow-cap; sitting warmly 
 sheltered on a southern side of a wall, within sound of the 
 same stream beside which she and Faversham had met for 
 the first time in the spring, amid the splendid hght and 
 colour of the May sunset. 
 
 And now it was already winter. The fell-sides were 
 red with withered fern; their round or craggy tops showed 
 white against a steely sky; down the withered copses by 
 the stream, the north wind swept; a golden oak showered 
 its dead leaf upon her. Gray walls, purple fells, the 
 brown and silver of the stream, all the mountain detail 
 that she loved — she drew it passionately into her soul. 
 Nature and art — why had she been so faithless to them 
 — she " the earth's unwearied lover.'* " She was miserably, 
 ironically conscious of her weakness; of the gap between 
 her spring and her autumn. 
 
 On her return, she told Susy quietly of her expected 
 visitor. Susy raised her eyebrows. 
 
 "I shall give him tea," said Susan, "just to save the 
 proprieties with Sarah." Sarah was the house parlour- 
 maid. "But then you won't need to give me hints." 
 
404 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 Susy had departed. Lydia and Faversham sat opposite 
 each other in the httle drawing-room. 
 
 Lydia's first impression on seeing him had been one of 
 dismay. He looked much older; and a certain remote- 
 ness, a cold and nervous manner seemed to have taken the 
 place of the responsive ease she remembered. It began to 
 cost her an effort to remember the emotion of their last 
 meeting in the Mainstairs lane. 
 
 But when they were alone together, he drew a long 
 breath, and leaning forward over the table before them, 
 his face propped on his hand, he looked at her earnestly. 
 
 "I wonder what you have been hearing about me.''" 
 
 Lydia made a brave effort, and told him. She repeated 
 to him the gist of what Susan had reported the night 
 before, putting it lightly — apologetically — as though 
 statements so extravagant had only to be made to be 
 disproved. His mind meanwhile was divided between 
 strained attention, and irrepressible delight in the spec- 
 tacle of Lydia enthroned in her mother's chair, of the pale 
 golden hair rippling back from the broad forehead, and the 
 clear eyes beneath the thin dark arch of the brows, so 
 delicately traced on the white skin; of all the play of ges- 
 ture and expression that made up her beauty. Existence 
 for him during these weeks of her absence had largely 
 meant expectation of this moment. He had discounted 
 all that she would probably say to him; his replies were 
 ready. 
 
 And she no sooner paused than he began an eager and 
 considered defence of himself. A defence which, as he 
 explained, he had intended to make weeks before. He 
 had called the very day after their hurried departure 
 
THE jVIATING OF LYDIA 405 
 
 for London; and having missed them, had then decided 
 to wait till they could talk face to face, Le papier est bete! 
 "I had too much to say!" 
 
 Well, when he had said it, to what did it amount? 
 He claimed the right to tell the whole story; and began 
 therefore by tracing the steps by which he had become 
 necessary to Melrose; by describing his astonishment 
 when the offer of the agency was made to him; and the 
 sudden rush of plans and hopes for the future. Then, 
 by a swift and effective digression he sketched the char- 
 acter of Melrose, as he had come to know it; the ferocity 
 of the old man's will; his mad obstinacy, in which there 
 was always a touch of fantastic imagination; and those 
 alternations of solitude and excitement, with the inevit- 
 able, accompanying defiance of all laws of health, physical 
 and moral, which for years had made up his hfe. 
 
 "Let us remember that he is undoubtedly a sick man. 
 He will tell me nothing of what his doctors say to him. 
 But I put two and two together, I don't believe he can 
 possibly hve long. A year or two at most; perhaps much 
 less, WTien I accepted the agency, I confess I thought his 
 physical weakness would oblige him to put the whole 
 management of the estate into my hands. It has not been 
 so. The mind, the will are iron, whatever the physical 
 weakness may be. He conceives himself as a rock in the 
 Socialist torrent, bound to oppose reforms, and conces- 
 sions, and innovations, just because they are asked of him 
 by a revolutionary society. He reckons that his Hfe will 
 last out his resistance — his successful resistance — and 
 that he will go down with the flag flying. So that he takes 
 an insane pleasure in disappointing and thwarting the 
 
406 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 public opinion about him. For it is insane — remember 
 that! The moral state, the moral judgments, are all 
 abnormal; the will and the brain are, so far as liis main 
 pursuits are concerned, still superb." 
 
 He paused. Her gaze — half-shrinking — was fixed on 
 the face so near to her; on the profound and resolute 
 changes which had passed over the features which when 
 she first saw them had still the flexibility of youth. The 
 very curls and black hair lying piled above the forehead 
 in which there were already two distinct transverse lines, 
 seemed to have grown 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 we really came 
 to business. I found him opposed to all reform — in- 
 capable even of decent humanity. Very well! Was I 
 to throw up.''" 
 
 His eyes pierced into hers. Lydia could only murmur: 
 "Goon." 
 
 " Suppose I had thrown up I — what would have hap- 
 pened .-^ The estate would have sunk, more and more 
 lamentably, into the power of a certain low attorney who 
 has been Melrose's instrument in all his worst doings for 
 years — and of a pair of corrupt clerks in the local office. 
 Who would have 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 done something! — 
 I have done something! — that is what people forget." 
 
 He looked at her passionately; a distress rising in his 
 eyes, which he could not hide. Was it her silence — the 
 absence of any cheering, approving sound from her? 
 
THE JVIATING OF LYDIA 407 
 
 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 Main- 
 stairs. Mainstairs is a horror — a tragedy. If I had 
 been allowed, I should have set the whole thing right a 
 couple of months ago; I should have re-housed some of the 
 people, closed some of the cottages, repaired others. Mr. 
 Melrose stopped everything. There again — what good 
 could I do by throwing up.' I had plenty of humdrum 
 work elsewhere that was not being interfered with — work 
 that will tell in the long run. I left Mainstairs to Melrose; 
 the responsibility was his, not mine. I went on with what 
 I was doing. He and the police — thank heaven ! — 
 cleared the place." 
 
 "And in the clearing, Mr. Melrose, they say, ne^•er 
 lifted a finger to help — did not even give money," said 
 Lydia in the same low, restrained voice, as she looked 
 away from her guest into the fire. "And one sits thinking 
 — 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 was helpless ! " 
 
 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?" 
 
408 THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 "He has. And more than that" — he looked at her 
 with a defiant candour — "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 thousand ways. 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. 'T have 
 argued — and entreated. To no avail!" 
 
 "But you are taking the money" — the quiet intensity 
 of the tone affected him strangely — "the money, that 
 should be theirs — the money which has been wrung — 
 partly — from this wretched estate. You are accepting gifts 
 and benefits from a man you must loathe and despise! " 
 
 She was trembling all over. Her eyes avoided his as 
 she sat downcast; her head bent under the weight of her 
 own words. 
 
 There was silence. But a silence that spoke. For what 
 was in truth the meaning of this interview — of his 
 pleading — and her agonized, reluctant judgment.'' No 
 ordinarj^ acquaintance, no ordinary friendship could have 
 brought it about. Things unspoken, feelings sprung from 
 the flying seeds of love, falling invisible on yielding soil, 
 and growing up a man knoweth not how — at once 
 troubled and united them. The fear of separation had 
 grown, step by step, with the sense of attraction and of 
 yearning. It was because their hearts reached out to 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 409 
 
 each other that they dreaded so to find some impassable 
 gulf between them. 
 
 He mastered himself with diflSculty. 
 
 " That is one way of putting it. Now let me put it my 
 way. I am a man who has had few chances in life — and 
 great ambitions — which I have never had the smallest 
 means of satisfying. I may be the mere intriguer that 
 Tatham and his mother evidently think me. But I 
 am inclined to believe in myself. Most men are. I 
 feel that I have never had my opportunity. What is 
 this wealth that is offered me, but an opportunity? There 
 never was so much 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 of wealth. Wealth 
 means everything nowadays that a man is most justified 
 in desiring ! — supposing he has the brains to use it. That 
 at any rate is my behef. It always has been my belief. 
 Trust me — that is all I ask of my friends. Give me time. 
 If Mr. Melrose were to die soon — immediately — I 
 should be able all the quicker to put everything to rights. 
 But if his death is delayed a year or two — my life indeed 
 will be a dog's life " — he spoke with sudden emotion — 
 " but the people on the estate will not be the worse, but the 
 better, for my being there; and in the end the power will 
 come to me — and I shall use it. So long as Melrose 
 lives his wife and daughter can get nothing out of him, 
 whether I am there or not. His obstinacy is immovable, 
 as Lady Tatham has found, and when he dies, their 
 interests will be safe with me." 
 
 Lydia had grown very pale. The man before her 
 seemed to her Faversham, yet not Faversham. Some 
 
410 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 other personality, compounded of all those ugly, sophistic 
 things that lurk in every human character, seemed to be 
 wresthng with, obscuring the real man. 
 
 "And the years till this stage comes to an end?" she 
 asked him. "When every day you have to do what you 
 feel to be wrong.'' — to obey — to be at the beck and call 
 of such a man as Mr. Melrose.'' — hateful — cruel — 
 tyrannical ! — when you must silence all that is generous 
 and noble " 
 
 Her voice failed her. 
 
 Faversham's lips tightened. They remained looking 
 at each other. Then Faversham rose suddenly. He 
 stooped over her. She heard his voice, hoarse and broken 
 in her ears: 
 
 "Lydia — I love you! — I love you — with all my 
 heart ! — and all my strength ! 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, " I believe — 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 ! I only ask you to trust to me — 
 to be guided by me " 
 
 She withdrew her hand. He could see her heart flutter- 
 ing under the soft curves 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?" 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 411 
 
 They had come to the deciding moment. 
 
 She looked up, recovermg self-control, her heart rushing 
 to her lips. 
 
 "Give it up!" she said, stretching out her hands to him, 
 her head thrown back, all her delicate beauty one prayer. 
 "Don't touch this money! It is stained — it is corrupt. 
 You lose your honour in taking it — and honour — is life. 
 What does money matter .f* The great things that make 
 one happy have nothing to do with money. They can be 
 had for so little! And if one loses them — honour and 
 self-respect — and a clear conscience — how can money 
 make up ! If I were to marry you — and we had to hve 
 on Mr. Melrose's money — everji:hing in life would be 
 poisoned for me. I should always see the faces — of those 
 dead people — whom I loved. I should hear theu* voices 
 — accusing. We should be in slavery — slavery to a bad 
 man — and our souls would die " 
 
 Her voice dropped — drowned in the passion of its 
 ov^Ti entreaty. 
 
 Faversham pressed her hands, released them, and 
 slowly straightened himself to his full height, as he stood 
 beside her on the hearthrug. A vision rose and spread 
 through the mind. In place of the little sitting-room, 
 the modest home of refined women living on a slender 
 income, he saw the great gallery at Threlfall with its 
 wonderful contents, and the series of marvellous rooms he 
 had now examined and set in order. Vividly, impressively 
 the great house presented itself to him in 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 record of itself in things subtle and exquisite which 
 
412 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 the human spirit has written on time. Often lately he 
 had wrung permission from Melrose to take an Enghsh or 
 foreign visitor through some of the rooms. He had 
 watched their enthusiasm and their ardour. And mingled 
 with such experience, there had been now for months the 
 intoxicating sense that everything in that marvellous house 
 was potentially his — Claude Faversham's, and would 
 all some day come into his hands, the hands of a man 
 specially prepared by education and early circumstance 
 to enjoy, to appreciate. 
 
 And the estate. As in a map, he saw its green spread- 
 ing acres, its multitude of farms, its possessions of all kind, 
 spoilt and neglected by one man's caprice, but easily to be 
 restored by the prudent care of his successor. He realized 
 himseK in the future as its owner; the inevitable place 
 that it would give him in the political and social affairs 
 of the north. And the estate was not all. Behind the 
 estate lay the great untrammelled fortune drawn from 
 quite other sources of wealth; how great he was only 
 now beginning to know. 
 
 A great sigh shook him — a sigh of decision. What 
 he had been hstening to had been the quixotism of a tender 
 heart, ignorant of life and affairs, and all the wider possi- 
 bilities 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 upon her. 
 
 He looked down upon her gravely, his dark pointed 
 face quivering a httle. Instinctively she drew back. 
 Her expression changed. 
 
 "I can't do that." His voice was low but firm. "I 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 413 
 
 feel the call to me. And after all, Melrose has claims on 
 me. To me, personally, his generosity — has been in- 
 credible. 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. Ker pride came to her aid. 
 She sprang up, a glittering animation flashing back into 
 her face, transforming its softness, its tenderness. 
 
 "I understand — I quite understand. Thank you for 
 being so plain — and bearing with my — strange ideas. 
 Now — I don't think we can be of any further use to each 
 other — though — " she clasped her hands involuntarily — 
 "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 be said." 
 
 He looked at her sombrely, remorse struggling with 
 his will. But also anger — the anger of a naturally 
 arrogant temperament — that he should find her 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. He accepted the indication, turning very 
 white. But still he lingered. 
 
 "Is there nothing I could say that woiJd alter your 
 mind.'" 
 
 "I am afraid — nothing." 
 
414 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 She gave him her hand. He scarcely dared to press it ; 
 she had become suddenly so strong, so hostile. Her 
 light beauty had turned as it were to fire; one saw the 
 flame of the spirit. 
 
 A tumult of thoughts and regTets rushed through him. 
 But things inexorable held him. With a long, lingering 
 look at her, he turned and went. 
 
 A little later, Susy entering timidly found Lydia sitting 
 alone in a room that was nearly dark. Some instinct 
 guided her. She came in, took a stool beside her sister, 
 and leant her head against Lydia's knee, Lydia said 
 nothing, but their hands joined, and for long they sat in 
 the firelight, the only sounds, Lydia's stifled sobbing, and 
 the soft crackling of a dying flame. 
 
BOOK IV 
 
XIX 
 
 TATHAM was returning alone from a run with the 
 West Cumbrian hounds. The December day 
 was nearly done, and he saw the pageant of its 
 going from a point on the outskirts of his own park. The 
 park, a great space of wild land extending some miles to 
 the north through a sparsely peopled county, was bounded 
 and intersected throughout its northerly section by 
 various high moorland roads. At a cross-road, leading to 
 Duddon on the left, and to a remote valley running up the 
 eastern side of Blencathra on the right, he reined up his 
 horse to look for a moment at the sombre glow which held 
 the western heaven; amid which the fells of Thirlmere 
 and Derwentwater stood superbly ranged in threatening 
 blacks and purples. To the east and over the waste of 
 Flitterdale, that great flat "moss" in which the mountains 
 die away, there was the prophecy of moonrise; a pearly 
 radiance in the air, a peculiar whiteness in the mists that 
 had gathered along the river, a silver message in the sky. 
 But the wind was rising, and the westerly clouds rushing 
 up. The top of Blencathra was already hidden; it might 
 be a wild night. 
 
 Only one luminous point was to be seen, at first, in all 
 the wide and splendid landscape. It shone from Threlfall 
 Tower, a dark and indistinguishable mass amid its hang- 
 ing woods. 
 
 417 
 
418 THE iVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 "Old Melrose — counting out his money!" 
 
 But as the scornful fancy crossed his mind, a few 
 other dim and scattered hghts began to prick the gloom 
 of the fast-darkening valley. That twinkle far away, in 
 the direction of St. John's Vale, might it not be the light 
 of Green Cottage — of Lydia's lamp.f^ 
 
 He sat his horse, motionless, consumed with longing 
 and grief. Yet, hard exercise in the open air, always 
 seemed to bring him a kind of physical comfort, "It was 
 a jolly run!" he thought, yet half ashamed. His young 
 blood was in love with hfe, through all heartache. 
 
 Suddenly, a whirring sound from the road on his right, 
 and the flash of moving lamps. He saw that a small 
 motor was approaching, and his mare began 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'U walk by you a bit. 
 Turn her up your road." 
 
