Part 34 (1/2)

”You're really getting strong?”

Her kind eyes considered him. He had often marveled that one so young should be mistress of such a look--so softly frank and unafraid.

”A Hercules! Besides, the work's so interesting, one's no time to think of one's game leg!”

”You're getting to know the estate?”

”I've been motoring about it for a fortnight, that's something for a beginning. And I've got plenty of things to tell you.”

He plunged into them. It was evident that he was resuming topics familiar to them both. Their talk indeed showed them already intimate, sharers in a common enterprise, where she was often inspiration, and he executive and practical force. Ever since, indeed, she had said to him with that kindled, eager look--”Accept! Accept!”--he had been sharply aware of how best to approach, to attract her. She was, it seemed, no mere pa.s.sive girl. She was in her measure a thinker--a character. He perceived in her--deep down--enthusiasms and compa.s.sions, that seemed often as though they shook her beyond her strength. They made him uncomfortable; they were strange to his own mind; and yet they moved and influenced him.

During the short time, for instance, that she had lived in their midst, she had made friends everywhere--so he discovered--among these c.u.mbria folk. She never harangued about them; a few words, a few looks, burning from an inward fire--these expressed her: as when, twice, he had met her at dusk, with the aspect of a wounded spirit, coming out of hovels that he himself must now be ashamed of, since they were Melrose's hovels.

”I've just come from Mainstairs,” he said to her abruptly, as the house in front drew nearer.

The colour rushed into Lydia's cheeks.

”Are you going to put that right?”

”I'm going to try. I've been talking to your old friend Dobbs. I saw his poor daughter, and I went into most of the cottages.”

Somewhat to his dismay he saw the delicate face beside him quiver, and the eyes cloud. But the emotion was driven back.

”You're too late--for Bessie!” she said--how sadly! The accent touched him.

”The girl is really dying? Was it diphtheria?”

”She has been dying for months--and in such _pain_.”

”It is paralysis?”

”After diphtheria. Did they show you the graves in the churchyard?--they call it the Innocents' Corner. Thirty children died in that village last year and the year before.”

There was silence a little.

”I wonder what I can do,” said Faversham, at last, reflectively. ”I have been working out a number of new proposals--and I submit them to Mr.

Melrose to-night.”

She looked wistfully at the speaker.

”Good luck! But Mr. Melrose is hard to move.”

Faversham a.s.sented.

”The hope lies in his being now an old man--and anxious to get rid of responsibilities. I shall try to show him that bad citizens.h.i.+p costs more money than good.”

”I hope--oh! I _hope_--you'll succeed!” she said fervently. Her emotion infected him. He smiled down upon her.

”That ought to make me succeed! But of course I have no experience. I am a townsman.”

”You've always been a Londoner?”