He beheld a young and rather pretty woman, with a curiously flat head, staring black eyes, and sharp chin.  She had a child on her knee of about a year old, an elf with delicately proud features, and a frowning, passionate look.

Who were they?  The photograph was stained with age and damp; deep, too, in dust.  From the woman’s dress it must be a good many years old.

The answer suggested itself at once.  He was now inhabiting Mrs. Melrose’s room, which, according to Mrs. Dixon, had been closed for years, from the date of her flight.  The photograph must have been hers; the child was hers—­and Melrose’s!  The likeness indeed cried out.

He replaced the photograph, his mind absorbed in the excitement of its discovery.  Where were they now—­the forlorn pair?  He had no doubt whatever that they were alive—­at the old man’s mercy, somewhere.

He let in the dawn, and stood long in thought beside the open window.  But in the end, he satisfied himself.  He would find a way of meeting all just claims, when the time arrived.  Why not?

BOOK III

XIII

When Delorme left Duddon, carrying with him a huge full-length of Victoria, which must, Victoria felt, entirely cut her off from London during the ensuing spring and summer—­for it was to go into the Academy, and on no account could she bear to find herself in the same room with it—­he left behind him a cordial invitation to the “little painting girl” to come and work in his Somersetshire studio—­where he was feverishly busy with a great commission for an American town-hall for the remainder of August and September.  Such invitations were extraordinarily coveted; and Lydia, “advanced” as she was, should have been jubilant.  She accepted for her art’s sake; but no one could have called her jubilant.

Mrs. Penfold, who for some weeks had been in a state of nervous and rather irritable mystification with regard to Lydia, noticed the fact at once.  She consulted Susy.

“I can’t make her out!” said the mother plaintively.  “Oh, Susy, do you know what’s been going on?  Lydia has been at Duddon at least six times this last fortnight—­and Lord Tatham has been here—­and nothing happens.  And all the time Lydia keeps telling me she’s not in love with him, and doesn’t mean to marry him.  But what’s he doing?”

Susan was looking dishevelled and highly strung.  She had spent the afternoon in writing the fifth act of a tragedy on Belisarius; and it was more than a fortnight since Mr. Weston, the young vicar of Dunscale, had been to call.  Her cheeks were sallow; her dark eyes burnt behind their thick lashes.

“Suppose he’s done it?” she said gloomily.

Mrs. Penfold gave a little shriek.

“Done what?  What do you mean?”

“He’s proposed—­and she’s said ‘No.’”