 The beautiful mare quieted down, and presently the 
 two were in close talk, 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 has finished him. I told the lad that if 
 he cared to stay till liis father's death, you would see that 
 he got work meanwhile on the estate; but he was wild to 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 419 
 
 go — not a scrap of filial affection that I could make out! 
 — and the poor old fellow has scarcely spoken since he 
 left the house. So there he is, left with the feeble old 
 wife, and the half-witted son, who grows queerer and 
 madder than ever. I needn't say the woman was very 
 grateful " 
 
 "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 under- 
 stood from him that he thinks Melrose is breaking up fast. 
 He tries to live as usual; and his temper is appalling. 
 But Dixon sees a great change." 
 
 "Well, it'll scarcely be pos^le to say that his decease 
 'cast a gloom over the countrywide.' 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 that just at present he's paying rather 
 high for them, which is some satisfaction. That creature 
 Nash told one of our men the other day that Melrose 
 now treats him like dirt, and finds his chief amusement in 
 stopping any tiling he wants to do." 
 
 "Then he'd better look sharp after the will," said 
 Undershaw, with a smile. "Melrose is game for any 
 number of tricks yet. But I don't judge Faversham quite 
 as you do. I believe he has all sorts of grand ideas in his 
 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 an Italian bank — twenty- 
 
420 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 five pounds minus ten pounds, which seems to be mortgaged 
 in some way. Mehose's soHcitors gracefully let her know 
 that the allowance was raised by twenty pounds ! On fifteen 
 pounds therefore she and the girl are expected to exist for 
 the quarter — and support the old father. And yesterday 
 just after my mother had shown me the 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 a Bond Street dealer. I conclude Faversham was 
 taking him to see the collections — his collections ! " 
 
 "It looks ugly I grant. But I believe he'll provide for 
 the girl as soon as 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 has found out that she's 
 got a voice, and she dances divinely. My mother's 
 actually got a teacher for her from London, whom we 
 put up in the village." 
 
 "A lovely little girl!" said Undershaw. "And she's 
 
 getting over her hardships. 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 pin- 
 ing for her own people. Life's been a bit too hard for her, 
 and she never was but a poor thing. 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 up with nursing her sister. She chattered 
 to me about Faversham. He used to be a good deal there 
 But they've broken with him too; apparently, because 
 
THE ]VL\TIXG OF L\T)IA 421 
 
 of Mainstairs. Miss Lydia couldn't stand it. She was so 
 devoted to the people." 
 
 The man on horseback made some inaudible reply, and 
 they began to talk of a couple of sworn inquiries about to 
 be held on the Threlfall estate by the officials of the Local 
 Government Board, into the housing and sanitation of 
 three of the chief villages on Melrose's property. The 
 department had been induced to move by a committee of 
 local gentlemen, in which Tatham had taken a leading 
 part. The whole affair had reduced itself indeed so far 
 to a correspondence duel between Tatham, as representing 
 a scandalized neighbourhood, and Faversham, as repre- 
 senting Melrose. 
 
 Tatham's letters, in which a man, with no natural gift 
 for the pen, had developed a surprising amount of effective 
 sarcasm, had all appeared in the local press; with Faver- 
 sham's ingenious and sophistical replies. Tatham dis- 
 cussed them now with Undershaw in a tone of passionate 
 bitterness. The doctor said little. He had his own 
 shrewd ideas on the situation. 
 
 "VMien Undershaw left him, Tatham rode on, up the 
 forest lane, till again the trees fell away, the wide valley 
 with its boundary fells opened before him, and again his 
 eye sought through the windy dusk for the far-gleaming 
 light that spoke to him of Lydia. His mind was fuU of 
 fresh agitation, stirred by Undershaw's remark about her. 
 The idea of a breach between Lydia and Faversham was 
 indeed most welcome, since it seemed to restore Lydia to 
 that pedestal from which it had been so hard and strange 
 to see her descend. It gave him back the right to worship 
 
42^2 THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 her! And yet, the notion did nothing — now — to revive 
 any hope for himself. He kept the distant 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 bitter- 
 ness of unsatisjfied passion. Unconsciously, the healing 
 process was on its way; the healing of the normal man, on 
 whom a wound is no sooner inflicted than all the repara- 
 tive powers of hfe rush together for its cure. 
 
 But while Tatham, wrapped in thoughts of Lydia, was 
 thus drawing homeward, across the higher ground of the 
 estate, down through the Duddon woods, as they fell 
 gently to the river, a httle figure was hurrying, with the 
 step of a fugitive, and half-nervous, half-exultant looks 
 from side to side. The moon had risen. It was not dark 
 in the woods, and Felicia, amid the boschi of the Apuan 
 Alps, had never been frightened of the night or of any ill 
 befaUing her. In Lucca itself she might be insulted; on 
 the hills, never. She had the independence, and — 
 generally speaking — the strength of the working girl. So 
 that the enterprise on which she was launched — the 
 quest of her father — presented itself to her as nothing 
 particularly difficult. She had indeed to keep it from her 
 mother and Lady Tatham, and to find means of escaping 
 them. That she calmly 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 line close to the gate of the. park, and she had 
 looked out a train which would take her conveniently to 
 Whitebeck, which was only half a mile from Threlfall. 
 From Duddon to Whitebeck took eight minutes in the 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 423 
 
 train. She would be at Whitebeck a little after five; 
 allowing an hour for her adventure at the Tower, and 
 some little margin, she would catch a train back between 
 six and seven, which would allow of her slipping into 
 Duddon a httle after seven, unnoticed, and in good 
 time to dress for dinner. Her Italian blood betrayed 
 itself throughout, alike in the keen pleasure she took 
 in the various devices of her small plot; in the entire 
 absence of any hampering scruples as to the disobedience 
 and deceit which it involved; and in the practical intelli- 
 gence wath which she was ready to carry it out. She had 
 brooded over it for days; and this afternoon a convenient 
 opportunity had arisen. Her mother was in her room with 
 a headache; Lady Tatham had had to go to Carlisle on 
 business. 
 
 As she hastened, almost running, through the park, 
 she was plaiming, by fits and starts, what she would 
 say to her father. But still more was the thinking of 
 Tatham — asking herself questions about him, with 
 little thrills of excitement, and little throbbings of de- 
 licious fear. 
 
 Here she was, at the gate of the park. Just ten minutes 
 to her train! She hurried on. A few labourers were iu 
 the road coming home tired from their work; a few 
 cottage doors were ajar, showing the bright fire, and the 
 sprawling children within. Some of the men as they 
 passed looked with curiosity at the slim stranger; but she 
 was well muffled up in her new furs — Victoria's gift — 
 and her large felt hat; they saw little more than the tips 
 of her small nose and chin. 
 
 The train came in just as she reached the station. She 
 
424 THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 took her ticket for Whitebeck, and as the train jogged 
 along, she looked out of the window at the valley in the 
 dim moonrise, her mind w^orking tumultuously. Lady 
 Tatham had told her much; Hesketh, Lady Tatham's 
 maid, and the old coachman who had been teaching her to 
 ride, had told her more. She knew that before she reached 
 Whitebeck she would have passed the boundary between 
 the Duddon and ThreKall estates. She was now indeed 
 on her father's land, the land which in justice ought to be 
 hers some day; which in Italy would be hers by law, or 
 part of it anyway, whatever pranks her father might play. 
 But here in England a man might rob his child of every 
 penny if he pleased. That was strange when England 
 was such a great country — such a splendid country. 'T 
 love England!" she thought passionately, as she leant 
 back with folded arms and closed eyes. 
 
 And straightway on the dusk rose the image of Tatham 
 
 — Tatham on horseback, as she had seen him set out for 
 the hunt that morning; and she felt her eyes grow a little 
 wet. Why? Oh ! because he was so tall and splendid — 
 and he sat his horse like a king — and everybody loved 
 him — and she was living in his house — and so, whether 
 he would or no, he must take notice 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 dance properly, till — perhaps 
 
 — he saw her on the stage ! Her newly discovered singing 
 voice, which was the excitement of the moment for Lady 
 Tatham and Netta, was to Felicia like some fairy force 
 within her, struggling to be at large, which would some 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 425 
 
 day carve out her fortunes, and bring her to Tatham — 
 on equal terms. 
 
 For her pride had flourished and fed upon her love. She 
 no longer talked of Tatham to her mother or any one else. 
 But deep in her heart lay the tenacious, pursuing instinct. 
 
 And besides — suppose — she made an impression on 
 her father — on his cruel old heart.'' Such things do hap- 
 pen. It's silly to say they don't. "I am pretty — and 
 now my clothes are all right — and my hands have come 
 nearly white. He'll see I'm not a girl to be ashamed of. 
 And if my father did give me a dot — why then I'd send 
 my mother to his mother! That's how we'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 spoke of her; no one mentioned her. That 
 was all right. 
 
 And as to Threlfall and her father, if she was able to 
 soften him at all it would not be in the least necessary to 
 drive that bad young man, Mr. Faversham, to despair. 
 Compromise — bargaining — settle most things. She fell 
 to imagining — with a Latin clearness and realism — how 
 it might be handled. 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 
 Tatham would never take a farthing from Mr. Faversham, 
 not even through his wife. "And so it would be no use to 
 me," thought Felicia, quietly, but regretfully. 
 
 Whitebeck station. Out she tripped, asked her way to 
 Threlfall, and hurried off into the dark, followed by the 
 curious looks of the station-master. 
 
426 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 She was soon at the park gate, and passed through it 
 with a beating heart. She had heard of the bloodhounds; 
 and the sound of a bark in the distance — though it was 
 only the collie at the farm — gave her a start of terror. 
 
 The Whitebeck gate was but a short distance from the 
 house, and as she turned a corner, the Tower rose suddenly 
 before her. She held her breath; it looked so big, so 
 darkly magnificent. She thought of all the tales that had 
 been told her, the rooms full of silver and gold — the 
 arazzi — the stucchi — the cabinets and sculpture. She 
 had grown up in an atmosphere of perpetual bric-a-brac; 
 she had seen the big Florentine shops; she could imagine 
 what it was like. 
 
 There were lights in two of the windows; and the 
 smoke from several chimneys rose wind-beaten against the 
 woods behind. The moon stood immediately over the 
 roof, and the shadow of the house stretched beyond the 
 forecourt almost to her feet. 
 
 She lingered a few minutes, fascinated, gazing at this 
 huge place where her father lived — her father whom she 
 had never seen since she was a baby. The moon lit up her 
 tiny figure, and her small white face, as she stood in the 
 open, alone in the wintry silence. 
 
 Then, swiftly, and instead of going up to the front door, 
 she turned to the right along a narrow flagged path that 
 skirted the forecourt and led to 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, fifty years old, a born gossip, and 
 acquainted with every man, woman and child in the 
 neighbourhood. Did not Hesketh go to the same chapel 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 427 
 
 with Thomas Dixon and his wife? And had she not a 
 romantic soul, far above furbelows — 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? Hes- 
 keth indeed had suffered sharply from qualms of conscience 
 in this respect. But Felicia had spared her as much as 
 possible, by keeping the precise moment of her escapade to 
 herself. 
 
 She groped her way round, till she came to a side path 
 leading to an entrance. The path indeed was that by 
 which Faversham had been originally carried into the 
 Tower, across the foot-bridge. Peering over a low wall 
 that bounded the path, she looked startled into an abyss 
 of leafless trees, with a bright gleam of moonlit water far 
 below. In front of her was a door and steps, and some 
 rays of light penetrating through the shuttered windows 
 beside the door, showed that there was life within. 
 
 Felicia mounted the steps and knocked. No one came. 
 At last she found a bell and rang it — cautiously. Steps 
 approached. The door was opened, and a gray-haired 
 woman stood on the threshold. 
 
 "Well, what's your business?" she said sharply. It 
 was evident that she was 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 
 
428 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 me yor business, I'll tell Muster Faversham, when he's 
 got time to see to 't." 
 
 "It's not Mr. Faversham I want to see — it's Mr. Mel- 
 rose. Mrs. Dixon, don't you remember me?" 
 
 Mrs. Dixon stepped back in puzzled annoyance, so as 
 to let a light from the passage shine upon the stranger's 
 face. She stood motionless. 
 
 Felicia stepped within. 
 
 "I am Miss Melrose," she said, with composure, 
 "Felicia Melrose. You knew me 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. She stood staring at the visitor, her 
 mouth working. 
 
 "Muster Melrose's daater!" she said, at last. "T' 
 baby — as was ! Aye — yo' feature him ! An' yo're stayin' 
 ower ta Duddon — mvi her ladyship. I know. Dixon 
 towd me. Bit yo' shouldna' coom here, Missie! Yo' 
 canno' see your feyther." 
 
 "WTiy not?" said Fehcia imperiously. "I mean to see 
 him. Here I am in the house. Take me to him at once ! " 
 
 And suddenly closing the entrance door behind her, she 
 moved on toward an inner 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 the other side of the passage. An old man 
 who, to judge from his aspect, had been roused by his 
 wife's call from a nap after his tea, appeared in a doorway. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 420 
 
 Mrs. Dixon drew Felicia toward him, and into the 
 kitchen, as he retreated thither. Then she shut and 
 bolted the door. 
 
 "This is t' joong lady!" she said in a breathless whisper 
 to her husband. " Muster-Melrose's daater ! She's coom 
 fra Duddon. An' she's fer seein' her feyther." 
 
 Old Dixon had grown very pale. But otherwise he 
 showed no surprise. He looked frowning at Felicia, 
 
 " Yo' canno' do that. Miss Melrose. Yo'r feyther wunna 
 see yo'. He's an owd 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 words went. 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 call some one! I'll make a noise ! " 
 
 A queer, humorous look twinkled over Dixon's face. 
 Then — suddenly — he moved from the door. His expres- 
 sion 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. "Her feyther's an old man — an' sick. 
 Mebbe he'll be meetm' his Maaker face to face, 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!" 
 
430 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 And entirely regardless of his wife's entreaties, the old 
 Methodist resolutely opened the kitchen door, and beck- 
 oned to Felicia. He was lame now 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 inner passage, and opened the door into the 
 great gallery. 
 
 A blaze of light and colour, a rush of heated air. Felicia 
 was dazzled by the splendour of the great show within — 
 the tapestries, the pictures, the gleaming reflections on 
 lacquer and intarsia, on ebony or Sevres. But the atmos- 
 phere was stifling. Melrose now could only live in the 
 temperature of a hothouse. 
 
 Dixon threw open a door, and without a word beckoned 
 to Felicia to enter. He hesitated a moment, e\'idently 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!" 
 
 "WTiat do you mean, you old fool!" said a deep, angry 
 voice on the other side of a great lacquer screen; "didn't I 
 tell you I wasn't to be disturbed?" 
 
 Felicia walked round the screen. Dixon, witli 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 a confusion of objects which the girl's 
 eyes had no time to take in, turned sharply at the 
 sound. 
 
 The two stared at each other. Melrose slowly revolved 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 431 
 
 on his chair, pen in hand. FeHcia stood, with eyes down- 
 cast, her cheeks burning, her hands Hghtly clasped. 
 
 Mehose 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 you are my father — and I mightn't 
 ever see you — if I didn't now. And I wanted to ask 
 you" — her voice quivered — "not to be angry any more 
 with mother and me. We never meant to vex you — by 
 coming. But we were so poor — and mother is ill. Yes, 
 she is ill ! — she is — it's no shamming. Won't you for- 
 give us.'' — won't you give mother a little more money.'' — 
 and won't you" — she clasped her hands entreatingly — 
 "won't you give me a £?o^ .^ I may want to be married 
 — and you are so rich.'' And I wouldn't ever trouble 
 you again — I " 
 
 She broke off, intimidated, paralyzed by the strange 
 fixed look of the old wizard before her — his flowing 
 hair, his skullcap, his white and sunken features. And 
 yet mysteriously she recognized herself in him. She 
 realized through every fibre that he was indeed her 
 father. 
 
 "You would have done better not to trouble me again ! " 
 said Melrose, with slow emphasis. "Your mother seems 
 to pay no attention whatever to what I say. 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 imder it. 
 
 "Oh, no, no! But I might want to marry," she added 
 
432 THE IMATING OF LYDIA 
 
 piteously. "And in Italy — 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 herself on the edge of a chair that stood near 
 him. 
 
