But—­depart where?  The energies of renewed health were pulsing through him, and yet he had seldom felt more stranded, or, except in connection with the gems, more insignificant, either to himself or others; in spite of this palace which had been oddly renovated for his convenience.  His uncle’s death had left him singularly forlorn, deprived of the only home he had ever possessed, and the only person who felt for him a close and spontaneous affection.  For his other uncle—­his only remaining relation—­was a crusty and selfish widower, with whom he had been on little more than formal terms.  The rheumatic gout pleaded in the letter to Undershaw had been, he was certain, a mere excuse.

Well—­something must be done; some fresh path opened up.  He had in Fact left London in a kind of secret exasperation with himself and circumstance, making an excuse out of meeting the Ransoms—­mere acquaintances—­at Liverpool; and determined, after the short tour to which they had invited him, to plunge himself for a week or two in the depths of a Highland glen where he might fish and think.

The Ransoms, machine manufacturers from St. Louis, had made matters worse.  Such wealth!—­such careless, vulgar, easily gotten wealth!—­heaped up by means that seemed to the outsider so facile, and were, in truth, for all but a small minority, so difficult.  A commonplace man and a frivolous woman; yet possessed, through their mere money, of a power over life and its experiences, such as he, Faversham, might strive for all his days and never come near.  It might be said of course—­Herbert Ransom would probably say it—­that all men are worth the wages they get; with an obvious deduction in his own case.  But when or where had he ever got his chance—­a real chance?  Visions of the rich men among his acquaintance, sleek, half-breed financiers, idle, conceited youths of the “classes,” pushed on by family interest; pig-headed manufacturers, inheritors of fortunes they could never have made; the fatteners on colonial land and railway speculation—­his whole mind rose in angry revolt against the notion that he could not have done, personally, as well as any of them, had there only been the initial shove, the favourable moment.

* * * * *

He envied those who had beaten him in the race, he frankly admitted it; but he must also allow himself the luxury of despising them.

* * * * *

Melrose was late.

Faversham rose and hobbled to the window, his hands on his sides, frowning—­a gaunt figure in the rainy light.  With the return of physical strength there had come a passionate renewal of desire—­desire for happiness and success.  The figure of Lydia Penfold hovered perpetually in his mind.  Marriage!—­his whole being, moral and physical, cried out for it.  But how was he ever to marry?—­how could he ever give such a woman as that the setting and the scope she could reasonably claim?