d 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 men. "Yes, you can!"
thought Tatham; "you can resign 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 reflection, 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 quagmire 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 realized that he himself had been
haunted of late by the cons