 "That was so long ago," she said timidly — yet confid- 
 ingly. "And I was a baby. Couldn't you — couldn't 
 you forget it now? " 
 
 Melrose surveyed her. 
 
 "I suppose you like being at Duddon.'^" he asked her 
 abruptly, vs-ithout answering 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. ^\Tio gave 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 in- 
 dignantly. "We don't tell lies. He's had a stroke — 
 he's dying. And we could hardly give him any food he 
 could eat. You see " 
 
 She edged a little closer, and began a voluble, confiden- 
 tial account of their 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 
 
THE ]MATING OF LYDIA 433 
 
 watched her frowning; but he did not stop her. Her 
 bright eyes and brows, witli their touches of velvet black, 
 the quick movement of her pink lips, the rose-leaf delicacy 
 of her colour, seemed to hold him. Among the pretty 
 things with which the room was crowded she was the 
 prettiest; and he probably was conscious of it. Propped 
 up against the French bureau stood a Watteau drawing 
 in red chalk — a sanguine — he had bought in Paris on a 
 recent visit. The eyes of the old connoisseur went from 
 the living face to the drawing, comparing them. 
 
 At last Felicia paused. Her smiles died away. She 
 looked at him wistfully. 
 
 "Mother's awfully sorry she — she offended you so. 
 Won't you forgive her now — and poor Babbo — about 
 the Httle 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 from hysterical laughter. The whole scene was 
 so fantastic — ridiculous! The room with its lumber; its 
 confusion of glittering things; this old man frowning at 
 her — for no reason! For after all — what had she done.'* 
 Even the contadini — they were rough often — they 
 couldn't read or write — but they loved their grand- 
 children. 
 
 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'll get nothing by it. Tell your 
 mother so. This is the second attack she has made on 
 
434 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 me — through her tools. If she attempts another, she 
 may take the consequences!" 
 
 Fehcia 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 hght. There, for a few intolerable seconds he 
 looked closely, with a kind of savage curiosity, into her 
 face, studying her features, her hair, her light form. Then 
 pushing her from him, he opened that same drawer in the 
 French 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, and for your mother. When I say a thing 
 I mean it. Now, go! Dixon shall take you to the train." 
 
 Felicia glanced at the Renaissance jewel in her hand — 
 a delicate Venus in gold and pearl, set in a hoop of dia- 
 monds. "I won't have it!" she said, dashing it from her 
 with a sob of passion. "And we won't take your money 
 either — not a farthing ! We've got friends who'll help 
 us. And I'll keep my mother myself. You shan't give 
 her anything — nor my grandfather. So you needn't 
 threaten us! You can't do us any harm!" 
 
 She looked him scornfully over from head to foot, a 
 little fury, with blazing eyes. 
 
 Melrose laughed. 
 
 "I thought you came to get a dot out of me," he said, 
 with lifted brows, admiring her in spite of himself. "You 
 seem to have a good spice of the Melrose temper in you. 
 I'm sorry I can't treat you as you seem to wish. Your 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 435 
 
 mother settled that. Well — that'll do — that'll dot 
 We can't bandy words any more. Dixon!" 
 
 He touched the hand-bell beside him. 
 
 Felicia hurried to the door, sobbing with excitement. 
 As she reached it Dixon entered. ^Melrose spoke a few 
 peremptory words to him, and she found herself walking 
 through the gallery, Dixon's hand on her arm, while he 
 muttered and lamented beside her. 
 
 "'And the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart.' Aye, it's 
 the Lord — it's the Lord. Oh ! Missie, Missie — I was a 
 fool to let yo' in. Yo've been nowt but a new stone o' 
 stumblin'; an' the Lord knows there's offences enoof 
 already!" 
 
 Meanwhile, in the room from which his daughter had 
 been driven, Melrose had risen from his seat, and was 
 moving hither and thither, every now and then taking up 
 some object in the crowded tables, pretending to look at it, 
 and putting it down again. He was pursued, tormented 
 all the while by swarming thoughts — visualizations. 
 That child would outlive him — her father — perhaps 
 by a haK century. The flesh and blood sprung from 
 his own life, would go on enjoying and adventuring, for 
 fifty years, perhaps, after he had been laid in his resented 
 grave. And the mind which would have had no existence 
 had he not lived, would hold till death the remembrance 
 of what he had just said and done — a child's only re- 
 membrance of her father. 
 
 He stood, looking back upon his life, and quite conscious 
 of some fatal element in the moment which had just gone 
 by. It struck him as a kind of moral tale. Some men 
 
436 THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 would say that God had once more, and finally, offered 
 him "a place of repentance" — through this strange and 
 tardy apparition of his daughter. A ghostly smile flick- 
 ered. The man of the world knew best. "Let no man 
 break with his own character," That was the real text 
 which applied. And he had followed it. Circumstance 
 and his own will had determined, twenty years earlier, 
 that he had had enough of women-kind. His dealings 
 with them had been many and various! But at a given 
 moment he had put an end to them forever. And no 
 false sentimentalism should be allowed to tamper with 
 the thing done. 
 
 At this point he found himself sinking into his chair; 
 and must needs confess himself somewhat shaken by what 
 had happened. He was angry with his physical weakness, 
 and haunted in spite of himself by the hue and fragrance 
 of that youth he had just been watching — there — at 
 the corner of the table — beside the Watteau sketch. He 
 sat staring at the drawing. . . . 
 
 Till the threatened vitality within again asserted itself; 
 beat off the besieging thoughts; and clutched fiercely at 
 some new proof of its own strength. The old man raised 
 himself, and laid his hand on the telephone which con- 
 nected his room with that of Faversham. 
 
 How, in Dixon's custody, Felicia reached the station, and 
 stumbled into the train, and how, at the other end, she 
 groped her way into the gates of Duddon and began the 
 long woodland ascent to the castle, Felicia never after- 
 ward knew. But when she had gone a few steps along the 
 winding drive where the intermittent and stormy moon- 
 light was barely enough to guide her, she felt her strength 
 
THE iMATING OF LYDIA 437 
 
 suddenly fail her. She could never climb the long hill to 
 the house — she could never fight the wind that was rising 
 in her face. She must sit down, till some one came — to 
 help. 
 
 She sank do^ii upon a couch of moss, at the foot of a 
 great oak-tree which was still thick with withered leaf. 
 The mental agitation, and the sheer physical fatigue of her 
 mad attempt had utterly worn out her barely recovered 
 strength. "I shall faint," she thought, "and no one will 
 know where I ami" She tried to concentrate her will on 
 the resolution not to faint. Straightening her back and 
 head against the tree, she clasped her hands rigidly on her 
 knee. From time to time a wave of passionate recol- 
 lection would rush through her; and her heart would beat 
 so fast, that again the terror of sinking into some unknown 
 infinite would string up her will to resistance. In this 
 alternate yielding and recoil, this physical and mental 
 struggle, she passed minutes which seemed to her inter- 
 minable. 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, the words were only spoken in the mind. 
 
 A little later she woke up in bewilderment. She was 
 no longer on the moss. She was being carried — carried 
 firmly and speedily — in some one's arms. She tried to 
 open her eyes. 
 
 "WTiereaml.?" 
 
 A voice said: 
 
 "That's better! Don't be afraid. You'd fainted I 
 think. I can carry you quite safely." 
 
438 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 Infinite bliss rushed in upon the girl's fluttering sense. 
 She was too feeble, too weak, to struggle. Instead she let 
 her head sink on Tatham's shoulder. Her right hand 
 clung to his coat. 
 
 The young man mounted the hill, marvelling at the 
 lightness of the burden he held; touched, embarrassed, yet 
 sometimes inclined to laugh or scold. What had she been 
 about .^ He had come in from hunting to find her absence 
 just discovered, and the house roused. Victoria and 
 Cyril Boden were exploring other roads through the 
 garden and park; he had run down the long hill to the 
 station lodge in case the theory started at once by Victoria 
 that she had escaped, unknown to any one, in order to 
 force an interview with her father should turn out to be 
 the right one. 
 
 Presently a trembling voice said in the darkness, 
 while some soft curls of 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 occasion ought 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 upturned on his shoulder; a pattering began on 
 the oak-leaves overhead; the moonlight was blotted out, 
 and when Felicia opened her eyes, it was on a heavy 
 darkness. 
 
 "Stupid!" cried Tatham. "Why didn't I think of 
 bringing a mackintosh cape?" 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 439 
 
 "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 no trouble 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. There was something tormentingly attrac- 
 tive in this warm softness of the girl's tiny form upon his 
 breast. The thought darted across him — "If I had ever 
 held Lydia so!" It was a pang; but it passed; and what 
 remained was a tenderness of soul, evoked by Lydia, but 
 passing out now beyond Lydia. 
 
 Poor httle foolish thing! He supposed she had been 
 trampled on, as his mother had been. But his mother 
 could defend herself. What chance had this child against 
 the old tyrant ! x\n eager, protective sympathy — a 
 warm pity — arose in him; greatly quickened by this 
 hand and arm that clung 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 anxious about you." 
 
 "But I couldn't tell her!" sighed the voice on his 
 shoulder. "She'd have stopped it." 
 
 Tatham smiled unseen. 
 
 "I'm sfraid your father wasn't kind to you," he said, 
 after a pause. 
 
440 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 " It was horrible — horrible ! " The httle body he held 
 shuddered closer to him. "^Miy 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 earn it — I will! Your mother will lend 
 me a little — for my training. I'll pay it back." 
 
 "You poor child!" he murmured. 
 
 At that moment they emerged upon the last section of 
 the broad avenue leading to the house. And the electric 
 light in the pillared porch threw long rays toward them. 
 
 "Please put me down," said Fehcia, with decision. 
 "I can walk quite well." 
 
 He obeyed her. But her weakness was still such, that 
 she could only walk with help. Guiding, supporting her, 
 he half led, half carried her along. 
 
 As they reached the lighted porch, she looked up, her 
 face sparkling with rain, a touch of mischief in her hollow- 
 ringed eyes. 
 
 "How much will they scold .f*" 
 
 "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 be scolded at Duddon, than petted 
 anywhere else." 
 
 Tatham flushed suddenly. So did she. And as the 
 door opened Felicia walked with composure past the 
 stately butler. 
 
 "Is Lady Tatham in the hbrary.?^" 
 
 Netta Melrose, full of fears, wept that evening over her 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 441 
 
 daughter's rash disobedience. Victoria administered what 
 reproof she could; and Felicia was reduced to a heated 
 defence of herself, sitting up in bed, with a pair 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. The night 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. 
 
WHILE Felicia was making her vain attempt upon 
 her father's pity, Faversham was sitting im- 
 mersed in correspondence in his own room at the 
 farther end of the gallery. He heard nothing of the girl's 
 arrival or departure. Sound travelled but little through 
 the thick walls of the Tower, and the gallery, muffled with 
 rich carpets, with hangings and furniture, deadened both 
 step and voice. 
 
 The agent was busy with some typewritten evidence 
 that Melrose was preparing wherewith to fight the Gov- 
 ernment officials now being sent down from London to 
 inquire into the state of some portion of the property. 
 The evidence had been collected by Nash, and Faversham 
 read it with disgust. 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 to back up all 
 the lies and evasions that his master, and the pack of 
 obscure 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 its way into life, deeper and deeper. Could 
 he go on bearing it.'* For weeks he had lived with Melrose 
 on terms of sheer humiliation — rated, or mocked at, his 
 advice spurned, the wretched Nash and his crew osten- 
 tatiously preferred to him, even put over him. "No one 
 
 442 
 
THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 443 
 
 shall ever say I haven't earned my money," he would 
 say to himself fiercely, as the intolerable days went by. 
 His only abiding hope and compensation lay in his intense 
 belief that Melrose was a dying man. All those feelings 
 of natural gratitude, 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's dis- 
 appearance, the more attractive became to him the vision 
 of his own coming reign. Some day he would be his own 
 master, and the master of these hoards. Some day he 
 would emerge from the cloud of hatred and suspicion in 
 which he habitually walked; some day he would be able 
 once more to follow the instincts of an honest man; some 
 day he would be able again — perhaps — to look Lydia 
 Penfold in the face! Endurance for a few more months, 
 on the best terms he could secure, lest the old madman 
 should even yet revoke his gifts; and then — a trans- 
 formation scene — on the details of which his thoughts 
 dwelt perpetually, by way of rehef from the present. 
 Tatham and the rest of his enemies, who were now hunting 
 and reviling him, would be made to understand that if 
 he had stooped, he had stooped with a purpose; and that 
 the end did in this case justify the means. 
 
 A countryside cleansed, comforted, remade; a great 
 estate ideally managed; a great power to be greatly used; 
 scope for experiment, for public service, for self-realiza- 
 tion — he greedily, passionately, foresaw them all. Let 
 him be patient. Nothing could interfere with his dream, 
 but some foolish refusal of the conditions on which alone 
 it could come true. 
 
444 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 Often, when this mood of self-assertion was on him, he 
 would go back in thought to his boyish holidays in Oxford, 
 and to his uncle. He saw the kind old fellow in his shep- 
 herd plaid suit, black tie, and wide-awake, taking his 
 constitutional along the Woodstock road, or playing a 
 mild game of croquet in the professorial garden; or he 
 recalled him among his gems — those rare and beautiful 
 things, bought with the savings of a lifetime, loved, each 
 of them, for its own sake, and bequeathed at death, with 
 the tender expression of a wish — no tyrannical condition ! 
 — to the orphan boy whom he had fathered. 
 
 The thought of what would — what must be — Uncle 
 Mackworth's judgment on his present position, was 
 perhaps the most tormenting element in Faversham's 
 consciousness. He faced it, however, with frankness. 
 His uncle would have condemned him — wholly. The 
 notion of serving a bad man, for money, would have been 
 simply inconceivable to that straight and innocent 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 vastly different ways of obtaining it. The 
 perplexities of practical ethics are infinite; and mixed 
 motives fit a mixed world. 
 
 At least he had not bartered away his uncle's treasure. 
 The gems still stood to him as the symbol of something 
 he had lost, and might some day recover. It was really 
 time he got them out of Melrose's clutches. . . , . 
 
 . . . The room was oppressively hot! It was a raw 
 December night, but the heating system of the Tower was 
 now so perfect, and to Faversham's mind so excessive. 
 
THE iMATING OF LYDIA 445 
 
 that every corner of the large house was bathed m a tem- 
 perature which seemed to keep Meh-ose alive, while it 
 half suffocated every other inmate. 
 
 Suddenly the telephone bell on his writing-desk rang. 
 His room was now connected with Melrose's room, at the 
 other end of the house, as well as with Pengarth. He put 
 his ear to the receiver, 
 les.-* 
 
 "I want to speak to you." 
 
 He rose unwillingly. But at least he could air the room, 
 which he would not have ventured to do, if Melrose were 
 coming to him as usual for the ten minutes' hectoring, 
 which now served as conversation between them, before 
 bedtime. Going to the window which gave access to the 
 terrace outside, he unclosed the shutters, and threw open 
 the glass doors. He perceived that it had begun to rain, 
 and that the night was darkening. He stood drinking in 
 the moist coolness of the air for a few seconds, and 
 then leaving the window open, and forgetting to ex- 
 tinguish the electric light on his table he went out of the 
 room. 
 
 He found ISIelrose 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.5" 
 
 Melrose angrily described Felicia's visit, adding that if 
 Faversham knew nothing about it, it was his duty to knovr. 
 Dixon deserved dismissal for his abominable conduct; 
 "and you, sir, are paid a large salary, not only to manage 
 
446 THE :MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 — or mismanage — my affairs, but also to protect your 
 employer from amioyance. I expect you to do it!" 
 
 Faversham took the charge quietly. His whole relation 
 to Melrose had altered so rapidly for the worse during the 
 preceding weeks that no injustice or unreason surprised 
 him. And yet there was something strange — something 
 monstrous — in the old man's venomous temper. After 
 all his bribes, after all his tyranny, did he still feel some- 
 thing in Faversham escape him? — some deep-driven 
 defiance, or hope, infrangible? He seemed indeed to be 
 always on the watch now for fresh occasions of attack 
 that should test his own power, and Faversham's sub- 
 mission. 
 
