“And if any attempt is made to blackmail or coerce Mr. Melrose, he will be obliged, much against his will, to draw the attention of the Italian police to certain matters relating to Mr. Smeath, of which he has the evidence in his possession.  He warns Mrs. Melrose that her father’s career cannot possibly bear examination.

“I regret that my reply cannot be more satisfactory to you.

“Believe me,

“Yours faithfully,

“CLAUDE FAVERSHAM.”

Victoria had turned pale.

“How abominable!  Why, her father is bedridden and dying!”

“So I told Faversham—­like a fool.  For it only—­apparently—­gives Melrose a greater power of putting on the screw.  Well, now look here—­here’s something else.”  He drew another letter from his pocket, and handed it to her.

Victoria unfolded a second note from Faversham—­marked “confidential,” and written in evident agitation.

“MY DEAR TATHAM: 

“I am powerless.  Let me implore you to keep Mrs. Melrose quiet!  Privately a great deal may be done for her.  If she will only trust herself to me, in my private capacity, I will see that she is properly supplied for the future.  But she will simply bring disaster on herself if she attempts to force Melrose.  She—­and you—­know what he is.  I beg of you to be guided—­and to guide her—­as I advise.”

“An attempt, you see, to buy us off,” said Tatham scornfully.  “I propose to take the night train from Pengarth this evening, and consult old Fledhow to-morrow morning.”

“Old Fledhow,” alias James Morton Fledhow, solicitor, head of one of that small group of firms which, between them, have the great estates of England in their pigeon-holes, had been the legal adviser of the Tatham family for two generations.  Precipitation is not the badge of his tribe; but Victoria threw herself upon this very natural and youthful impulse, before even it could reach “old Fledhow.”

“My dear Harry, be cautious!  What did Mrs. Melrose say?  Of course you showed her the letter?”

Tatham candidly admitted that he hardly knew what Mrs. Melrose had said.  The letter had thrown her into a great state of agitation, and she had cried a good deal.  “Poor papa, poor papa!” pronounced with the accent on the first syllable, seemed to have been all that she had been able to articulate.

“You know, Harry, there may be a great deal in it?” Victoria’s countenance showed her doubts.

“In the threat about her father?  Pure bluff, mother!—­absolute bluff!  As for the bronze—­a wife can’t steal from her husband.  And under these circumstances!—­I should like to see a British jury that would touch her!”

“But she admits that half the proceeds went to her father.”

“Twenty years ago?” Tatham’s shrug was magnificent.  “I tell you he’ll get no change out of that!”

“But he hints at other things?”

“Bluff again!  Why the man’s helpless in his bed!”