How dim they seemed, those far-off days!—­when for some two or three years, either in London or in Paris, where her father was Ambassador, she had been in frequent contact with a group of young men—­of young “bloods”—­conspicuous in family and wealth, among whom Edmund Melrose was the reckless leader of a dare-devil set.  She thought of a famous picture of the young Beckford, by Lawrence, to which Melrose on the younger side of forty had been frequently compared.  The same romantic beauty of feature, the same liquid depth of eye, the same splendid carriage; and, combined with these, the same insolence and selfishness.  There had been in Victoria’s earlier youth moments when to see him enter a ballroom was to feel her head swim with excitement; when to carry him off from a rival was a passionate delight; when she coveted his praise, and dreaded his sarcasm.  And yet—­it was perfectly true what she had said to Harry.  She had never been in love with him.  The imagination of an “unlessoned girl” had been fired; but when the glamour in which it had wrapped the man had been torn away by the disclosure of some ugly facts concerning him; when she broke with him in disgust, and induced others to break with him; it was not her feelings, not her heart, which had suffered.

Nevertheless, so complex a thing is a woman, that as Victoria Tatham drew nearer to the Tower, and to Melrose, she felt herself strangely melting toward him—­a prey to pity and the tears of things.  She alone in this countryside had been a witness of his meteor like youth; she alone could set it beside his sordid and dishonoured age.

What did she hope to do with him?  The plight of his wife and daughter had roused her strongest and most indignant sympathy.  The cry of wrong or injustice had always found her fiercely responsive.  Whatever an outsider could do to help Melrose’s local victims she had done, not once but many times.  Her mind was permanently in revolt against him, both as a man and a landlord.  She had watched and judged him for years.  Yet, now that yet another of his misdeeds was to bring her again into personal contact with him, her pulse quickened; some memory of the old ascendency survived.

It was a still and frosty evening.  As the motor drew up in the walled enclosure before the Tower, the noise of its brakes echoed through the profound silence in which the Tower was wrapped.  No sign of life in the dark front; no ray of light anywhere from its shuttered windows.

Yet, to her astonishment, as she alighted, and before she had rung the bell, the front door was thrown open, and Dixon with a couple of dogs at his heels ran down the steps.

At sight however of the veiled and cloaked lady who had descended from the motor, the old man stopped short, evidently surprised.  With an exclamation Victoria did not catch, he retreated to the threshold of the house.

She mounted rapidly, not noticing that a telegraph boy on a bicycle had come wheeling into the forecourt behind her.