 Presently, he abruptly left the subject of his daughter, 
 and Faversham did not pursue it. What was the good of 
 inquiring into the details of the girl's adventure? He 
 guessed pretty accurately at what had happened; the 
 scorn which had been poured on the supphant; the careless 
 indifference wath which she had been dismissed — through 
 the rain and the night. Yet another scandal for a greedy 
 neighbourhood ! — another story to reach the ears of the 
 dwellers in a certain cottage, with the embeUishments, no 
 doubt, which the popular hatred of both himself and 
 Melrose was certain to supply. He felt himseK buried a 
 little deeper under the stoning of his fellows. But at the 
 same time he was conscious — as of a danger point — of 
 a new and passionate exasperation in himseK. His will 
 must control it. 
 
 Melrose, however, proceeded to give it fresh cause. He 
 took up a letter from Nash containing various complaints 
 of Faversham, which had reached him that evening. 
 
THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 447 
 
 "You have been browbeating our witnesses, sir! Nash 
 reports them as discouraged, and possibly no longer willing 
 to come forward. What business had you to jeopardize 
 my interests by posing as the superior person? The 
 evidence had been good enough for Nash — and myself. 
 It might have 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 a couple of the feeblest liars I ever 
 had to do with. Tatham's counsel would have turned 
 them inside out in five minutes. You seem to forget the 
 other side are employing counsel." 
 
 " I forgot nothing ! " said ^lelrose hotly. " But I expect 
 you to follow your instructions." 
 
 "The point is — am I advising you in this matter, or 
 am I merely your agent.' You seem to expect me to act 
 in both capacities. And I confess I find it difficult." 
 
 Melrose fretted and fumed. He raised one point after 
 another, criticising Faversham 's action and advice in 
 regard to the housing inquiries, as though he were deter- 
 mined to pick a quarrel. Faversham met him on the 
 whole with wonderful composure, often yielding in appear- 
 ance, but in reahty getting the best of it throughout. 
 Under the mask of the discussion, however, the temper of 
 both men was rising fast. It was as though two deep-sea 
 currents, converging far down, were struggling unseen 
 toward the still calm surface, there to meet in storm and 
 convulsion. 
 
 Again, jNIelrose changed the conversation. He was by 
 now extraordinarily pale. All the flushed excitement in 
 which Faversham had found him had disappeared. He 
 
448 THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 was more spectral, more ghostly — and ghastly — than 
 Faversham had ever seen him. His pincerhke fingers 
 played with the jewel which Felicia had throwm down upon 
 the table. He took it up, put on his eyeglass, peered at 
 it, put it down again. Then he turned an intent and evil 
 €ye on Faversham. 
 
 "I have now something of a quite diflFerent nature to 
 say to you. You have, I imagine, expected it. You will, 
 perhaps, guess at it. And I cannot imagine for one 
 moment that you wdll make any difficulty about it." 
 Faversham's pulse began to race. 
 He suspended his cigarette. 
 "WTiatisit.= " 
 
 "I am asked to send a selection of antique gems to the 
 Loan Exhibition which is being got up by the 'Amis du 
 Louvre' m Paris, after Christmas. I desire to send both 
 the Arconati Bacchus and the Medusa — in fact all those 
 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 m my own name," said Melrose 
 slowly. 
 
 "That difficulty is not insurmountable. I can lend 
 them to you." 
 
 Meh-ose's composure gave way. He brought his hand 
 heavily dovm on the table. 
 
 "I shall send them in — as my own property — in my 
 own name ! " 
 
 Faversham eyed him. 
 
 " But they are not — they M-ill not be — your property." 
 
 ^'I offer you three thousand pounds for them! — four 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 449 
 
 thousand — five thousand — if you want more you can 
 have it. Drive the best bargain you can!" sneered Mel- 
 rose, trying to smile. 
 
 "I refuse your offer — your very generous offer — with 
 great regret — but I refuse ! " 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 a second father to me — who asked me 
 not to sell them. I have warned you not once, 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 deter- 
 mination." 
 
 He stood leaning on the back of a chair, looking down on 
 Melrose. Some bondage had broken in his soul! A tide 
 of some beneficent force seemed to be flooding its dry 
 wastes. 
 
 Melrose paused. In the silence each measured the other. 
 Then Melrose said in a voice which had grown husky : 
 
 "So — the first return you are asked to make, for all 
 that has been lavished upon you, you meet with — this 
 refusal. That throws a new light upon your character. 
 I never proposed to leave my fortune to an adventurer! 
 I proposed to leave it to a gentleman, capable of under- 
 standing an obligation. We have mistaken each other — 
 and our arrangement — drops. Unless you consent to the 
 very small request — the very advantageous proposal 
 
450 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 rather — which I have just made you — you will leave 
 this room — as penniless — except for any savings you 
 may have made out 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 if our cooperation might have been of 
 service to both. But some devil in you — and a greedy 
 mind in me — the temptation of your money — oh, I 
 confess it, frankly — have ruined our partnership — and 
 indeed — much else ! 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 slowly the old man reopened the little 
 drawer at his elbow, took thence the shagreen 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. Your health 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 motioning toward the door. 
 
 On the threshold Faversham turned, and gave one last 
 look at the dark figure of Melrose, and the medley of 
 objects surrounding it; at Madame Elisabeth's Sevres 
 vases, on the upper shelf of the Riesener table; at the 
 Louis Seize clock, on the panelled wall, which was at that 
 moment striking eight. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 451 
 
 As he closed the door behind him, he was aware of 
 Dixon who had just entered the gallery from the servants* 
 quarters. The old butler hurried toward him to ask if 
 he should announce dinner. "Not for me," said Faver- 
 sham; "you had better ask Mr. Melrose, To-morrow, 
 Dixon, I shall be leaving 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 me something to my room, when you 
 have looked after him. I will come and speak to you 
 later." 
 
 Faversham walked down the gallery to his own door. 
 He had to pass on the way a splendid Nattier portrait of 
 IMarie Leczinska which had arrived only that morning 
 from Paris, and was standing on the floor, leaning sideways 
 against a chair, as Melrose had placed it himself, so as to 
 get a good light on it. The picture was large. Faver- 
 sham picked his way round it. If his thoughts had not 
 been so entirely preoccupied, he would probably have 
 noticed a slight movement of something behind the por- 
 trait 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 he entered, he mechanically turned 
 on the central light, not noticing that the reading lamp 
 upon his table was not in its place. But he saw that some 
 papers which had been on his desk when he left the room 
 were now on the floor. He supposed the wind which was 
 rising had dislodged them. Stooping to hft them up, he 
 was surprised to see a large mud-stain on the topmost 
 
452 THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 sheet. It looked like a footprint, as though some one had 
 first knocked the papers off the table, and then trodden on 
 them. He turned on a fresh switch. There was another 
 mark on the floor just beyond the table — and another — 
 nearer the door. They were certainly footprints! But 
 who could have entered the room during his absence? 
 And where was the invader? At the same time he per- 
 ceived that his reading lamp had been overturned 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 — the sound of a fierce 
 voice — a fall. 
 
 And the next minute the door he held was \'iolently 
 burst open in his face, he himself was knocked backward 
 over a chair, and a man carrying a gun, whose face was 
 muffled in some dark material, rushed across the room, 
 leapt through the window, and disappeared into the night. 
 
 Faversham ran into the gallery. The first thing he 
 sav/ was the Nattier portrait lying on its face beside a 
 chair overturned. Beyond it, a dark object on the floor. 
 At the same moment, he perceived Dixon standing horror- 
 struck, at the farther end of the gallery, with the handle 
 of the door leading to the servants' quarters still in his 
 grasp. Then the old man too ran. 
 
 The two men were brought up by the same obstacle. 
 The body of Edmund Melrose lay between them. 
 
 Melrose had fallen on his face. As Faversham and 
 Dixon lifted him, they saw that he was still breathing, 
 though in extremis. He had been shot through the breast. 
 
THE IMATING OF LYDIA 453 
 
 and a pool of blood lay beneath him, blotting out the 
 faded blues and yellow greens of a Persian carpet. 
 
 At the command of her husband, Mrs. Dixon, who had 
 hurried after him, ran for brandy, crying also for help. 
 Faversham snatched a cushion, put it under the dying 
 man's head, and loosened his clothing. Melrose's eyelids 
 fluttered once or twice, then sank. With a low groan, a 
 gush of blood from the mouth, he passed away while 
 DLxon prayed, 
 
 "May the Lord have mercy — mercy!" 
 
 The old man rocked to and fro beside the corpse in an 
 anguish. Mrs. Dixon coming with the brandy in her 
 hand was stopped by a gesture from Faversham. 
 
 " No use ! " He touched Dixon on the shoulder. " Dixon 
 — this is murder! You must 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 you here — did you go in to Mr. Melrose?" 
 
 "I knocked, sir. But he shouted to me — angry like — 
 to go away — till he rang. I went back to t' kitchen, and 
 I had nobbut closed yon door behind me — 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 to each other," said Faversham, calmly, as 
 he rose; "and he got in through my window, while I was 
 with Mr. Melrose." He described briefly the passage of 
 the murderer through his own room. "Tell the police to 
 have the main line stations watched without a moment's 
 delay. The man's game would be to get to one or other 
 
454 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 of them across country. There'll be no marks on him — 
 he fired from a distance — but his boots are muddy. 
 About five 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 the 
 stables call the gardener. Send him for the farm men, and 
 tell them to search the garden, and the woods by the river. 
 They'll find me there. Or stay — one of them can come 
 here, and remain with Mrs. Dixon, while I'm gone. 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 along the Pengarth road. 
 
 Meanwhile, Faversham and the farm-labourers were 
 searching the garden, the hanging woods, and the river 
 banks. Footprints were found all along the terrace, and 
 it was plain that the murderer had climbed the low en- 
 closing wall. But beyond, and all in the darkness, noth- 
 ing could be traced. 
 
 Faversham returned to the house, and began to ex- 
 amine the gallery. The hiding-place of Melrose's assailant 
 was soon discovered. Behind the Nattier portrait, and 
 the carved and gilt chair which Melrose had himself 
 moved from its place in the morning, there were muddy 
 marks on the floor and the wainscotting, which showed 
 that a man had been crouching there. The picture, a 
 large and imposing canvas — Marie Leczinska, sitting on 
 a blue sofa, in a gala dress of rose-pink velvet with trim- 
 ming of black fur — had been more than sufficient to 
 conceal him. Then — had he knocked to attract INIel- 
 rose's attention, having ascertained from Dixon's short 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 455 
 
 colloquy at the library door, after Faversham had left 
 the room, that the master of the Tower was still within? — 
 or had Melrose suddenly come out into the gallery, perhaps 
 to give some order to Dixon? 
 
 Faversham thought the latter more probable. As 
 Melrose appeared, the murderer had risen hastily from 
 his hiding-place, upsetting the picture and the chair. 
 Melrose had received a charge of duck shot full in the 
 breast, with fatal effect. The range was so short that 
 the shot had scattered but Uttle. A few pellets, however, 
 could be traced in the wooden frames of the tapestries; 
 and one had broken a majolica dish standing on a cabinet. 
 
 A man of the people then — using probably some old 
 muzzle-loader, begged or borrowed? Faversham's thought 
 ran to the young fellow who had denounced Melrose with 
 such fervour at Mainstairs the day of Lydia Penfold's 
 visit to the stricken village. But, good heavens ! — there 
 were a score of men on Melrose's estate, with at least as 
 good reason — or better — for shooting, as that man. Take 
 the Brands! But old Brand was gone to his rest, 
 the elder son had sailed for Canada, and the younger 
 seemed to be a harmless, half-witted chap, of no account. 
 
 Yet, clearly the motive had been revenge, not burglary. 
 There were plenty of costly trifles on the tables and 
 cabinets of the gallery. Not one of them had been 
 touched. 
 
 Faversham moved to and fro in the silence, while 
 Mrs. Dixon sat moaning to herself beside the dead man, 
 whose face she had covered. The lavish electric light in 
 the gallery, which had been Melrose's latest whim, shone 
 upon its splendid contents; on the nymphs and cupids. 
 
456 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 the wreaths and temples of the Boucher tapestries, on the 
 gleaming surfaces of the china, the dull gold of the ormolu. 
 The show represented the desires, the huntings, the bar- 
 gains of a lifetime; and in its midst lay Melrose, tripped 
 at last, silenced at last, the stain of his hfe-blood spreading 
 round him. 
 
 Faversham looked down upon him, shuddering. Then 
 perceiving that the door into the library stood ajar, he 
 entered the room. There stood the chair on which he 
 had leant, when the chains of his slavery fell from him. 
 There — on the table — was the jewel — the little Venus 
 with fluttering enamel drapery, standing tiptoe within her 
 hoop of diamonds, which he had seen 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 single line written upon it in Melrose's big and 
 sprawling handwriting. That was new. 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 ash- 
 tray, as though the writer had been disturbed either by a 
 sudden sound, or by the irruption of some thought which 
 had led him into the gallery to call Dixon. 
 
 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 stood motionless, 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 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 457 
 
 assailing him, of new dangers, and a new wanness, he 
 returned to the gallery, pacing it 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 long struck ten. Cyril Boden had just gone to 
 bed. Victoria sat with her feet on the fender in Tatham's 
 study still discussing with him Felicia's astonishing per- 
 formance of the afternoon. She found him eagerly in- 
 terested in it, to a degree which surprised her; and they 
 passed from it only to go zealously together into various 
 plans for the future of mother and daughter — plans as 
 intelligent as they were generous. The buzz of a motor 
 coming up the drive surprised them. There were no 
 visitors in the house, and none expected. Victoria rose 
 in amazement as Undershaw walked into the room. 
 
 "A horrible thing has happened. I felt that you must 
 know before anybody — with those two poor things in 
 your house. Dixon has told me that Miss Melrose saw 
 her father this afternoon. I have come to bring you the 
 sequel." 
 
 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 daughter from 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 
 deepest instincts of the soul. 
 
 "Some poor devil he has ruined, I suppose !" said Tat- 
 ham, his grave young face lifted to the tragic height of 
 the event. "Any clue.'*" 
 
458 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 "None — except that, as I have told you, Faversham 
 himseK saw the murderer, except his face, and Dixon 
 saw his back. A shght man in corduroys — that's all 
 Dixon can say. Faversham and the Dixons were alone 
 in the house, except for a couple of maids. Perhaps" — 
 he hesitated — " I had better teU you some other facts 
 that Faversham told me — and the Superintendent 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 disposi- 
 tions in his favour would be cancelled. He came out of 
 the room, spoke to Dixon in the gallery and walked to 
 his own sitting-room. Melrose apparently sat down at 
 once to write a codicil revoking the will. He was dis- 
 turbed, 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" — he paused again — "some awkward sugges- 
 tions might be made." 
 
 "But," cried Tatham, "you say Dixon saw the man I 
 And the muddy footmarks — in the house — and on the 
 terrace!" 
 
 "Don't mistake me, for heaven's sake," said Under- 
 shaw, quickly. "It is impossible that Faversham should 
 have fired the shot! But in the present state 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 like poison; who have been plotting to pull 
 him dowTi, and will be furious to find him after all in 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 459 
 
 secure possession of the estate and the money. I feel 
 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, all white and disorganized under 
 the stress of the news just communicated to him by Under- 
 shaw's chauffeur, he ordered his horse for eight o'clock in 
 the morning. Victoria looked at him puzzled; then it 
 seemed she understood. 
 
 But every other thought was soon swallowed up in the 
 remembrance of the widow and daughter. 
 
 "Not to-night — not to-night," pleaded Undershaw 
 who had seen Netta Melrose professionally, only that 
 morning. "I dread the mere shock for Mrs. 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 was starting from the 
 house, there arrived a messenger, and a letter was 
 put into his hand. It was from Undershaw, who, on 
 leaving Duddon the night before, had motored back to the 
 Tower, and taken Faversham in charge. The act bore 
 testimony to the little doctor's buffeted but still surviving 
 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 in conversation with Faversham, 
 and wished immediately to pass on certain facts learnt 
 from it, first of all to Tatham, and then to any friend of 
 Faversham's they might concern. 
 
