“Well, I didn’t build the house!” thought the agent with a quiet exasperation in his mind, the result of much correspondence; and having completed his tour of inspection, which included the modest supper now cooking according to Mr. Melrose’s orders—­Mrs. Melrose had had nothing to do with it—­in the vast and distant kitchen, the young man hung up his wet overcoat, sat himself down by the hall fire, drew a newspaper from his pocket, and deliberately applied himself to it, till the carriage should arrive.

Meanwhile through the rain and wind outside, the expected owner of Threlfall Tower and his wife and child were being driven through the endless and intricate lanes which divided the main road between Keswick and Pengarth from the Tower.

The carriage contained Mr. Melrose, Mrs. Melrose, their infant daughter aged sixteen months, and her Italian nurse, Anastasia Doni.

There was still some gray light left, but the little lady who sat dismally on her husband’s right, occasionally peering through the window, could make nothing of the landscape, because of the driving scuds of rain which drenched the carriage windows, as though in their mad charges from the trailing clouds in front, they disputed every inch of the miry way with the newcomers.  From the wet ground itself there seemed to rise a livid storm-light, reflecting the last gleams of day, and showing the dreary road winding ahead, dim and snakelike through intermittent trees.

“Edmund!” said the lady suddenly, in a high thin voice, as though the words burst from her—­“If the water by that mill they talked about is really over the road, I shall get out at once!”

“What?—­into it?” The gentleman beside her laughed.  “I don’t remember, my dear, that swimming is one of your accomplishments.  Do you propose to hang the baby round your neck?”

“Of course I should take her too!  I won’t run any risks at all with her!  It would be simply wicked to take such a small child into danger.”  But there was a fretful desperation in the tone, as of one long accustomed to protest in vain.

Mr. Melrose laughed once more—­carelessly, as though it were not worth while to dispute the matter; and the carriage went on—­battling, as it seemed, with the storm.

“I never saw such an awful place in my life!” said the wife’s voice again—­with the same note of explosion—­after an interval.  “It’s horrible—­just horrible!  All the way from Pengarth we’ve hardly seen a house, or a light!—­and we’ve been driving nearly an hour.  You don’t expect me to live here, Edmund!” The tone was hysterical.

“Don’t be a fool, Netta!  Doesn’t it ever rain in your infernal country, eh?  This is my property, my dear, worse luck!  I regret it—­but here we are.  Threlfall has got to be my home—­so I suppose it’ll be yours too.”

“You could let or sell it, Edmund!—­you know you could—­if you cared a farthing about making me happy.”