"May he not share with her? Aren't they immense?"

"At present he takes everything--so they say. It looks ugly. A complete
stranger--worming himself in a few weeks or months into an old man's
confidence--and carrying off the inheritance from a pair of helpless
women! And making himself meanwhile the tool of a tyrant!--aiding and
abetting him in all his oppressions!"

"Oh, Lady Tatham! no, no!" cried Lydia--the cry seemed wrung from
her--"I--we--have only known Mr. Faversham this short time--but _how_
can one believe--"

She paused, her eyes under their vividly marked eyebrows painfully
searching the face of her companion.

Victoria said to herself, "Heavens!--she _is_ in love with him--and she
is letting Harry sit up at nights to write to her!"

Her mother's heart beat fast with anger. But she held herself in hand.

"Well; as I have said, we shall soon be able to test him," she repeated,
coldly; "we shall soon know what to think. His letter will show whether
he is a man with feeling and conscience--a gentleman--or an adventurer!"

There was silence. Lydia was thinking passionately of Mainstairs and
of the deep tones of a man's voice--"If _you_ condemn and misunderstand
me--then indeed I shall lose heart!"

A humming sound could be heard in the far distance.

"Here they are," said Lady Tatham rising. Victoria's half-masculine
beauty had never been so formidable as it was this afternoon. Deep in her
heart, she carried both pity for Harry, and scorn for this foolish girl
walking beside her, who could not recognize her good fortune when it
cried out to her.

They hastened back to the drawing-room; and at the same moment Tatham and
Felicia walked in.

Felicia advanced with perfect self-command, her small face flushed with
pink by the motion of the car. In addition to the blue frock, Victoria's
maid had now provided her with a short cape of black silk, and a wide
straw hat, to which the girl herself had given a kind of tilt, a touch of
audacity, in keeping with all the rest of her personality.

As she came in, she glanced round the room with her uncannily large
eyes--her mother's eyes--taking in all the company. She dropped a little
curtsey to Mrs. Penfold, in whom the excitement of this sudden appearance
of Melrose's daughter had produced sheer and simple dumbness. She allowed
her hand to be shaken by Lydia and Susy, looking sharply at the former;
while Susy looked sharply at her. Then she subsided into a corner