s much the heir as
ever! I find him bewildered; for his _mind_, in that tragic half-hour,
had absolutely renounced. What he will do, no one can say. As to the
murderer, we have discussed all possible clues--with little light. But
the morning will doubtless bring some new facts. That Faversham has not
the smallest fraction of responsibility for the murder is clear to any
sane man who talks with him. But that there will be a buzz of slanderous
tongues as soon as ever the story is public property, I am convinced. So
I send you these fresh particulars as quickly as possible--for your
guidance."

Tatham thrust the letter into his pocket, and rode away through the
December dawn. His mother would soon be in the thick of her own task with
the two unconscious ones at Duddon. _His_ duty lay--with Lydia! The
"friend" was all alive in him, reaching out to her in a manly and
generous emotion.

The winter sunrise was a thing of beauty. It chimed with the intensity of
feeling in the young man's breast. The sky was a light saffron over the
eastern fells, and the mountains rose into it indistinguishably blue, the
light mists wrapped about their feet. Among the mists, plane behind
plane, the hedgerow trees, still faintly afire with their last leaf,
stood patterned on the azure of the fells. And as he rode on, the first
rays of the light mounting a gap in the Helvellyn range struck upon the
valleys below. The shadows ran blue along the frosty grass; here and
there the withered leaf began to blaze; the streams rejoiced. Under their
sycamores and yews, the white-walled farms sent up their morning smoke;
the cocks were crowing; and as he mounted the upland on which the cottage
stood, from a height in front of him, a tiny church--one of the smallest
and loneliest in the fells--sent forth a summoning bell. The sound, with
all its weight of association, sank and echoed through the morning
stillness; the fells repeated it, a voice of worship toward God, of
appeal toward man.

In Tatham, fashioned to the appeal by all the accidents of blood and
nurture, the sound made for a deepened spirit and a steadied mood. He
pressed on toward the little house and garden that now began to show
through the trees.

Lydia had not long come downstairs when she heard the horse at the gate.
The cottage breakfast was nominally at half-past eight. But Mrs. Penfold
never appeared, and Susy was always professionally late, it being
understood that inspiration--when