sums out of Canadian
land and railways. "The sharpest old fox going," said the Londoner,
himself, according to Undershaw, no feeble specimen of the money-making
tribe. "_His_ death duties will be worth raking in!"

Occasional gossip of this, or a more damaging kind, enlivened
convalescence. Undershaw and the nurses had no motives for reticence.
Melrose treated them uncivilly throughout; and Undershaw knew very well
that he should never be forgiven the forcing of the house. And as he, the
nurses, and the Dixons were firmly convinced that for every farthing of
the accommodation supplied him Faversham would ultimately have to pay
handsomely, there seemed to be no particular call for gratitude, or for
a forbearance based upon it.

Meanwhile Faversham himself did not find the character and intentions of
his host so easy to understand. Although very weak, and with certain
serious symptoms still persisting to worry the minds of doctor and nurse,
he was now regularly dressed of an afternoon, and would sit in a large
armchair--which had had to be hired from Keswick--by one of the windows
looking out on the courtyard. Punctually at tea-time Melrose appeared.
And there was no denying that in general he proved himself an agreeable
companion--a surprisingly agreeable companion. He would come slouching
in, wearing the shabbiest clothes, and a black skullcap on his flowing
gray hair; looking one moment like the traditional doctor of the Italian
puppet-play, gaunt, long-fingered, long-featured, his thin, pallid face a
study in gray amid its black surroundings; and the next, playing the man
of family and cosmopolitan travel, that he actually was. Faversham indeed
began before long to find a curious attraction in his society. There was
flattery, moreover, in the fact that nobody else in living memory had
Melrose ever been known to pay anything like the attention he was now
daily devoting to his invalid guest. The few inmates and visitors of the
Tower, permanent and temporary, became gradually aware of it. They were
astonished, but none the less certain that Melrose had only modified his
attitude for some selfish reason of his own which would appear in due
time.

The curious fact, however, emerged, after a while, that between the two
men, so diverse in age, history, and circumstance, there was a surprising
amount in common. Faversham, in spite of his look of youth, much impaired
for the present by the results of his accident, was not so