 He told, accordingly, the full story of the gems, leading 
 up to the quarrel between the two men, as Faversham had 
 told it to him. 
 
 "Faversham," he wrote, "left the old man, convinced 
 that all was at an end as to the will and the inheritance. 
 And now he is as much the heir as ever! 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 the murderer, we have discussed all possible clues — 
 with little light. But the morning will doubtless bring 
 some new facts. That Faversham has not the smallest 
 fraction of responsibility for the murder is clear to any 
 
 460 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 461 
 
 sane man who talks with him. But that there will be 
 a buzz of slanderous tongues as soon as ever the story is 
 public property, I am convinced. So I send you these 
 fresh particulars as quickly as possible — for your guid- 
 ance." 
 
 Tatham thrust the letter into his pocket, and rode away 
 through the December dawn. His mother would soon 
 be in the thick of her own task with the two unconscious 
 ones at Duddon. His duty lay — with Lydia ! The 
 "friend" was all ahve in him, reaching out to her in a 
 manly and generous emotion. 
 
 The winter sunrise was a thing of beauty. It chimed 
 with the intensity of feeling in the young man's breast. 
 The sky was a light saffron over the eastern fells, and the 
 mountains rose into it indistinguishably blue, the light 
 mists wrapped about their feet. Among the mists, plane 
 behind plane, the hedgerow trees, still faintly afire with 
 tlieir last leaf, stood patterned on the azure of the fells. 
 And as he rode on, the first rays of the light mounting 
 a gap in the Helvellyn range struck upon the valleys 
 below. The shadows ran blue along the frosty grass; 
 here and there the withered leaf began to blaze; the 
 streams rejoiced. Under their sycamores and yews, the 
 white-walled farms sent up their morning smoke; the 
 cocks were crowing; and as he mounted the upland on 
 which the cottage stood, from a height in front of him, a 
 tiny church — one of the smallest and loneliest in the fells 
 — sent forth a summoning bell. The sound, with all its 
 weight of association, sank and echoed through the morn- 
 ing stillness; the fells repeated it, a voice of worship 
 toward God, of appeal toward man. 
 
462 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 In Tatham, fashioned to the appeal by all the accidents 
 of blood and nurture, the sound made for a deepened 
 spirit and a steadied mood. He pressed on toward the 
 little house and garden that now began to show through 
 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, Penfold never appeared, 
 and Susy was always professionally late, it being 
 understood that inspiration — when it alights — is a 
 midnight visitant, and must be wooed at suitable 
 hours. 
 
 Lydia was generally down to the minute, and read 
 prayers to their two maids. Mrs. Penfold made a great 
 point of family prayers, but rarely or never attended 
 them. Susy did not like to be read to by anybody, 
 Lydia therefore had the little function to herself. She 
 chose her favourite psalms, and prayers from the most 
 various sources. The maids liked it because they loved 
 Lydia; and Lydia, having once begun, would not willingly 
 have given it up. 
 
 But the ceremony was over; and she had just opened 
 the casement to see who 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 she took 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 another hour, and stood expectant. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 463 
 
 "I wanted to tell you before any one else, because 
 there are things to explain. 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. It was clear enough that the news had for 
 her no ordinary significance. His heart knew pain — the 
 reflex of a past anguish; only to be lost at once in the 
 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 gallery brushed 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 the story — Faversham's refusal of the gems — 
 Melrose's threat. The trembhng of her delicate mouth 
 urged him for more — and yet more — light. 
 
 "Everything — land, money, collections — under the 
 will made in August. You see" — he added, sorely 
 against his will, yet compelled, by the need of protecting 
 her from shock — " the opportuneness of the murder. 
 Their relations had been very bad for some time." 
 
 "Opportuneness?" She just breathed it. He put out 
 his hand again, and took hers. 
 
 "You know — Faversham has enemies?" 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 "I've been one myself," he said frankly. "I beUeve 
 
464 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 you knew it. But this thing's brought me up sharp. 
 One may think as one hkes of Faversham's conduct — but 
 you knew — and I know — that he's not the man to pay 
 another man to commit murder!" 
 
 "And that's what they'll say?" The colour had 
 rushed back into her cheeks. 
 
 "That's what some fool might say, because of the 
 grudge against him. Well, now, we've got to find the 
 murderer!" He rose, speakmg in his most cheerful and 
 practical voice, "I'm gomg on to see what the poUce have 
 been doing. The inquest will probably begin to-morrow. 
 But I wanted to prevent your being startled by this 
 horrible news. Trust me to let you know — and to help 
 — all I can." 
 
 Then for a moment, he seemed to lose his self-possession. 
 He stood before her awkwardly conscious — a moral 
 trespasser — who might have been passing bounds. But 
 it was her turn to be frank. She came and put both her 
 hands on his arm — looking up — drawing her breath 
 with difficulty. 
 
 "Harry, I'm going to tell you. I ought to have told 
 you more that night — but how could I? It was only just 
 then I knew — that I cared. A httle later Mr. Faver- 
 sham asked me to many him, and I refused, because — 
 because of this money. I couldn't take it — I begged 
 him not to. Never mind!" She threw her head back, 
 gulping down tears. "He thought me unreasonable. 
 But " 
 
 "He refused — and left you!" cried Tatham, drinking- 
 in the sweetness of her pale beauty, as Orpheus might have 
 watched the vanishing Eurydice. 
 
THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 465 
 
 "He had such great ambitions — as to what he'd do — 
 with this money," she said, Hghtly brushing her wet eyes, 
 and trying to smile. "It wasn't the mere fortune! Oh, 
 I knew that!" 
 
 Tatham was silent. But he gently touched her hand 
 with his own. 
 
 "You'U stand by him? — if he needs it.'" she asked 
 piteously. 
 
 He assured her. Then, suddenly, raising herself on 
 tiptoe, she kissed him on the cheek. The blood flew 
 into his face, and bending forward — timidly — he laid 
 his lips on her soft brow. There was a pledge in it — 
 and a farewell. She drew herseK away. 
 
 "The first — and the last," she said, smiling, and 
 sighing. "Now we're comrades. I await your news. 
 Tell me if I can help — throw light? I know the people — 
 the neighbourhood, well. And when you see Mr. Faver- 
 sham, greet him from me. Tell him his friends here feel 
 •v\ath him — and for him. And as to what you say — ah, 
 no! — I'm not going to beheve — I can't beheve — that 
 any one can have such — such vile thoughts ! The truth 
 will 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 heard moving about overhead; she 
 would be down directly. Meanwhile the winter 
 sunshine came broadly in; the singing of the tea- 
 kettle, the crackle of the fire made domestic music. But 
 
466 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 Lydia's soul was far away. It stood beside Faversham, 
 exulting. 
 
 "Free!" — she said to herself, passionately — "free!" 
 and then with the hyperbole of love — "I talked and 
 moralized — he did it!" 
 
 A splendid pride in him possessed her; so that for long 
 she scarcely realized the tragedy of the murder, or the hor- 
 ror of the slanderous suspicion now starting through the 
 dales. But yet, long before the day was over, she was 
 conquered by grief and fear — a very miserable and rest- 
 less Lydia. No word came from him; and she could not 
 write. 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 she loved; she glorified 
 him; she trampled on her own past doubts; she pro- 
 tected him against a world in arms. The plant of 
 love grew fast and furiously — watered by pity — by in- 
 dignation. 
 
 Meanwhile Susy treated her sister very kindly. She 
 specially insisted on ordering dinner, and writing various 
 business letters; though Lydia would have been thankful 
 to do both. And when the evening came on, Mrs. Pen- 
 fold trembling with excitement and horror, chattered end- 
 lessly about the murder, as each visitor to the cottage 
 brought some fresh detail. Lydia seldom answered her. 
 She sat on the floor, with her face against her mother's 
 knee, while the soft, silly voice above her head rambled 
 and rambled on. 
 
 Tatham rode back to Pengarth. As he approached one 
 of the lodge gates of Duddon, a man came toward him on 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 467 
 
 a bicycle. Boden, hot and dishevelled, dismounted as he 
 saw Tatham. 
 
 "I thought I should just meet you. Lady Tatham has 
 had a telephone message from the Chief Constable, 
 Colonel Marvell. There is a man missing — and a gun. 
 Brand's younger son has not been seen for thirty-six 
 hours. He has been helping Andover's head keeper for 
 part of the year, as a watcher; and this man, Simpson, had 
 let him have an old gun of his — a muzzle-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 the house yesterday afternoon," he added 
 quietly, "just before the old man died." 
 
 "You were.'*" cried Tatham, amazed. Yet he knew 
 well that whenever Boden came to recruit at Duddon, he 
 spent half of his time among the fell-farms and cottages. 
 His mind was invincibly human, greedy of common life 
 and incident, whether in London or among the dales. He 
 said little of his experiences at Duddon; not a word, for 
 instance, to Tatham or Victoria, the night before, had 
 revealed his own share in the old farmer's death scene; 
 but, casually, often, some story would drop out, some 
 unsuspected facts about their next-door neighbours, their 
 very own people, which would set Victoria and Tatham 
 looking at each other, and wondering. 
 
 He turned now to walk beside Tatham's horse. His 
 plain face with its beautiful eyes, and lanky straying hair, 
 spoke of a ruminating mind. 
 
468 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 Tatham asked if there was any news from the railway. 
 
 "No trace so far, anywhere. All the main line stations 
 have been closely watched. But Marvell is of opinion 
 that if young Brand had anything to do with it he would 
 certainly give the railway a wide berth. He is much more 
 likely to take to the fells. They tell the most extraordinary 
 tales of his knowledge of the mountains — especially in 
 snow and wild weather. They say 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 two fixed ideas. He certainly hated 
 Melrose. WTiether he hated him enough to murder him 
 is another question. When I visited them, the mother 
 told me that Will had rushed out of the house the night 
 before, because he could not endure the sight of his father's 
 suflFerings. The jury I suppose will have to know that. 
 Well! — You were going on to Pengarth?" 
 
 Tatham assented. Boden paused, leaning on his bi- 
 cycle. 
 
 "Take Threlfall on your way. I think Faversham 
 would like to see you. There are some strange things 
 being said. Preposterous things! The hatred is extra- 
 ordinary." 
 
 The two men eyed each other gravely. Boden added: 
 
 "I have been telling your mother that I think I shall 
 go over to Threlfall 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 of revolutionary epithet. 
 
THE INIATING OF LYDIA 469 
 
 But calamity of any kind — for this queer saint — was apt 
 to change all the values of things. 
 
 They were just separating when Tatham, with sudden 
 compunction, asked for news of Mrs. Melrose, and 
 Felicia. 
 
 "I had ahnost 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 very white — no 
 tears — but she was clinging to your mother." 
 
 Tatham's face softened, but he said nothing. The 
 road to Threlfall presented itself, and he turned his horse 
 toward it. 
 
 "And Miss Penfold?" said Boden, quietly. "You 
 arrived before the newspapers? Good. I think, before 
 I return, I shall go and have a talk with Miss Penfold." 
 
 And mounting his bicycle he rode off. Tatham looking 
 after him, felt uncomfortably certain that Boden knew 
 pretty well all there was to know^ about Lydia — Faver- 
 sham — and liimseK. But he did not resent it. 
 
 Tatham found Threlfall a beleaguered place, police at 
 the gates and in the house; the chief constable and the 
 Superintendent of police established in the dining-room, as 
 the only room tolerably free from the all encumbering 
 collections, and interviewing one person after another. 
 
 Tatham asked to see the chief constable. He made 
 his way into the gallery, which was guarded by police, for 
 although the body of Melrose had been removed to an 
 upper room, the blood-stain on the Persian carpet, the 
 overturned chair and picture, the mud-marks on the wall 
 
470 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 remained untouched, awaiting the coroner's jury, which 
 was to meet in the house that evening. 
 
 As Tatham approached the room which was now the 
 headquarters of the poHce, 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 man in 
 a shabby frock coat, with furtive eyes. The first was 
 Nash, Melrose's legal factotum through many years; the 
 other was one of the clerks in the Pengarth office, who was 
 popularly supposed to have made much money out of the 
 Threlfall estate, through a long series of small peculations 
 never discovered by his miserly master. They passed 
 Tatham with downcast eyes and an air of suppressed 
 excitement which did not escape him. He found the chief 
 constable pacing up and down, talking in subdued tones, 
 and with a furrowed brow, to the Superintendent of 
 police. 
 
 "Come in, come in," said Marvell heartily, at sight of 
 the young man, who was the chief landowner of the dis- 
 trict, and likely within a couple of years to be its lord 
 lieutenant. "We want your help. Everything points to 
 young Brand, and there is much reason to think he is still 
 in the neighbourhood. What assistance can you give 
 «^. 
 
 Tatham promised a band of searchers from the estate. 
 The Duddon estate itself included a great deal of moun- 
 tain ground, some of the loneliest and remotest in the 
 district, where a man who knew the fells might very well 
 take hiding. Marvell brought out a map, and they pored 
 over it. 
 
 The superintendent of police departed. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 471 
 
 Then Mar veil, 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 younger son, and did not in fact 
 know him by sight. He offered the elder one some 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 this morning — to accept anything from 
 Melrose's agent. But she, not knowing where to look for 
 the expenses of her husband's illness, took five pounds 
 from Faversham, and never dared tell either of her sons." 
 
 "Ail perfectly straightforward and natural," said 
 Tatham. 
 
 Marvell looked worried. 
 
 "Yes. But you see how the thing may be twisted by 
 men like those two — 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 one 
 with 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 chief constable came to stand imme- 
 diately in front of Tatham, lowering his voice — "was that 
 the only person with a really serious motive for destroying 
 Melrose, was" — he jerked his thumb in the direction of 
 Faversham's sitting-room — "our friend! They claim — 
 
472 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 both of them — to have been spectators of the growing 
 friction between the two men. Nash says that Melrose 
 had spoken to him once or twice of revoking, or altering 
 his will; and both of them declare that Faversham was 
 quite aware of the possibility. Of course these things 
 were brought out apologetically — you understand ! — 
 with a view of 'giving Mr. Faversham the opportunity of 
 meeting the reports in circulation,' and so on — 'calming 
 public opinion ' — 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's room — Faversham's 
 window left open, and the light left burning — by his own. 
 story — is unfortunate." 
 
 "But what absurdity," cried Tatham, indignantly, as he 
 rose. "As if the man 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, of course the thing is absurd — 
 but disagreeable — considering the circumstances. The 
 moral is — find the man! Good-day, Lord Tatham. I 
 understand you will have fifty men out by tliis evening, 
 assisting the pohce in their search?" 
 
 "At least," said Tatham, and departed. 
 
 Outside, after a moment's hesitation, he inquired 
 of the police in charge whether Faversham was in his 
 room. Being told that he was, he asked leave to 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 spirit had paid its debt. The man 
 who led him pointed out the picture, the chair, the marks 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 47S 
 
 of the muddy soles on the wainscotting, and along the 
 gallery — reconstructing the murder, in low tones, as 
 though the dead man still lay there. A hideous op- 
 pression indeed hung over the house. Melrose's ghost 
 held it. 
 
 The poUce officer knocked at Faversham's door. 
 "Would Mr. Faversham receive Lord Tatham?" 
 
 Faversham, risen from his writing-table, looked at his 
 visitor in a dull astonishment. 
 
 "I have come to bring you a message," said Tatham 
 advancing, neither man offering to shake hands. "I saw 
 Miss Penfold early this morning — before she got the 
 newspapers. She wished me to bring you her — her 
 sympathy. She was very much shocked." He spoke 
 with a certain boyish embarrassment. But his blue eyes 
 looked verj^ straight at Faversham. 
 
 Faversham changed colour a httle, and thanked him. 
 But his aspect was that of a man worn out, incapable for 
 the time of the normal responses of feeling. He showed 
 no sense of strangeness, with regard to Tatham's visit, 
 though for weeks they had not been on speaking terms. 
 Absently offering his v-isitor a chair, he talked a httle — 
 disjointedly — of the events of the preceding evening, 
 with frequent pauses for recollection. 
 
