e coin. "Gie it
me, Bob!" And raising it with a scornful gesture he flung it into the
river. Then standing still, with their hands on their hips, the light
from the lanterns on the ground breaking over their ruddy rain-washed
faces, they poured out a stream of jeers in broad Cumbrian, from which
the coachman, angrily urged on by Melrose, escaped as quickly as he
could.

"Insolent boors!" said Melrose as men and flood disappeared from view.
"What did we want with them after all? It was only a device for bleeding
us."

Mrs. Melrose awoke from her trance of terror with a quavering breath. She
did not understand what had passed, nor a word of what the labourers had
said; and in her belief over the peril escaped, and her utter fatigue,
she gave the child to Anastasia, lay back, and closed her eyes. A sudden
and blessed sleep fell upon her for a few minutes; from which she was
roused all too soon by grating wheels and strange voices.

"Here we are, Netta--look alive!" said Melrose. "Put something round the
child, Anastasia. We have to walk through this court. No getting up to
the door. Find some umbrellas!"

The two women and the child descended. From the open house-door figures
came hurrying down a flagged path, through an untidy kitchen garden, to
the gate in a low outer wall in front of which the carriage had drawn up.

Netta Melrose grasped the nurse's arm, and spoke in wailing Italian, as
she held an umbrella over the child.

"What a place, Anastasia!--what a place! It looks like a prison! I shall
die here--I know I shall!"

Her terrified gaze swept over the old red sandstone house rising dark and
grim against the storm, and over the tangled thickets of garden dank with
rain.

But the next moment she was seized by the strong hands of Mrs. Dixon and
Thyrza, who half led, half carried, her into the hall of the Tower, while
Dixon and young Tyson did the same for the nurse and baby.

* * * * *

"A very interesting old place, built by some man with a real fine taste!
As far as I can see, it will hold my collections very well."

The new owner of Threlfall Tower was standing in the drawing-room with
his back to the fire, alternately looking about him with an eager
curiosity, and rubbing his hands in what appeared to be satisfaction. The
agent surveyed him.

Edmund Melrose at that moment--some thirty years ago--was a tall and
remarkably handsome man of fifty, with fine aquiline featu