to foot. "My babe as
wor born yesterday, deed this mornin'; an' they say t' wife 'ull lig
beside it afore night."

There was a sombre silence. Faversham broke it. "I must see the nurses,"
he said to Lydia; "but again, I beg of you to go! I will send you news."

"I will wait for you. Don't be afraid. I won't go indoors."

He went round the houses, watched by the people, as they stood at their
doors. He himself was paying two nurses, and now Lady Tatham had sent two
more. He satisfied himself that they had all the stores which Undershaw
had ordered; he left a donation of money with one of them, and then he
returned to Lydia.

They walked together in silence; while a boy from the village led
Faversham's horse some distance in the rear. All that Faversham had meant
to say had dropped away from him. His planned defence of himself could
find no voice.

"You too blame me?" he said, at last, hoarsely.

She shook her head sadly.

"I don't know what to think. But when we last met--you were so hopeful--"

"Yes--like a fool. But what can you do--with a madman."

"Can you bear--to be still in his employ?"

She looked up, her beautiful eyes bright and challenging.

"Mainstairs is not the whole estate. If I'm powerless here--I'm not
elsewhere--"

She was silent. He turned upon her.

"If _you_ are to misunderstand and mistrust me--then indeed I shall lose
heart!"

The feeling, one might almost say the anguish, in his dark, commanding
face moved her strangely. Condemnation and pity--aye, and something else
than pity--struggled within her. For the first time Lydia began to know
herself. She was strangely shaken.

"I will try--and understand," she said in a voice that trembled.

"All my power of doing anything depends on it!" he said, passionately. "I
can say truly that things would have been infinitely worse if I had not
been here. And I have worked like a horse to better them--before you
came."

She was silent. His appeal to her as to his judge hurt her poignantly.
Yet what could she do or say? Her natural longing was to console; but
where were the elements of consolation? _Could_ anything be worse than
what she had seen and heard?

The mingled emotion which silenced her, warned her not to continue the
conversation. She perceived the opening of a side-lane leading back to
the river and the Keswick road.

"This is my best way, I think," she said, pausing, and holding out her
hand. "The pony-cart is waiting for m