"I'd sooner be shot than see her marry that fellow!"
"Ah! you suspect that?"
"It looks like it," he said reluctantly. "And unless I'm much mistaken, he's a mean cad! But—for her sake—we'll make sure—we'll give him every chance."
"It is of course possible," said Victoria grudgingly, "that he has honestly tried to do something for the Melroses."
"I daresay!" said Tatham, with a shrug.
"And it is possible also that if he is the heir, he means to make it up to Felicia, when he comes into it all."
Tatham laughed.
"To throw her a spare bone? Very likely. But how are we to know that Melrose won't bind him by all sorts of restrictions? A vindictive old villain like that will do anything. Then we shall have Faversham calmly saying, 'Very sorry I can't oblige you! But if I modify the terms of the will in your favour, I forfeit the estates.' Besides isn't it monstrous—damnable—that Melrose's daughter should owe to charity—the charity of a fellow who had never heard of Melrose or Threlfall six months ago—what is her right—her plain and simple right?"
Victoria agreed. All these ancestral ideas of family maintenance, and the practical rights dependent on family ties, which were implied in Harry's attitude, were just as real to her as to his simpler mind. Yet she knew very well that Netta and Felicia Melrose were fast becoming to him the mere symbols and counters of a struggle that affected him more intimately, more profoundly than any crusading effort for the legal and moral rights of a couple of strangers could possibly have done.
Lydia had broken with him, and his hopes were dashed. Why? Because another man had come upon the scene whose influence upon her was clear—disastrously clear.