ly they passed a
portrait on the wall, an enlarged photograph of a boy in cricketing
dress.

Underneath it was written:

"_Harry. Eton Eleven. July 189---_."

Felicia for the first time showed a gleam of interest. She stopped to
look at the picture.

"Who is it?"

"It must be her son, Lord Tatham."

The girl's sunken eyes seemed to drink in the pleasant image of the
English boy.

"Shall we see him?"

"Of course. To-morrow. Now come to bed!"

Felicia's head was no sooner on the pillow than she plunged into sleep.
Netta, on the other hand, was for a long time sleepless. The luxury of
the bed and the room was inexpressibly delightful and reviving to her.
Recollections of a small bare house in the Apuan Alps above Lucca, and of
all that she and Felicia 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 reckless.

"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
marriage?

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 astonishment.

"Her ladyship expects you, my lord," replied Hurst evasively, throwing
open the door of the morning-room. Victoria was disclosed; pacing up and
down, her