“And it is possible also that if he is the heir, he means to make it up to Felicia, when he comes into it all.”

Tatham laughed.

“To throw her a spare bone?  Very likely.  But how are we to know that Melrose won’t bind him by all sorts of restrictions?  A vindictive old villain like that will do anything.  Then we shall have Faversham calmly saying, ’Very sorry I can’t oblige you!  But if I modify the terms of the will in your favour, I forfeit the estates.’  Besides isn’t it monstrous—­damnable—­that Melrose’s daughter should owe to charity—­the charity of a fellow who had never heard of Melrose or Threlfall six months ago—­what is her right—­her plain and simple right?”

Victoria agreed.  All these ancestral ideas of family maintenance, and the practical rights dependent on family ties, which were implied in Harry’s attitude, were just as real to her as to his simpler mind.  Yet she knew very well that Netta and Felicia Melrose were fast becoming to him the mere symbols and counters of a struggle that affected him more intimately, more profoundly than any crusading effort for the legal and moral rights of a couple of strangers could possibly have done.

Lydia had broken with him, and his hopes were dashed.  Why?  Because another man had come upon the scene whose influence upon her was clear—­disastrously clear.

“If he were a decent fellow—­I’d go out of her life—­without a word.  But he’s a thievish intriguer!—­and I don’t intend to hold my hand till I’ve brought him out in his true colours before her and the world.  Then—­if she chooses—­with her eyes open—­let her take him!” It was thus his mother imagined his thought, and she was not far from the truth.  And meanwhile the sombre changes in the boyish face made her own heart sore.  For they told of an ill heat of blood, and an embittered soul.

At luncheon he sat depressed and silent, doing his duty with an effort to his mother’s guests.  Netta also was in the depths.  She had lost the power of rapid recuperation that youth gave to Felicia, and in spite of the comforts of Threlfall her aspect was scarcely less deplorable than when she arrived.  Moreover she had cried much since the delivery of the Threlfall letter the day before.  Her eyes were red, and her small face disfigured.  Felicia, on the other hand, sat with her nose in the air, evidently despising her mother’s tears, and as sharply observant as ever of the sights about her—­the quietly moving servants, the flowers, and silver, the strange, nice things to eat.  Tatham, absorbed in his own thoughts, did not perceive how, in addition, she watched the master of the house; Victoria was uncomfortably aware of it.

After luncheon Tatham took up a Bradshaw lying on a table in the panelled hall, where they generally drank coffee, and looked up the night mail to Euston.

“I shall catch it at Carlisle,” he said to his mother, book in hand.  “There will be time to hear your report before I go.”