as he wrote it down, his eyes sometimes a little dim in
the lamp-light. The very reserve imposed upon him did but strengthen his
passion. Nor could young hopes believe in ultimate defeat.

At the same time, the thought of Faversham held the background of his
mind. Though by now he himself cordially disliked Faversham, he was quite
aware of the attraction the new agent's proud and melancholy personality
might have for women. He had seen it working in Lydia's case, and he had
been uncomfortably aware at one time of the frequent references to
Faversham in Lydia's letters. It was evident that Faversham had pushed
the acquaintance with the Penfolds as far as he could; that he was
Lydia's familiar correspondent, and constantly appealing for help to her
knowledge of the country folk. An excellent road to intimacy, as Tatham
uneasily admitted, considering Lydia's love for the people of the dales,
and her passionate sympathy with the victims of Melrose's ill-deeds.

Ah! but the very causes which had been throwing her into an intimacy with
Faversham must surely now be chilling and drawing her back? Tatham, the
young reformer, felt an honest indignation with the failure of Claude
Faversham to do the obvious and necessary work he had promised to do.
Tatham, the lover, knew very well that if he had come back to find
Faversham the hero of the piece, with a grateful countryside at his feet,
his own jealous anxiety would have been even greater than it was. For it
was great, argue with himself as he might. A dread for which he could not
account often overshadowed him. It was caused perhaps by his constant
memory of Faversham and Lydia on the terrace at Threlfall--of the two
faces turned to each other--of the sudden fusion as it were of the two
personalities in a common rush of memories, interests, and sympathies, in
which he himself had no part....

He put up his letter on the stroke of midnight, and then walked his room
a while longer, struggling with himself and the passion of his desire;
praying that he might win her. Finally he took a well-worn Bible from a
locked drawer, and read some verses from the Gospel of St. John, quieting
himself. He never went to sleep without reading either a psalm or some
portion of the New Testament. The influence of his Eton tutor had made
him a Christian of a simple and convinced type; and his mother's
agnosticism had never affected him. But he and she never talked of
religion.

Nothing arrived from