 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 this horrible place?" exclaimed Tatham, on a 
 sudden but imperative impulse. 
 
 "To Duddon?" Faversham shook his head. "Thank 
 
474 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 you — impossible." Then he looked 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 helped her home. She's all right — though of 
 course it's a ghastly shock for them." 
 
 "I never knew she was here — till she had gone," ex- 
 claimed Faversham, with sudden animation. "Other- 
 wise — 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. I have promised Marvell to put as 
 many men as possible to work in with the poUce. You 
 have no idea at aU as to the identity of the man who ran 
 past you.''" 
 
 "None!" Faversham repeated the word, as though 
 gToping in his memory. " None. I never saw Will Brand 
 that I can recoUect. But the description of him seems to 
 tally with the man who knocked me over." 
 
 "Well, we'U find him," said Tatham briskly. "Any 
 message for Green Cottage .''" 
 
 "My best thanks. I am very grateful to them." 
 
 The words were formal. He sank heavily into his 
 chair, as though wishing to end the interview. Tatham 
 departed. 
 
 The inquest opened in the evening. Faversham and 
 the Dixons gave their evidence. So did Undershaw and 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 475 
 
 the police. The juiy viewed the body, and leave to bury 
 was granted. Then the inquiiy adjourned. 
 
 For some ten days afterward, the whole of the Lake 
 district hung upon the search for Brand. From the 
 Scawfell and Buttermere group on its western verge, to the 
 Ullswater mountains on the east; from Skiddaw and 
 Blencathra on the north, southward through all the 
 shoulders and edges, the tarns and ghylls of the Helveliyn 
 range; through the craggy fells of Thirlmere, Watendlath, 
 Easedale; over the high plateaus that run up to the Pikes, 
 and fall in precipice to Stickle Tarn; through the v.ild 
 clefts and corries of Bo^s-fell, the Crinkles, Wetherlam and 
 the Old Man; over the desolate backs and ridges that 
 stretch from Kirkstone to Kentmere and Long Sleddale, 
 the great man-hunt passed, enlisting ever fresh feet, and 
 fresh eyes in its service. Every shepherd on the high fells 
 became a detective, speeding news, or urging suggestions, 
 by the old freemasonrj' of their tribe; while every farm- 
 house in certain dales, within, reach of the scene of the 
 murder, sent out its watchers by day and night, eagerly 
 contributing its men and its wits to the chase. 
 
 For in this chase there was a hidden motive which 
 found no expression in the local papers; of which men 
 spoke to each other under their breaths, when they spoke 
 at all; but which none the less became in a very short 
 time, by the lightning spread of a few evU reports, through 
 the stubble of popular resentment, the animating passion 
 at the heart of it. The poHce and Faversham's few 
 friends were searching for the murderer of Melrose; the 
 public in general were soon hunting Faversham's accom- 
 plice. The discovery of Will Brand meant, in the one case. 
 
476 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 the arrest of a poor crazy fellow who had avenged by 
 murder his father's persecution and loiin; in the other case, 
 it meant the unmasking of an educated and smooth- 
 spoken villain, who, finding a vast fortime in danger, had 
 taken ingenious means to secure it. In this black sus- 
 picion there spoke the accumulated hatred of years, stored 
 up originally, in the mind of a whole countryside, against 
 a man who had flouted every law of good citizenship, and 
 strained every legal right of property to breaking point; 
 -and discharging itself now, with pent-up force, upon the 
 tyrant's tool, conceived as the murderous plotter for his 
 miUions. To realize the strength of the popular feeling, 
 as it presently revealed itself, was to look shuddering into 
 things elemental. 
 
 It was first made plain on the day of Melrose's funeral. 
 In order to avoid the concourse which might attend a 
 burial in Whitebeck parish church, lying near the main 
 road, and accessible from many sides, it was determined 
 to bury him in the graveyard of the little mountain chapel 
 on the fell above the Penf olds' cottage. The hour was 
 sunrise; and all the preparations had been as secretly 
 made as possible. But when the dark December morn- 
 ing arrived, with sleet showers whitening all the slopes of 
 Helvellyn and the gashed breast of Blencathra, a dense 
 crowd thronged all the exits of the Tower, and lined the 
 steep lanes leading to the chapel. Faversham, Cyril 
 Boden, and a Carlisle solicitor occupied the only carriage 
 which followed the hearse. Tatham and his mother met 
 the doleful procession at the chapel. Lady Tatham, very 
 pale and queenly, walked hand in hand with a sHght girl 
 in mourning. As the multitude outside the churchyard 
 
THE JNIATING OF LYDIA 477 
 
 caught sight of the pair, a thrill ran through its ranks.. 
 Mehose's daughter, and rightful heiress — disinherited,, 
 and supplanted — by the black-haired man standing 
 bareheaded behind the coffin. The crowd endured the 
 mockery of the burial service in a sullen silence. Not a 
 head uncovered. Not a voice joined in the responses. 
 
 Felicia threw back her veil, and the onlookers pressed to 
 the churchyard railings to see the delicate face, with its 
 strong likeness to her father. She meanwhile saw only 
 Tatham. Her eyes were fixed on liim from first to last. 
 
 But there were two other ladies in the churchyard. 
 After the hurried ceremony was over, one of them ap- 
 proached Faversham. He took her hand in silence, look- 
 ing down into the eyes — the soul — of Lydia. With 
 what angelic 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 they separated. As he appeared at 
 the churchyard gate, about to enter the carriage which 
 was waiting, a grim low groan ran through the throng 
 which filled the lane. There was something in the sound 
 to strike a shiver through the strongest. Faversham 
 grew perhaps a little paler, but as he seated himself in the 
 carriage he examined the scowling faces near him with a 
 quiet indifference, which scarcely altered when Tatham 
 came conspicuously to the carriage-door to bid him 
 farewell. 
 
 The days that followed reminded some of the older 
 dalesmen of the stories told by their fathers of the great 
 and famous hunt, a century ago, after the sheep-slaying 
 
478 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 *'dog of Ennerdale," who for five months held a whole 
 district at bay; appearing and disappearing phantom- 
 like among the crags and mists of the high fells, keeping 
 shepherds and farming-folk in perpetual excitement, 
 watched for by night and day, hunted by hounds and by 
 men, yet never to be captured; frightening lovers from 
 their trysts, and the children from school; a presence and a 
 terror prevading men's minds, and suspending the or- 
 dinary operations of life. So in some sort was it with the 
 hunt for Will Brand. It was firmly believed that in the 
 course 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 moorland waste; and once in a 
 storm on the slopes of Great Dodd, when a shepherd, 
 *' latin" his sheep, had suddenly perceived a wild-looking 
 feUow, with a gun between liis knees, watching him from 
 the shelter of a rock. So far from making any effort to 
 capture the man, the shepherd had fled in terror; but both 
 neighbours and police firmly believed that he had seen the 
 murderer. There were also various mysterious thefts of 
 food reported from mountain farms, indications hotly 
 followed up but to no purpose. Would the culprit, 
 starved out, be forced in time to surrender; or would he 
 die of privation and exposure among the high fells, in the 
 snowdrifts, and leave the spring, when it came, to uncover 
 his bones .f* 
 
 Toward the end of the month the snowstorms of its 
 earlier days passed into a chiUy and continuous rain; 
 there was still snow on the heights. The steady down- 
 pour presently flooded the rivers, and sent the streams 
 racing in torrents down the hills. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 479 
 
 Christmas was over. The new year was at hand. 
 One afternoon, Boden, oppressed in spirit, sallied forth 
 from the Tower into the floods and mists of St. John's 
 Ysde. He himself had taken no part in the great pursuit. 
 He believed now that the poor hunted creature would find 
 his lonely end among the wintry mountains, and rejoiced 
 to think it might be so. The adjourned inquest was to be 
 resumed the following day, and no doubt some verdict 
 would be returned. It was improbable, in spite of the 
 mahce at work, that any attempt would be made — 
 legally — to incriminate Faversham. 
 
 It was of Faversham that he was chiefly thinking. 
 When he had first proposed his companionship, the day 
 after the murder, it had been quietly accepted, with a 
 softened look of surprise, and he and Undershaw had since 
 Icept watch over a bewildered man, protecting him as far 
 as they could 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, trancelike state. He 
 rarely or never left the house; he could not be induced to 
 go either to Duddon or to the Cottage; nor would he 
 receive visitors. He had indeed seen his solicitors, but 
 had said not a word to Boden on the subject. It was 
 rumoured that Nash was already endeavouring to per- 
 suade a distant cousin of Melrose and Lady Tatham to 
 dispute the will. 
 
 Meanwhile, through Boden, Lydia Penfold had been 
 kept in touch with a man who could not apparently bring 
 himself to reopen their relation. Boden saw her nearly 
 every day; they had become fast friends. Victoria too 
 
480 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 was as often at the cottage as the state of Netta Melrose 
 allowed, and she and Lydia, bom to understand each 
 other, had at last arrived thereat. 
 
 But Mrs. Melrose was dying; and her little daughter. 
 Si. more romantic figure than ever, in the public eye, was to 
 find, it said, a second mother in Lady Tatham. 
 
 The rain clouds were swirling through the dale, as 
 Boden reached its middle point, pushing his way against 
 a cold westerly blast. The stream, which in summer 
 chatters so gently to the travellers beside it, was rushing in 
 a brown swift flood, and drowning the low meadows on its 
 western bank. He mounted a stone foot-bridge to look 
 &t it, when, of a sudden, the curtain of cloud shrouding 
 Blencathra was torn aside, and its high ridge, razor-sharp, 
 appeared spectrally white, a seat of the storm-god, in a far 
 heaven. The hvid lines of just-fallen snow, outlining the 
 cliffs and ravines of the great mountain, stamped its 
 majesty, visionlike, on the senses. Below it, some scat- 
 tered woods, inky black, bent under the storm, and the 
 crash and darkness of the lower air threw 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 beheld a tottering and ghastly figure. 
 Distress — mortal fatigue — breathed from the haggard 
 emaciation of face and limbs. Round the shoulders was 
 folded a sack, from which the dregs of some red dipping 
 mixture it had once contained had dripped over the 
 youth's chest and legs, his tattered clothes and broken 
 boots, in streams of what, to Boden's startled sense. 
 
THE ]\IATING OF LYDIA 481 
 
 looked like blood. And under the slouched hat, a pair of 
 sunken eyes looked 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 hunnerds after 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 nothing to force you ! But if you take my 
 advice, you'll go quietly with me, to the 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've been close oop to 'im — when he had 
 noa noshun whati%^'er. I might ha' killt him — a doosen 
 times over. He wor a devil — an' I paid him oot ! I was 
 creepin' round t' hoose that night — and ov a suddent, 
 there was a door openin', 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' I waited — an' oot he came. I shot 'un 
 straight. Muster Boden! I shot 'un straight!" 
 
 "You never told any one what you were going to do,. 
 Brand? Nobody helped you?" 
 
482 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 "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. Boden 
 caught him. 
 
 "Can you walk with my help.^* I have some brandy." 
 
 And taking from his pocket the tiny flask that a man 
 v/ith a weak heart is apt to carry, he put it into a shaking 
 hand. Brand drank it greedily. 
 
 They stumbled on together, down the narrow road, 
 through the streaming rain. It was a mile to the White- 
 beck police station. Brand gave a gasping, incoherent 
 account of his doings during his ten days of hiding — the 
 various barns and outhouses he had sheltered in — the 
 food he had been able to steal — the narrow escapes he 
 had run. And every now and then, the frenzy of his 
 liatred for the murdered man would break in, and he 
 would throw out hints of the various mad schemes he had 
 entertained at different times for the destruction of his 
 enemy. 
 
 But presently he ceased to talk. It was evident that 
 Iiis weakness was great; he clung heavily to Boden's arm. 
 
 They reached a point where a road branched to the 
 left. A roar of furious water 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 left the foaming river glimmered in the 
 departing light. Boden bent over him, encouraging him 
 with the promise of shelter and food, murmuring also of 
 God, the help of the simier. Suddenly the lad leapt up. 
 
 "Aye! that'll end it! — an' a good job!" 
 
THE ]MATING OF LYDIA 485 
 
 He began to run up the left-hand road. Boden pur- 
 sued him, struggled with him, but in vain. Brand threw 
 him off, reached the bridge, mounted the parapet, and 
 from there flung himself headlong into the spate rushing 
 furiously below. 
 
 At the same moment a dog-cart driven by two young 
 farmers appeared on the main road of the valley. Boden's 
 shouts reached them, and they came to his aid. But 
 Brand had disappeared. The river swept him down hke a 
 withered branch; and it was many hours before the body 
 was recovered, half a mile from the spot where he sank. 
 
xxn 
 
 BODEN was just coming to the end of his evidence. 
 The adjourned inquest on Mehose, held ia the 
 large parlour of the old Whitebeck inn, was 
 densely crowded, and the tension of a charged moment 
 might be felt. Men sat gaping, their eyes wandering from 
 the jury to the witness or the gray -haired coroner; to 
 young Lord Tatham sitting beside the tall dark man who 
 had been Mr. Mehose's agent, and was now the inheritor 
 of his goods; to the alert and clean-shaven face of Under- 
 shaw, Hstening with the concentration of the scientific 
 habit to the voice from the witness-box. And through 
 the strained attention of the room there ran the stimulus 
 of that gruesome new fact— the presence overhead of yet 
 another dead man, dragged only some twenty -four hoius 
 earher from the swollen waters of the river. 
 
 The murderer had been found — a comparatively simple 
 proceeding. But, in the finding him, the ulcer of a hideous 
 suspicion, spread by popular madness, and inflamed by 
 popular hatred, had also been probed and cleansed. As 
 Boden's evidence progressed, building up the story of 
 Brand's sleuth-hound pursuit of his victim, and silently 
 verified from point to point by the local knowledge of the 
 audience, the change in the collective mind of this typical 
 gathering of shepherds, farmers, and small tradesmen 
 might have been compared to the sudden coming of soft 
 
 484 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 485 
 
 weather into the u-on tension, the bhick silence, of a great 
 frost. Gales of conipiuiction blew; of self-interest also; 
 and the common judgment veered with them. 
 
 After the inevitable verdict had been recorded, a fresli 
 jury was empanelled, and there was a stamping of sturdy 
 Cumbrian feet up the inn stairs to view^ the pitiful remains 
 of another human being, botched by Nature in the flesh, 
 no less lamentably than Mehose in the spirit. The legal 
 inquiry into Brand's flight and death was short and mostly 
 formal; but the actual evidence — as compared with cur- 
 rent gossip — of his luckless mother, now left sonless and 
 husbandless, and as to the relations of the family with 
 Faversham, hastened the meltiag process in the pubhe 
 mind. It showed a man in bondage indeed to a tyrant; 
 but doing what he could to lighten the hand of the tyrant 
 on others; privately and ineffectively generous; remorse^ 
 ful for the sins of another; and painfully aware of his 
 mixed responsibility. 
 
 Yet naturally there were counter currents. Andover, 
 the old Cumbrian squire, whose personal friction with 
 Faversham had been sharpest, left the inn with a much 
 puzzled mind, but not prepared as yet to surrender his 
 main opinion of a young man, who after aU had feathered 
 his nest so uncommonly well. "They may say what they 
 
 d n please," said the furious and disappointed Nasli. 
 
 as he departed in company with his shabby accomplice, 
 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 young scoundrel I ever came across!" which, 
 considering the range of the speaker's experience, was 
 testimony indeed. 
 
486 THE jVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 Regret, on the one hand, for a monstrous and exposed 
 surmise; on the other, instinctive resentment of the man's 
 huge, unearned luck under the will that Melrose would 
 have revoked had he lived a few more hours, as con- 
 trasted with the phght of FeKcia Melrose; between these 
 poles men's minds went wavering. Colonel Barton stood 
 at the door of the inn before Faversham emerged for a 
 few undecided moments, and finally walked away, like 
 Andover, with the irritable reflection that the grounds on 
 which he had orginaUy cut the young man still largely 
 stood; and he was not going to kow-tow to mere money. 
 He would go and have tea with Lady Tatham; she was 
 a sensible woman. Harry's behaviour seemed to him 
 sentimental. 
 
