A bell below warned him of Tatham’s arrival.  He hurriedly took out papers from various drawers, and arranged them on the office table.  They related to the matter on which he thought Tatham might wish to confer with him.

His door opened.

“Hullo, Faversham!  Hope you’re quite strong,” said the incomer.

“All right, thank you.”  The two men shook hands.  “You’ve been doing Scotland as usual?”

“Two months of it.  Beastly few birds.  Not at all sorry to come back.  Well, now—­I’ve got something very surprising to talk to you about.  I say”—­he looked round him—­“we shan’t be disturbed?”

Faversham rose, gave a telephone order and resumed his seat.

“Who do you think we’ve got staying at Duddon?”

“I haven’t an idea.  Have a cigarette?”

“Thanks.  Has Melrose ever talked to you about his wife and daughter?”

Faversham stared, took a whiff at his cigarette, and put it down.

“Are you her to tell me anything about them?”

“They are staying at Duddon at this moment,” said Tatham, watching his effect; “arrived last night—­penniless and starving.”

Faversham flushed.

“You’re sure they are the right people?” he said after a pause.

Tatham laughed.

“My mother remembers Mrs. Melrose twenty years ago; and the daughter, if it weren’t that she’s little more than skin and bone, would be the image of Melrose—­on a tiny scale.  Now, look here! this is their story.”

The young man settled down to it, telling it just as it had been told to him, until toward the end a tolerably hot indignation forced its way, and he used some strong language with regard to Melrose, under which Faversham sat silent.

“I’ve no doubt he’s told you the same lies he’s told everybody else!” exclaimed Tatham, after waiting a little for comments that were slow in coming.

“I was quite aware they were alive,” said Faversham, slowly.

“You were, by Jove!”

“And I have already appealed to Melrose to behave reasonably toward them.”

“Reasonably!  Good heavens!” Tatham had flushed in his turn.  “A man is bound to behave rather more than ’reasonably’—­toward his daughter, anyway—­I don’t care what the mother had done.  I tell you the girl’s a real beauty, or will be, when she’s properly fed and dressed.  She’s a girl anybody might be proud of.  And there he’s been wallowing in wealth, while his child has been starving.  And threatening to stop their wretched allowance!  Well, you know as well as I, what public opinion will be, if these facts get about.  Public opinion is pretty strong already.  But, by George, when this is added to the rest!  Can’t you persuade him to behave himself before it all gets into the papers?  It will get into them of course.  There the poor things are, and we mean to stand by them.  There must be a proper provision for the wife—­that the courts can get out of him.  And as to the girl—­why, she is his heiress!—­and ought to be acknowledged as such.”