"I'd sooner be shot than see her marry that fellow!"

"Ah! you suspect that?"

"It looks like it," he said reluctantly. "And unless I'm much mistaken,
he's a mean cad! But--for her sake--we'll make sure--we'll give him every
chance."

"It is of course possible," said Victoria grudgingly, "that he has
honestly tried to do something for the Melroses."

"I daresay!" said Tatham, with a shrug.

"And it is possible also that if he is the heir, he means to make it up
to Felicia, when he comes into it all."

Tatham laughed.

"To throw her a spare bone? Very likely. But how are we to know that
Melrose won't bind him by all sorts of restrictions? A vindictive
old villain like that will do anything. Then we shall have Faversham
calmly saying, 'Very sorry I can't oblige you! But if I modify the
terms of the will in your favour, I forfeit the estates.' Besides
isn't it monstrous--damnable--that Melrose's daughter should owe to
_charity_--the charity of a fellow who had never heard of Melrose or
Threlfall six months ago--what is her _right_--her plain and simple
right?"

Victoria agreed. All these ancestral ideas of family maintenance, and the
practical rights dependent on family ties, which were implied in Harry's
attitude, were just as real to her as to his simpler mind. Yet she knew
very well that Netta and Felicia Melrose were fast becoming to him the
mere symbols and counters of a struggle that affected him more
intimately, more profoundly than any crusading effort for the legal and
moral rights of a couple of strangers could possibly have done.

Lydia had broken with him, and his hopes were dashed. Why? Because
another man had come upon the scene whose influence upon her was
clear--disastrously clear.

"If he were a decent fellow--I'd go out of her life--without a word. But
he's a thievish intriguer!--and I don't intend to hold my hand till I've
brought him out in his true colours before her and the world. Then--if
she chooses--with her eyes open--let her take him!" It was thus his
mother imagined his thought, and she was not far from the truth. And
meanwhile the sombre changes in the boyish face made her own heart sore.
For they told of an ill heat of blood, and an embittered soul.

At luncheon he sat depressed and silent, doing his duty with an effort to
his mother's guests. Netta also was in the depths. She had lost the power
of rapid recuperation that youth gave to Felicia, and in spite of the
comforts of Th