“I suppose even dying can be made more unpleasant by the police,” said Victoria.  She pondered, walking thoughtfully beside a rather thwarted and impatient youth, eager to play the champion of the distressed in his own way; and that, possibly, from more motives than one.  Suddenly her face cleared.

“I will go myself!” she said, laying her hand on her son’s arm.

“Mother!”

“Yes!  I’ll go myself.  Leave it to me, Harry.  I will drive over to Threlfall to-morrow evening—­quite alone and without notice.  I had some influence with him once,” she said, with her eyes on the ground.

Tatham protested warmly.  The smallest allusion to any early relation between his mother and Melrose was almost intolerable to him.  But Lady Tatham fought for her idea.  She pointed out again that Melrose might very well have some information that could be used with ghastly effect even upon a dying man; that Netta was much attached to her father, and would probably not make up her mind to any drastic step whatever in face of Melrose’s threats.

“I don’t so much care about Mrs. Melrose,” exclaimed Tatham.  “We can give her money, and make her comfortable, if it comes to that.  But it’s the girl—­and the hideous injustice of that fellow there—­that Faversham—­ousting her from her rights—­getting the old man into his power—­boning his property—­and then writing hypocritical notes like that!”

He stood before her, flushed and excited; a broad-shouldered avenger of the sex, such as any distressed maiden might have been glad to light upon.  But again Victoria was aware that the case was not as simple as it sounded.  However, she was no less angry than he.  Mother and son were on the brink of making common cause against a grasping impostor; who was not to be allowed to go off—­either with money that did not belong to him, or with angelic sympathies that still less belonged to him.  Meanwhile on this point, whatever may have been in their minds, they said on this occasion not a word.  Victoria pressed her plan.  And in the end Tatham most reluctantly consented that she should endeavour to force a surprise interview with Melrose the following day.

They returned to the little drawing-room where Felicia Melrose, it seemed, had been giving the Penfolds a difficult half hour.  For as soon as the Tathams had stepped into the garden, she had become entirely monosyllabic; after a drive from Duddon at Harry Tatham’s side, during which, greatly to her host’s surprise, she had suddenly and unexpectedly found her tongue, talking, in a torrent of questions, all the way, insatiably.

Mrs. Penfold, on her side, could do little but stare at “the heiress of Threlfall.”  Susy, studying her with shining eyes, tried to make her talk, to little purpose.