And straightway on the dusk rose the image of Tatham—­Tatham on horseback, as she had seen him set out for the hunt that morning; and she felt her eyes grow a little wet.  Why?  Oh! because he was so tall and splendid—­and he sat his horse like a king—­and everybody loved him—­and she was living in his house—­and so, whether he would or no, he must take notice of her sometimes.  One evening had he not let her mend his glove?  And another evening, when she was practising her dancing for Lady Tatham, had he not come in to look?  Ah, well, wait till she could sing and dance properly, till—­perhaps—­he saw her on the stage!  Her newly discovered singing voice, which was the excitement of the moment for Lady Tatham and Netta, was to Felicia like some fairy force within her, struggling to be at large, which would some day carve out her fortunes, and bring her to Tatham—­on equal terms.

For her pride had flourished and fed upon her love.  She no longer talked of Tatham to her mother or any one else.  But deep in her heart lay the tenacious, pursuing instinct.

And besides—­suppose—­she made an impression on her father—­on his cruel old heart?  Such things do happen.  It’s silly to say they don’t.  “I am pretty—­and now my clothes are all right—­and my hands have come nearly white.  He’ll see I’m not a girl to be ashamed of.  And if my father did give me a dot—­why then I’d send my mother to his mother!  That’s how we’d do it in Italy.  I’m as well-born as he—­nearly—­and if I had a dot—­”

The yellow-haired girl at any rate was quite out of the way.  No one spoke of her; no one mentioned her.  That was all right.

And as to Threlfall and her father, if she was able to soften him at all it would not be in the least necessary to drive that bad young man, Mr. Faversham, to despair.  Compromise—­bargaining—­settle most things.  She fell to imagining—­with a Latin clearness and realism—­how it might be handled.  Only it would have to be done before her father died.  For if Mr. Faversham once took all the money and all the land, there would be no dot for her, even if he were willing to give it her.  For Lord Tatham would never take a farthing from Mr. Faversham, not even through his wife.  “And so it would be no use to me,” thought Felicia, quietly, but regretfully.

Whitebeck station.  Out she tripped, asked her way to Threlfall, and hurried off into the dark, followed by the curious looks of the station-master.

She was soon at the park gate, and passed through it with a beating heart.  She had heard of the bloodhounds; and the sound of a bark in the distance—­though it was only the collie at the farm—­gave her a start of terror.

The Whitebeck gate was but a short distance from the house, and as she turned a corner, the Tower rose suddenly before her.  She held her breath; it looked so big, so darkly magnificent.  She thought of all the tales that had been told her, the rooms full of silver and gold—­the arazzi—­the stucchi—­the cabinets and sculpture.  She had grown up in an atmosphere of perpetual bric-a-brac; she had seen the big Florentine shops; she could imagine what it was like.