"No, my lady, they said you'd know them quite well."
Victoria hurried on to the drawing-room. Two figures rose as she entered the room, which was only lit by the firelight; and then stood motionless.
Victoria advanced bewildered.
"Will you kindly tell me your names?"
"Don't you remember me, Lady Tatham?" said a low, excited voice.
Victoria turned on an electric switch close to her hand, and the room was suddenly in a blaze of light. She looked in scrutinizing astonishment at the figure in dingy black, standing before her, and at a girl, looking about sixteen—deathly pale—who seemed to be leaning on a chair in the background.
That strange, triangular face, with the sharp chin, and the abnormal eyes—where, in what dim past, had she seen it before? For some seconds memory wrestled. Then, old and new came together; and she recognized her visitor.
"Mrs. Melrose!" she said, in incredulous amazement. The woman in black came nearer, and spoke brokenly—the bitter emotion beneath gradually forcing its way.
"I am in great distress—I don't know what to do. My daughter and I are starving—and I remembered you'd come to see me—that once—at Threlfall. I knew all about you. I've asked English people often. I thought perhaps you'd help me—you'd tell me how to make my husband do something for me—for me—and for his daughter! Look at her"—Netta paused and pointed—"she's ill—she's dropping. We had to hurry through from Lucca. We couldn't afford to stop on the way. We sold everything we had; some people collected a hundred francs for us; and we just managed to buy our tickets. Felicia didn't want to come, but I made her. I couldn't see her die before my eyes. We've starved for months. We've parted with everything, and I've written to Mr. Melrose again and again. He's never answered—till a few weeks ago, and he said if we troubled him again he'd stop the money. He's a bad, bad man."
Shaking, her teeth chattering, her hands clenched at her side, the forlorn creature stared at Victoria. She was not old, but she was a wreck; a withered, emaciated wreck of the woman Victoria had once seen twenty years before.