idler
who in the May meadows had first set eyes on Lydia Penfold.

He sketched for her his dream of what might be done with the treasures of
the Tower.

Through all his ugly wrestle with Melrose, with its disappointments and
humiliations, his excavator's joy in the rescue and the setting in order
of Melrose's amazing possessions had steadily grown of late, the only
pleasure of his day had come from handling, cleaning and cataloguing the
lovely forgotten things of which the house was full. These surfaces of
ivory and silver, of stucco or marble, of wood or canvas, pottery or
porcelain, on which the human mind, in love with some fraction of the
beauty interwoven with the world, had stamped an impress of itself,
sometimes exquisite, sometimes whimsical, sometimes riotous--above all,
_living_, life reaching to life, through the centuries: these, from a
refuge or an amusement, had become an abiding delight, something,
moreover, that seemed to point to a definite lifework--paid honourably by
cash as well as pleasure.

What would she think, he asked her, of a great Museum for the north--a
centre for students--none of your brick and iron monstrosities, rising
amid slums, but a beautiful house showing its beautiful possessions to
all who came; and set amid the streams and hills? And in one wing of it,
perhaps, curator's rooms--where Lydia, the dear lover of nature and art,
might reign and work--fitly housed?...

But his brow contracted before she could smile.

"Some time perhaps--some time--not now! Let's forget--for a little.
Lydia--come away with me--let's be alone. Oh, my dear!--let's be alone!"

She was in his arms again, calming the anguish that would recur--of those
nights in the Tower after the murder, when it had seemed to him that not
Brand, but himself, was the prey that a whole world was hunting, with
Hate for the huntsman.

But presently, as they clung to each other in the firelight, he roused
himself to say:

"Now, let me see your mother; and then I must go. There is much to do.
You will get a note from Lady Tatham to-night."

She looked up startled. And then it came over her, that he had never
really told her what he meant to do with Melrose's money. She had no
precise idea. Their minds jumped together, and she saw the first laugh in
his dark eyes.

"I shan't tell you! Beloved--be good and wait! But you guess already. We
meet to-morrow--at Duddon."

She asked no question. The thin mystery--for her th