She trembled; alternately desperate, and full of fears.  The thought that Melrose was only a few miles from her—­that she was going to face and brave him after all these years—­turned her cold with terror.  And yet misery had made her reckless.

“He shall provide for us!” She gathered up her weak soul into this supreme resolve.  How wise she had been to follow the sudden impulse which had bade her appeal to the Tathams!  Were they not her kinsfolk by marriage?

They knew what Edmund was!  They were kind and powerful.  They would protect her, and take up her cause.  Edmund was now an old man.  If he died, who else had a right to his money but she and Felicia?  Oh!  Lady Tatham would help them; she’d see them righted!  Cradled in that hope, Netta Melrose at last fell asleep.

XIV

Tatham arrived at Duddon by the earliest possible train on the following morning.

On crossing the hall he perceived in the distance a very slight thin girl, dressed in black, coming out of his mother’s sitting-room.  When she saw him she turned hurriedly to the stairs and ran up, only pausing once on the first landing to flash upon him a singularly white face, lit by singularly black eyes.  Then she disappeared.

“Who is that lady?” he asked of Hurst in astonishment.

“Her ladyship expects you, my lord,” replied Hurst evasively, throwing open the door of the morning-room.  Victoria was disclosed; pacing up and down, her hands in the pockets of her tweed jacket.  Tatham saw at once that something had happened.

She put her hands on his shoulders, kissed him, and delivered her news.  She did so with a peculiar and secret zest.  To watch how he took the fresh experiences of life, and to be exultantly proud and sure of him the while, was all part of her adoration of him.

“Melrose’s wife and daughter!  Great Scot!  So they’re not dead?” Tatham stood amazed.

“He seems to have done his best to kill them.  They’re starved—­and destitute.  But here they are.”

“And why in the name of fortune do they come to us?”

“We are cousins, my dear—­and I saw her twenty years ago.  It isn’t a bad move.  Indeed the foolish woman might have come before.”

“But what on earth can we do for them?”

The young man sat down bewildered, while his mother told the story, piecing it together from the rambling though copious narrative, which she had gathered that morning from Netta in her bed, where she had been forced to remain, at least for breakfast.