ham had been
increasingly conscious of liking, even respect, for a much-abused man.

Oh, it was--it would be--all right! Lydia would see to it!

Lydia! What a letter that was the post had brought him--what a letter,
and what a woman! He sighed, thinking with a rueful though satiric spirit
of all those protestations of hers in the summer, as to independence,
a maiden life, and the rest. And now she confessed that, from the
beginning, it had been Faversham. Why? What had she seen in him? The
young man's vanity no less than his love had been sore smitten. But the
pain was passing. And she was, and would always be, a dear woman, to whom
he was devoted.

He had pushed aside his letters, and was pacing his library. Presently he
turned and went into a small inner room, his own particular den, where he
kept his college photographs, some stuffed and now decaying beasts,
victims of his earliest sport, and many boxes of superb toy soldiers, the
passion of his childhood. There on the wall, screened from vulgar eyes,
hung five water-colour drawings. He went to look at them--sentimentally.
Had the buying of anything in the world ever given him so much pleasure?

As he stood there, he was suddenly aware of a voice--girl's voice
overhead, singing. He turned and saw that the window was open to the mild
December air. No doubt the window on the story above was open too. It
was Felicia--and the sound ceased as suddenly as it had risen. Just a
phrase, a stormy phrase, from an Italian folk-song which he had heard
her sing to his mother. He caught the usual words--"_morte"_--"_amore."_
They were the staple of all her songs; to tell the truth he was often
bored by them. But the harsh, penetrating note--as though it were a note
of anger--in the sudden sound, arrested him; and when it became silent,
he still thought of it. It was a strange, big voice for so small a
creature.

He was glad to hear that she could sing again. Nobody imagined that she
could regret her father; but certainly the murder had sharply affected
her nerves and imagination. She had got hold of the local paper before
they could keep it from her; and for nights afterward, according to his
mother she had not been able to sleep. He himself had tried of late to
distract her. He had asked her to ride with him; he had brought her books
and flowers. To no avail. She was very short and shy with him; only
happy, apparently, with his mother, to whom her devotion was
extraordinary.