te 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 sympathy, 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 confident 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.

"I 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."

Of course she would be patient. But she was triumphantly 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. Indignant 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 u