“Ah, but consider it again,” she pleaded, earnestly.  “You do not know what you are refusing—­how much, and how little.  All that is asked is that you should acknowledge them—­provide for them.  Let them stay here a few weeks in the year—­what could it matter to you in this immense house?—­or if that is impossible, at least give your wife a proper allowance—­you would spend it three times over in a day on things like these”—­her eye glanced toward a superb ewer and dish, of verre eglomisee, standing between her and Melrose—­“and let your daughter take her place as your heiress!  She ought to marry early—­and marry brilliantly.  And later—­perhaps—­in her children—­”

Melrose stood up.

“I shall not follow you into these dreams,” he said fiercely.  “She is not my heiress—­and she never will be.  The whole of my property”—­he spoke with hammered emphasis—­“will pass at my death to my friend and agent and adopted son—­Claude Faversham.”

He spoke with an excitement his physical state no longer allowed him to conceal.  At last—­he was defeating this woman who had once defeated him; he was denying and scorning her, as she had once denied and scorned him.  That her cause was an impersonal and an unselfish one made no difference.  He knew the strength of her character and her sympathies.  It was sweet to him to refuse her something she desired.  She had never yet given him the opportunity!  In the twenty years since they had last faced each other, he was perfectly conscious that he had lost mentally, morally, physically; whereas she—­his enemy—­bore about with her, even in her changed beauty, the signs of a life lived fruitfully—­a life that had been worth while.  His bitter perception of it, his hidden consciousness that he had probably but a short time, a couple of years at most, to live, only increased his satisfaction in the “No”—­the contemptuous and final “No!” that he had opposed, and would oppose, to her impertinent interference with his affairs.

Victoria sat regarding him silently, as he walked to the mantelpiece, rearranged a few silver objects standing upon it, and then turned—­confronting her again.

“You have made Mr. Faversham your heir?” she asked him after a pause.

“I have.  And I shall take good care that he does nothing with my property when he inherits it so as to undo my wishes with regard to it.”

“That is to say—­you will not even allow him to make—­himself—­provision for your wife and daughter?”

“Beyond what was indicated in the letter to your son?  No! certainly not.  I shall take measures against anything of the sort.”

Victoria rose.

“And he accepts your condition—­your bequest to him, on these terms?”

Melrose smiled.

“Certainly.  Why not?”

“I am sorry for Mr. Faversham!” said Victoria, in a different voice, the colour sparkling on her cheek.

“Because you think there will be a public opinion against him—­that he will be boycotted in this precious county?  Make yourself easy, Lady Tatham.  A fortune such as he will inherit provides an easy cure for such wounds.”