A room in one of the Mainstairs cottages, containing a bed, and on it a paralyzed girl, paralyzed after diphtheria—the useless hands—the vacant, miserable look—other beds in the same room filling it up—the roof so low that it seemed to be crushing down on the girl—holes in the thatch rudely mended.
Again—a corner in the Mainstairs churchyard, filled with small, crowded graves, barely grass-grown; the "Innocents' Corner."
And again, a wretched one-roomed cottage in the same row of hovels, kitchen, bedroom, and living-room in one, mud-floored, the outer door opening into it, the bed at the back, and an old husband and wife, crippled with rheumatism, sitting opposite each other on a day of pouring rain, shivering in the damp and the draughts.
Then, driving these out—the face of Colonel Barton with its blunt, stupid kindliness, and that whole group at Duddon, welcoming the new man, believing in him, ready to help him, with the instinctive trust of honest folk.
And last, but flashing through all the rest, Lydia's eyes—the light in them—and the tones of her voice—"You'll do it!—you'll do it!—you'll set it all right!"
He perfectly realized at that moment—before the brain had begun to refine on the situation—what was asked of him. He was to be Melrose's tool and accomplice in all that Melrose's tyrannical caprice chose to do with the lives of human beings; he was to forfeit the respect of good men; he was to make an enemy of Harry Tatham; and he was to hurt—and possibly alienate—Lydia.
And the price of it was a million.
He rose rather heavily to his feet, and gathered up his papers—a slim and comely figure amid the queer medley of the room.
"I must have some time to think about what you have said to me, Mr.
Melrose. You've taken my breath away—you won't be surprised at that."
Melrose smiled grimly.