“She ran away?”

“Not in the usual sense.  There was no one, I understand, to run with.  But she could not stand Threlfall—­nor—­I suppose—­her husband.  So one day—­when he had gone to Italy, and she was left behind—­she just—­”

“‘Elopes—­down a ladder of ropes’” laughed Tatham; “and took the child?”

“Yes—­and a bronze, worth a thousand pounds.”

“Sensible woman!  And where are they now?”

Lady Tatham shrugged her shoulders.

“Oh, they can’t be alive, surely,” said Lydia.  “Mr. Melrose told Doctor Undershaw that he had no relations in the world, and didn’t wish to be troubled with any.”

Contempt sat on Tatham’s ruddy countenance.

“Well, as far as we’re concerned, he may take it easy.  His family affections don’t matter to anybody!  But the way he behaves as a landowner does really matter to all of us.  He brings disgrace on the whole show.”

He rose, straightening his young shoulders as he spoke.  Lydia noted the modest involuntary consciousness of power and responsibility which for a moment dignified the boyish countenance; and as her eyes met his Tatham was startled by the passionate approval expressed in the girl’s look.

She asked if there was no agent on the Melrose estates to temper the tyrannies of their master.

Tatham came to her side—­explaining—­looking down upon her with an eagerness which had but a superficial connection with the thing said.

“You see no decent man would ever stay with him.  He’d never do the things Melrose does.  He’d cut his hand off first.  And if he didn’t, the old villain would kick him out in no time.  But that’s enough about him, isn’t it?  I get him on the brain!  Won’t you come and see the pictures?”

* * * * *

The quartet inspecting the house had passed through the principal rooms, and had returned to the drawing-room.  There Tatham said something to Lydia, and they moved away together.  His mother looked after them.  Tatham was leading the way toward the door in the farther wall which led to his own sitting-room.  Their young faces were turned toward each other.  The girl’s shyness seemed to have broken up.  She was now talking fast, with smiles.  Ah, no doubt they would have plenty to say to each other, as soon as they were together.

It was one of the bitter-sweet moments of life.  Lady Tatham steadied herself.

“That is a sketch,” she said mechanically, “by Burne-Jones, for one of the Pygmalion and Galatea series.  We have one or two others on the same subject.”

Mrs. Penfold clasped her small hands in rapture.

“Oh! but how interesting!  Do you know I was once Galatea?  When I was a girl I used to act a great deal.  Well, not act exactly—­for I didn’t have to speak.  I never could remember my lines.  But I had two great parts.  There was Hermione, in ‘The Winter’s Tale’; and Galatea.  I made hundreds of pounds for hospitals—­hundreds.  It’s not vain now, is it, to say one was pretty in one’s youth?”