 Faversham, Boden, and Harry Tatham left the inn 
 together and were joined by Undershaw outside. They 
 walked silently through the irregular village street where 
 groups stood at the cottage doors to see them pass. As 
 they emerged upon the high road the three others per- 
 ceived that they were alone. Faversham had disappeared. 
 
 "Where is he.'^" said Tatham, standing amazed and 
 looking back. They had gained the crest of a hill whence, 
 beyond the roofs of Whitebeck in the hollow, a section 
 of the main road could be dimly seen, running west a 
 white streak piercing the wintry dusk. Along the white 
 streak moved something 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 distant light on the rising ground beyond the 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 487 
 
 streak of road. Above it, huddled shapes of mountains, 
 dying fast into the darkness. They all knew it for a light 
 in Green Cottage; the same that Tatham had watched 
 from the Duddon moorland on the evening of the murder. 
 They turned and walked on silently toward 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 a man who's gone through what that 
 man's gone through!" 
 
 Faversham pursued his way toward the swelling upland 
 which looks south over St. John's Vale, and north toward 
 Skiddaw. He went, led by a passionate impulse, sternly 
 restrained till this moment. Led also by the vision of her 
 face as it had been lifted to him beside the grave of INIel- 
 rose. Since then he had never seen her. But that Boden 
 had written to her that morning, early, after the recover;,'' 
 of Brand's body, he knew. 
 
 The moon shone suddenly behind him, across the waste 
 of Fhtterdale, and the lower meadows of St. John's Vale. 
 It struck upon the low white house amid its trees. 
 
 "Is Miss Penfold at home.?" 
 
 The maid recognized him at once, and in her agitation 
 almost lost her head. As she led him in, a little figure in a 
 white cap with streamers fluttered across the hall. 
 
 "OA, Mr. Faversham!" said a soft, breathless voice. 
 
 But Mrs. Penfold did not stop to speak to him. Gather- 
 ing up her voluminous black skirts, and her shawls that 
 
488 THE jVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 were falling oflF her shoulders, she hurried upstairs. There 
 followed a thin girl with dark hair piled above dark eyes. 
 
 "Lydia is in tlie 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 some blazing wood, and of one small lamp, filled 
 the pretty room with colour and soft shadows. Among 
 them, the slender form in its black dress, the fair head 
 thrown back, the outstretched hands were of a loveliness 
 that arrested him — almost unmanned him 
 
 She came forward. 
 
 "You've been so long coming!" 
 
 The intonation of the words expressed the yearning 
 of many days and nights. They were not a reproach; 
 rather, an exquisite revelation. 
 
 He took her hands, and slowly, irresistibly he drew her; 
 and she came to him. He bowed his face upon hers, and 
 the world stood still! Through the emotion of that 
 supreme moment, with its mingled cup of joy and remem- 
 bered bitterness there ran for him a touch of triumph 
 natural to his temperament. She had asked no promise 
 from him; reminded him of no condition; made no reserva- 
 tion. There she was upon his breast. The male pride 
 in him was appeased. Self-respect seemed once more 
 possible. 
 
 Hand in hand, they sat down together by the fire. 
 He gave her an account of the double inquest, and the 
 result. 
 
 "When we came out," he added, calmly, "there were 
 not quite so many ready to lynch me as before." 
 
 Her hand trembled in his. The horror of his experience. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 489 
 
 the anguished sympathy of hers, spoke in the slight move- 
 ment, and the pressure that answered it. Some day, but 
 not yet, it would be possible to put it into words. 
 
 "And I might do notliing!" she breathed. 
 
 "Notliing!" He smiled upon her, but his tone brought 
 a shudder — the shudder of the traveller who looks back 
 upon the inch which has held him from 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 in it 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 con- 
 tained a distinct provision invalidating all bequests to me 
 should I propose to hand over any of the property, or 
 money derived from the property, to Felicia Melrose, or 
 her mother. But it contained nothing of the kind. The 
 first draft of the will was sent to his solicitors at the end of 
 •July. They put it into form, and it was signed the day 
 after he communicated his intentions to me. There is no 
 doubt whatever that he meant to insert such a clause. He 
 spoke of it to me and to others. I thought it was done 
 But as a matter of fact he never either drafted it himself, 
 or gave final instructions for it. His Carlisle man — ■ 
 Hanson — thought it was because of his horror of death. 
 He had put off making his will as long as posable — got it 
 done — and then could not bring himself to touch it again ! 
 To send for it back — to finger and fuss with it — seemed 
 to bring death nearer and he did not mean to die." 
 
490 THE INiATING OF LYDIA 
 
 He paused, shading his eyes with his hand. The 
 visualizing sense, stimulated by the nerve strain of the 
 preceding weeks, beheld with ghastly clearness the face of 
 Melrose in death, with the blood-stain on the Mps. 
 
 "And so," he resumed, "there was no short way out. 
 By merely writing to Miss Melrose, to offer her a fortune, 
 it was not possible to void the will." 
 
 He paused. The intensity of his look held her motion- 
 less, 
 
 "You remember — how I refused — when you asked me 
 — to take any steps toward voiding it.''" 
 
 Her lips made a dumb movement of assent. 
 
 "But — at last — I took them. In the final interview 
 I had with Melrose, he threatened me with the cancelling 
 of his will, unless I consented — Tatham has told you — 
 to sell him my uncle's gems. I refused. And so far as 
 words could, he there and then stripped me of his property. 
 It is by the mere accident of his murder at that precise 
 moment that it has come to me. Now then — what is to 
 be done?" 
 
 Her hand slipped further into his. For a few minutes 
 he seemed to be absorbed in the silent reconstruction of 
 past trains of thought, emerging with a cry — though it 
 was under his breath: 
 
 "If I took his money now — against his will — I should 
 feel his yoke — his hateful 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!" 
 
He came to kneel down by her, and took her in his arms 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 491 
 
 At that he could only draw her to him again. She her- 
 seK must needs bring him back to the point. 
 
 " You have decided.^ " 
 
 "I could of course refuse the succession. That would 
 throw the whole property into Chancery; the personalty 
 would go to the mother and daughter, the real estate to 
 whatever legal heirs could be discovered. There are some 
 distant cousins of Lady Tatham, I beheve. However — 
 that did not attract me at all." 
 
 He rose from his seat beside her, and stood looking down 
 upon her. 
 
 "You'll reahze.'' — you'll understand.'' — that it seems 
 to me just — and] desirable — that I should have some 
 voice in the distribution of this money, this and land, 
 rather than leave it all to the action of a court. Every- 
 thing — as things are — is legally mine. The personalty 
 is immense; there are about thirty thousand acres of land, 
 here and elsewhere; and the collections can't be worth 
 much less than half a miUion. I decline to own them ; 
 but I intend to settle what becomes of them ! Nash and 
 others say they will dispute the will. They won't. There 
 is no case. As to the personalty and the land — well, 
 well, you'll see! As to the collections — I mean to make 
 them, if I can, of some use to the community. And in that 
 effort" — he spoke slowly — " I want you to help me! " 
 
 Their eyes met; hers full of tears. She tried to sjjeak, 
 and could not. He came 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. 
 
492 THE JNIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 "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. To pray for any definite physical or 
 material thing would seem to me now — as it always has 
 done — absurd. But to reach out — to the Power beyond 
 our weakness!" 
 
 He paused a moment and resumed: 
 
 "Boden did that for me. He came to me — at the worst. 
 He never preached to me. He has his black times — like 
 the rest of us. But something upholds him — and — oh I 
 so strangely — I don't think he knew — through him — I 
 too laid hold. But for that — I might have put an end to 
 myself — m»re than once — 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 drowning out of sight, for the moment at least, 
 the shapes and images of pain. Then recovering his com- 
 posure, hand fast in hand, Faversham began to talk more 
 calmly, drawing out for her as best he could, so that it need 
 not be done again — and up to the very evening of the 
 murder — the history of the nine montlis which had, so 
 to speak, thrown his whole being into the melting-pot, 
 and through the fusing and bruising of an extraordinary 
 experience, had remade a man. She listened in a happy 
 bewilderment. It struck her newly — astonishingly. Her 
 love for him had always included a tenderly maternal, 
 pitying element. She had felt herself the maturer char- 
 acter. Sympathy for his task, flattered pleasure in her 
 
THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 493 
 
 Egeria role, deepening Into something warmer and in tenser 
 with every letter from him and every meeting, even when 
 she disputed with and condemned him; love in spite of 
 herself; love with which conscience, taste, aspiration, all 
 quarrelled; but love nevertheless, the love which good 
 women feel for the man that is both weaker and stronger 
 than themselves — it was so she might have read her own 
 past, if the high passion of this ultimate moment had not 
 blurred it. 
 
 But "Life at her grindstone" had been busy with 
 Faversham, and in the sifted and sharpened soul laid bare 
 to her, the woman recognized her mate indeed. Face to 
 face with cruelty and falsehood, in others, and with the 
 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 fierce gaol-delivering angel, Faversham 
 had found himself; and such a self as could never have 
 been reasonably prophesied for the discontented idler 
 who 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 of the Tower. 
 
 Through all his ugly wrestle with Melrose, with its 
 disappointments and humiliations, his excavator's joy in 
 the rescue and the setting in order of Melrose's amazing 
 possessions had steadily grown of late, the only pleasure of 
 his day had come from handling, cleaning and cataloguing 
 the lovely forgotten things of which the house was full. 
 These surfaces of ivory and silver, of stucco or marble, of 
 wood or canvas, pottery or porcelain, on which the human 
 
494 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 mind, in love with some fraction of the beauty 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 cen- 
 turies: these, from a refuge or an amusement, had become 
 an abiding delight, something, moreover, that seemed to 
 point to a definite lifework — paid honourably by cash as 
 well as pleasure. 
 
 What would she think, he asked her, of a great Museum 
 for the north — a centre for students — none of your 
 brick and iron monstrosities, rising amid slums, but a 
 beautiful house showing its beautiful possessions to all 
 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 those nights in the Tower after the 
 murder, when it had seemed to him that not Brand, but 
 himself, was the prey that a whole world was hunting, 
 with Hate for the huntsman. 
 
 But presently, as they clung to each other in the fire- 
 light, he roused himself 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. 
 
THE jMATING of LYDIA 495 
 
 that he had never really told her what he meant to do with 
 jNIelrose's money. She had no precise idea. Their minds 
 jumped together, and she saw the first laugh in his dark 
 eyes. 
 
 " I shan't tell you I Beloved — be good and wait ! But 
 you guess already. We meet to-morrow — at Duddon." 
 
 She asked no question. The thin mystery — for her 
 thoughts did indeed drive through it — pleased her; espe- 
 cially because it seemed to please him. 
 
 Then jVIrs. Penfold and Susy were brought down, and 
 Mrs. Penfold sat amid explanations and embraces, more 
 feather-headed and inconsequent even than usual, but 
 happy, because Lydia caressed her, and this handsome 
 though pale young man on the hearthrug kissed her hand 
 and even, at command, her still pink cheek; and it seemed 
 there was to be a marriage — only not the marriage there 
 should have been — a substitution, clearly, of Threlf all for 
 Duddon.'' Lydia would live at Threlf all; woukl be im- 
 mensely rich; and there would be no more bloodhounds 
 in the park. 
 
 But when Faversham was gone, and realities began to 
 sink into the little lady's mind, as Lydia sitting at her feet, 
 and holding her hand, tried to infuse them, dejection 
 followed. No coronet ! — and now, no fortune ! She did 
 not imderstand these high-stepping morals, and she went 
 sadly to bed; though never had Lydia been so sweet to her, 
 so ready to brush her hair by 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 
 
496 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 Greeks would call you something — I forget! I should 
 really like to understand the psj^chology of it. It might 
 be useful." 
 
 Lydia bantered her a little — rather sorely. But the 
 emotions of her family would always be so much "copy" 
 to Susy; and the fact did not in the 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 her neck, and inquiring whether Mr. Weston 
 had not paid her a very long call the day before. Susy 
 quietly admitted it, and added: "But I told him not 
 to call again. I'm afraid — I'm bored with him. There 
 are no mysteries in his character — no lights and shades 
 at all. He is too virtuous — monotonously so. It would 
 be of no technical advantage to me whatever, 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 — and you — Cyril Boden, Doctor 
 Undershaw, old Dixon, and Felicia (her poor mother is 
 very ill, and we hear news to-day of the sudden death of 
 the old grandfather) — should meet him at tliat hour in 
 Harry's library. And afterward, you will stay to lunch? 
 My dear, you have in this house two warm friends who 
 love you and long to see you. Each hour that passes 
 grows more thrilling than the last. . . . 
 
 " I have been spending some time with old Mrs. Brand — 
 and I told her I knew you would go to her to-morrow. 
 They have given her her dead son — and she sits with his 
 
THE ]VL\TING OF LYDIA 497 
 
 feet against her breast. She loved him best of all. One 
 thinks of Rizpah gathering the bones." 
 
 Next morning Tatham was in his library before eleven, 
 making a pretence of attending to some County Comicil 
 business, but in truth restless with expectation, and think- 
 ing of nothing but the events immediately ahead. 
 
 What was going to happen? 
 
 Faversham no doubt was going to propose some division 
 of the Melrose inheritance with Felicia, and some adequate 
 provision for the mother. Only a few weeks before this 
 date Tatham had been m a mood to loathe the notion that 
 Felicia should owe a fortune, small or great, to the charity 
 of 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, that is, the best and not the worst 
 interpretation upon them. After all, the fortune was 
 legally his; and if Melrose had died intestate, Felicia and 
 her mother would only have shared with some remote 
 heirs with far less claim than Faversham. 
 
 He owed this change of temper — he knew — simply 
 to the story which Undershaw had brought him of the last 
 scene between Faversham and Melrose. That final 
 though tardy revolt had fired the young man's feelings 
 and drowned his wraths. In his secret mind, he left 
 Brand's shot uncondemned; and the knowledge that 
 before that final coup was given, the man whom Melrose 
 had alternately bribed and bullied had at last found 
 strength 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, 
 
498 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 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, nor Undershaw, nor he had 
 any definite idea of the conclusions to which Faversham 
 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 buffers between him and an enraged populace, 
 relations of intimacy had clearly grown up between him 
 and Boden, and both Undershaw and Tatham had been 
 increasingly conscious of liking, even respect, for a much- 
 abused man. 
 
 Oh, it was — it would be — all right ! Lydia would see 
 to it! 
 
 Lydia! A'Vliat a letter that was the post had brought 
 him — what a letter, and what a woman ! He sighed, 
 thinking with a rueful though satiric spirit of all those 
 protestations of hers in the summer, as to independence, 
 a maiden life, and the rest. And now she confessed that, 
 from the beginning, it had been Faversham. Why.? 
 What had she seen in him.? The young man's vanity no 
 less than his love had been sore smitten. But the pain 
 was passing. And she was, and would always be, a dear 
 woman, to whom he was devoted. 
 
 He had pushed aside his letters, and was pacing his 
 library. Presently he turned and went into a small inner 
 room, his own particular den, where he kept his college 
 photographs, some stuffed and now decaying beasts, 
 victims of his earliest sport, and many boxes of superb 
 toy soldiers, the passion of his childhood. There on the 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 499 
 
 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 — 
 a girl's voice overhead, singing. He turned and saw that 
 the window was open to the mild December air. No 
 doubt the window on the story above was open too. It 
 was Felicia — and the sound ceased as suddenly as it had 
 risen. Just a phrase, a stormy phrase, from an Itahan 
 folk-song which he had heard her sing to his mother. He 
 caught the usual words — "77iorie" — '"aynore." They were 
 the staple of all her songs; to tell the truth he was often 
 bored by them. But the harsh, penetrating note — as 
 though it were a note of 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 a creature. 
 
