ham day by day; and he had not been able to conceal 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 intellectual 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 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 between men and women were neither so clear nor so supporting
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, irresistible 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. She did her best to reward him;
and so far her "ideas" had worked.

Faversham's letters, on the other hand, from the governing event of the
day, had now become a pain and a distress. 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, somewhere about the opening of
September. The change was evidently connected with the return of Mr.
Melrose from abroad just at that time. The letters grew rambling,
evasive, contradictory. Doubt and bitterness began to appear in them.
She asked for facts about his work, an