And before Netta’s inward eye there stretched the interminable days and weeks ahead, no less than the interminable weeks and months she had already lived through, in this discomfort of body, and this loneliness of spirit.

After supper she walked resolutely into her husband’s littered study and demanded that she and Anastasia and the baby should go with him to the Continent.  He, she understood, would stop in Paris.  She and the child would push on to Florence, where she could stay the summer with her people, at no greater cost than at the Tower.  The change was necessary both for her and Felicia, and go she would.

Melrose flatly and violently refused.  What did she want better than the Tower?  She had as much service, and as much luxury as her antecedents entitled her to; and he neither could nor would provide her with anything more.  He was heavily in debt, and had no money to spend on railway tickets.  And he entirely disapproved of her relations, especially of her father, who might any day find himself “run in” by the Italian authorities for illicit smuggling of pictures out of the country.  He declined to allow his child to become familiar with such a circle.

Netta listened to him with tight lips, her pale face strangely flushed.  When she saw that her appeal was quite fruitless she went away, and she and Anastasia sat up whispering together far into the night.

Early next morning Melrose departed, leaving a letter for his wife, in which he informed her that he had left money with Mr. Tyson for the household expenses, and for the few shillings he supposed she would want as pocket money.  He advised her to be out a great deal, and assured her that the Cumbria summer, when it came, was delightful.  And he signed himself “your affectionate husband, Edmund Melrose.”

Mrs. Dixon went into Pengarth for shopping on the fly which conveyed Melrose to the station, and was to come out by carrier.  After their departure there was no one left in the house but the deaf old woman.  Netta and her maid preceeded to carry out a plan they had been long maturing.  Anastasia had a few pounds left of her Christmas wages; enough to carry them to London; and for the rest, they had imagined an excellent device.

The bronze Hermes had been left by Melrose in a cupboard in a locked room on the first floor.  When Mrs. Dixon came back that night, she discovered that Mrs. Melrose, with her child and maid had quitted the house.  They had apparently harnessed the cart and horse themselves, and had driven into Pengarth, taking a labourer with them to bring the cart home.  They had carried all their personal belongings away with them; and, after a while, Mrs. Dixon, poking about, discovered that the door of one of the locked rooms had been forced.

She also noticed, in one of the open drawers of Mrs. Melrose’s bedroom, a photograph, evidently forgotten, lying face downward.  Examining it, she saw that it was a picture of Netta, with the baby, taken apparently in Italy during the preceding summer.  The Cumbrian woman, shrewdly observant like all her race, was struck by the tragic differences between the woman of the picture and the little blighted creature who had just made a flitting from the Tower.