 He was glad to hear that she could sing again. Nobody 
 imagined that she could regret her father; but certainly the 
 murder had sharply affected her nerves and imagination. 
 She had got hold of the local paper before they could keep 
 it from her; and for nights afterward, according to his 
 mother she had not been able to sleep. He himself had 
 tried of late to distract her. He had asked her to ride with 
 him; he had brought her books and flowers. To no avail. 
 She was very short and shy with him; only happy, ap- 
 parently, with his mother, to whom her devotion was 
 extraordinary. To her own mother, so Lady Tatham re- 
 ported, she was as good — as gentle even — as her tem- 
 perament allowed. But there was a deep discrepancy 
 between them. 
 
500 THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 As to Mrs. Melrose, whose life, according to the doctor, 
 was only a matter of weeks, possibly months, Victoria 
 believed that the shock of her old father's death had af- 
 fected her much more acutely than the murder of her 
 husband. She fretted perpetually that she had left her 
 father to strangers, and that she could not help to lay him 
 in his grave. Felicia too had cried a httle, but had soon 
 consoled herself with the sensible reflection — so it seemed 
 to Tatham — that at least her poor old Babbo was now 
 out of his troubles. 
 
 His thoughts strayed on to the coming hour and Felicia's 
 future. It amused the young man's mere love of "eventful 
 living" to imagine her surprise, if what he shrewdly sup- 
 posed 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 fairy like delicacy of her face and 
 hands ; and something in her look — some sign of smoth- 
 ered misery or revolt — touched Tatham sharply. He 
 hurried to her, biding her good morning, 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 small fingers before she turned abruptly to 
 the row of water-colours. " Who painted those.'' " 
 
 "Miss Penfold. Don't you know what a charming 
 artist she is.?*" 
 
 "They are not at all well done!" said Felicia. "Ama- 
 teurs have no business to paint." 
 
THE IMATING OF L\DIA 501 
 
 "She is not an amateur!" cried Tatliam. "She " 
 
 Then again he noticed that she was hollowed-eyed, 
 and her hp was twitcliing. Poor Httle girl ! — in her 
 black dress — soon to be motherless — and with this 
 critical moment in front of her! 
 
 He came nearer to her in the shy, courteous way that 
 made a dissonance so attractive with his great height and 
 strength. 
 
 "Dear Felicia! I may, mayn't I? We're cousins. 
 Don't be nervous — or afraid. 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. Tatham regretted that he 
 had not made more time to talk with her; to prepare her 
 mind for alternatives. It might have been wiser. But 
 Faversham's summons had been sudden; and his own 
 expectations were so vague ! 
 
 However, there was no time now. Lydia arrived, and 
 she and Tatham withdrew into the inner room for a few 
 minutes, deep in consultation. Felicia watched them with 
 furious eyes. And when they came out again, a soft flush 
 on Lydia's cheeks, it was all that Felicia could do to 
 prevent herself from rushing upstairs again, leaving them 
 to have their horrid meeting to themselves. 
 
 But flight was barred. Faversham entered, accom- 
 panied by the senior solicitor to the Threlfall estate and 
 by old Dixon, shaking with nervousness, in a black Sunday 
 
502 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 suit. Chairs had been provided. They took their seats. 
 Tatham cleared his own table. 
 
 "No need ! " said the solicitor, a gentleman with a broad, 
 benevolent face slightly girdled by whiskers, "It's very 
 short!" 
 
 And smiling, he took out of his pocket a document 
 consisting apparently of two sheets of square letter paper, 
 and amid the sudden silence, he began to read. 
 
 The first and longer sheet was done. Fehcia, sitting 
 on the edge of a stiff chair, her smaU feet dangling, was 
 staring at the lawyer. Victoria was looking at her son 
 bewildered. Boden wore an odd sort of smile. Under- 
 shaw, impassive, was playing with his watch-chain. Lydia 
 radiant and erect, in a dress of gray-blue tweed, a veil of 
 the same tint falling back 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 in 
 the girl's nature spoke. 
 
 A deed of gift, inter vivos, conveying the whole person- 
 ahty and real estate, recently bequeathed to Claude Faver- 
 sham by Edmund Melrose, consisting of so-and-so, and 
 so-and-so, — a long catalogue of shares and land which had 
 taken some time to read — to Felicia Melrose, daughter of 
 the late Edmund Melrose, subject only to an annuity to her 
 mother, Antonetta Melrose, of £2,000 a year, to a pension 
 for Thomas Dixon and his wife, and various other pensions 
 and small annuities; Henry, Earl Tatham, and Victoria, 
 Countess Tatham, appointed trustees, and to act as guar- 
 dians, till the said Felicia Melrose should attain the age of 
 twenty-four; no mention of any other person at all; the 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 503 
 
 whole vast property, precisely as it had passed from Mel- 
 rose to Faversham, just taken up and dropped in the lap 
 of this httle creature with the danghng feet without 
 reservation, or deduction — now that it was done, and not 
 merely guessed at, it showed plain for what in truth it 
 was — one of those acts wherein the energies of the human 
 spirit, working behind the material veil, swing for a mo- 
 ment into view, arresting and stunning the spectator. 
 
 "But the collections!" said Tatham, remembering them 
 almost with rehef, speaking in his mother's ear; "what 
 about the collections?" 
 
 " We come now to the second part of the deed of gift," 
 said the silvery voice of the lawyer. And again the 
 astounded cu'cle set itself to hsten. 
 
 "The collections of works of art now contained in 
 Threlfall Tower, I also convey in full property and im- 
 mediate possession to the said Fehcia Melrose, but on the 
 following conditions : 
 
 "Threlfall Tower, or such portions of it as may be 
 necessary, to be maintained 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 upon be- 
 tween Claude Faversham and Felicia Melrose, to be set 
 aside for the maintenance of the building, the expenses of 
 installation, and the endowment of the staff; and a set 
 of rooms in the west wing to be appropriated to the private 
 residence of a curator, who is to be appointed, 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 second sheet came to an end. 
 
504 THE IVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 There was a silence that could be heard. In the midst 
 of it Faversham rose. He was agitated and a little in- 
 coherent. 
 
 "The rest of what has to be said is not a formal matter. 
 If Miss Mehose, or her guardians, choose to make me the 
 first Curator of the ThrelfaU Tower Museum, I am willing 
 to accept that office at their hands, and — after, perhaps, 
 a year — I should like to occupy the rooms I have men- 
 tioned in the west wing — with the lady who has now 
 promised to be my wife. I know perhaps better than 
 any one else what the house contains; and I could spend, 
 if not my fife, at any rate a term of years, in making the 
 Tower a palace of art, a centre of design, of training, of 
 suggestion — 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 in the room had grown dim. 
 
 But Fehcia had jumped up. 
 
 "I don't want it all! I won't have it all!" she said in 
 a passionate excitement, "My father hated me. I told 
 him I would never take his money. Why didn't you tell 
 nie — 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 aj^proached her. But suddenly, 
 putting her hands to her face, she ran to the French win- 
 dow of the library, opened it, and rushed into the garden. 
 
 Tatham and his mother looked at each other agliast. 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 505 
 
 "Run after her!" said Victoria in his ear. "Take 
 this shawl!" She handed him a wrap she had brought 
 in upon her am 
 
 " Yes — it's Lfeuember," said Boden, smihng, to Lady 
 Tatham; "but perhaps" — the accent was ironical — 
 "when she comes back the seasons will have changed!" 
 
 The session broke up in excited conversation, of which 
 Faversham was the centre. 
 
 "This is final.f*" said Undershaw, eying him keenly. 
 *'You intend to stand by it.f*" 
 
 "Tierce work it were to do again!'" said Faversham, 
 in a quotation recognized by Undershaw, who generally 
 went to bed with a scientific book on one side of him, and 
 a volume of modern poets on the other. Faversham was 
 now radiant. He stood with his arm round Lydia. Vic- 
 toria had her hand. 
 
 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 garden seat. He put 
 the shawl round her, and stood with his hands in his 
 pockets surveying her. 
 
 "What was the matter, Felicia.?" he asked her, gently. 
 
 "It is ridiculous!" she said, sobbing. "Why wasn't I 
 asked? I don't want a guardian! I won't have you for 
 a guardian ! " And she beat her foot angrily on the paved 
 path. 
 
 Tatham laughed. 
 
 "You'll have to go back and behave nicely, Felicia. 
 Haven't you any thanks for Faversham.? " 
 
 "I never asked him to do it! Hov/ can I look after a!i 
 
506 THE ISIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 that! It'll kill me. I want to sing! I want to go on 
 the stage!" 
 
 He sat down beside her. Her dark head covered with 
 its silky curls, her very black eyes and arched brows in her 
 small pink face, the pointed chin, and tiny mouth, made a 
 very winning figure of her, as she sat there, under a garden 
 vase, and an overhanging yew. And that, although the 
 shawl was huddled round her shoulders, and the eyes were 
 red with tears. 
 
 "You will be able to do anything you hke, Felicia. 
 You will be terribly rich," 
 
 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 I do with it all ! " 
 
 Then as her eyes still searched him, he saw them change 
 — first to soft — then wild. Her colour flamed. She 
 moved farther from him, and tried to put on a business- 
 like air. 
 
 "I want to ask a question." 
 
 ^'Askit. " 
 
 "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! Why can'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 man and a girl — their relations 
 go and talk to each other. They say, 'Will it suit you? ' — 
 
THE IMATING OF LYDIA 507 
 
 the man has so much — the girl has so much — they Hke 
 each other — and — wouldn't it do very well!" 
 
 She sprang up, Tatham had flushed. He looked at her 
 in speechless amazement. She stood opposite him, mak- 
 ing herself as tall as she could, her hands behind her, 
 
 "Lord Tatham — my mother is ill — my father is 
 dead. You're not my guardian yet — and I don't think 
 I'll ever let you be! So there's nobody but me to do 
 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.f*" 
 
 She held it out. All her excitement had gone, and her 
 colour. She was very pale, and quite calm. 
 
 "My dear Felicia!" cried Tatham, in agitation, taking 
 the hand, "what a position to put your guardian in! 
 You are a great heiress. I can't run off with you like 
 this — before you've had any other chances — before 
 you'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 — the centre of one of those sudden tumults of 
 sense and spirit that sweep a strong 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, and caught 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 tree overhead. . . . 
 
508 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 Meanwhile the hbrary was still full. Nobody had yet 
 left it; and instinctively everybody was watching the 
 French window. 
 
 Two figures appeared there, Felicia in front. She came 
 in, her eyes cast down, a bright spot on either cheek. And 
 while every one in the room held their 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 rose in her throat, and she stopped a moment 
 
 to control it. "Till the other day — I was just a poor 
 girl — who never had a lira to spend. All that we ate — 
 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 that last 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 carit! " 
 
 She looked at him appealing — almost threatening. 
 Faversham smiled at her. 
 
 "That doesn't lie with you! One of your trustees 
 has already signed the deed — 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 amazed faces. 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 happy excitement which pos- 
 
THE ]\LVTING OF LYDIA 509 
 
 sessed her, she could not sit still. Without any clear 
 notion of where she was going, she wandered through the 
 open door into the farther room. There, with a start, 
 and a flush, she recognized her own draw^ings — five of 
 them — in a row. So here, all the time, was her unknown 
 friend; and she had never guessed! 
 
 At a sound in the room behind, she turned, hoping it 
 was Lady Tatham who had come back to her. But she 
 saw that it was Tatham himself. He came into the little 
 room, and stood silently beside her, as though wanting 
 her to speak first. With deep emotion she held out her 
 hand, and wished him joy; her gesture, her eyes, all 
 tenderness. 
 
 "She is so lovely — so touching! She will win every- 
 body's heart!" 
 
 He looked down upon her oddly, like some one op- 
 pressed by feelings and thoughts beyond his own un- 
 ravelling. 
 
 "She has been very unhappy," he said simply. "I 
 think I can take care of her." 
 
 Lydia looked at him anxiously. A sudden slight 
 darkening seemed to come into the day; and for one 
 terrified moment she seemed to see Tatham — dear, 
 generous youth ! — as the truly tragic figure in their high 
 mingled comedy. 
 
 Not Melrose — but Tatham ! Then, swiftly, the cloud 
 passed, and she laughed at herself. 
 
 "Take care of her! You will be the happiest people 
 in the world — save tw^o!" 
 
 He let her talk to him, the inner agitation whatever it 
 was, disappearing. She soothed, she steadied him. Now, 
 
510 THE MATING OF LYDIA 
 
 at last, they were to be true friends — comrades in the 
 tasks and difficulties of life. Without words, 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 see in my dreams!" 
 
 His eyes lit up boyishly. 
 
 "I had to keep them here, for fear you'd find out. 
 Now, we'll hang them properly. " 
 
 It was Victoria who broke the news to Netta Melrose. 
 She, a little wasted ghost among her pillows, received it 
 calmly, yet with a certain bitterness mingled in the calm. 
 What did the money matter to her.? And what had she 
 to do with this English world, and this young lord FeHcia 
 was to marry.? Far within, she hungered, on the threshold 
 of death, as she had hungered twenty years before, for the 
 Italian sun, and the old Italian streets, with the deep eaves 
 and the sculptured doorways, and the smells of leather 
 and macaroni. Her father had loved them, and she had 
 loved her father; all the more passionately the more the 
 world disowned him. She sat in spirit beside his crushed 
 and miserable old age, finding her 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 her to get well. To 
 please them all, Netta made her nurse do her hair, and put 
 on a white jacket which Victoria had embroidered for her. 
 And when Tatham came in to see her, she would have 
 
THE MATING OF LYDIA 511 
 
 timidly kissed his hand had he not been so quick to see and 
 prevent her. 
 
 Meanwhile Victoria, still conscious of the clinging 
 of Felicia's arms about her, was comparing — secretly 
 and inevitably — the daughter-in-law that might have 
 been, with the daughter-in-law that was to be. Now 
 that Fate's throw was irrevocably made, she found 
 herself appreciating Lydia as she had never done while 
 the chances were still open. Lydia had refused her 
 Harry; FeUcia had captured him. Perhaps she resented 
 both actions; and w^ould always — secretly — resent them. 
 But yet, in Lydia — Lydia with her early maturity, her 
 sweet poise and strength of nature, she foresaw the com- 
 panion; in Felicia, the child and darling of her old age. 
 And looking round on this crooked world, she acknowl- 
 edged, now as always, that she had got more than she 
 deserved, more — much more — than her share. 
 
 A conviction that Cyril Boden did his best to sharpen 
 in her. With the invincible optimism of his kind, he 
 scoffed at the misgivings which she confided to him, and 
 to him only, on the score of Felicia's lack of training, her 
 touchy and passionate temper, and the little unscrupulous 
 ways 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 looks at anybody else; 
 but she will have ten children, and never have a thought 
 or an interest that isn't his. And as to the money " 
 
 " Yes — the money ! " said Victoria, dejectedly. " Wliat 
 on earth vnW they do with it all.' Harry is so rich already." 
 
 "Do with it!" Boden turned upon her. "Grow a few 
 
512 THE jVIATING OF LYDIA 
 
 ideas in your landlord garden ! Turn the ground of it — 
 enrich it — change it — try experiments ! How long will 
 this England leave the land to you landowners, unless you 
 bring some mind to it — aye, and the best of your souls! 
 you — the nation's servants! Here is a great tract left 
 desolate by one man's wickedness. Restore the waste 
 places — build — people — teach ! Heavens, what a 
 chance ! " His eyes kindled. "And when Faversham and 
 Lydia come back — 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 a wife — 
 and such a friend! Could a man ask better of the gods! 
 Now is your moment. Rural England turns to you, its 
 natural leaders, to shape it afresh. Shirk — refuse — 
 at your peril ! " 
 
 THE END 
 
 THE CODNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y 
 
^IVEKSITV or CALIFORNIA L.BRAEV 
 
 THIS BOOK IS piJ^™^^^^^*^^ 
 
 STAMPED BELOW 
 
 \S1. 
 
 "^.r 
 
 r"-\ f? ^in 
 
 \ 'Jtil 5 1969 Z 
 
 SEP ^^ ^^^' 
 
 NOV 7 ISV/ 
 SEP 25 1918 
 
 NOV 891929 
 
 30m-6,'l-l 
 
258058 
 
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