remember? It's _thrilling_!"

Lydia rose obediently, and Mrs. Penfold slipped into her seat. Lydia,
strolling with Tatham along the rampart wall which crowned the sandstone
cliff, 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 daughter _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 eyebrows, 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!_ When will you come to see me again?"

"Will it be permitted?" She laid a finger 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 perceived the nascent comradeship between them,
and the reason for it, he felt a first vague suffering.

A step approached through the sitting-room of which the door was open 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 surv