really getting strong?"

Her kind eyes considered him. He had often marveled that one so young
should be mistress of such a look--so softly frank and unafraid.

"A Hercules! Besides, the work's so interesting, one's no time to think
of one's game leg!"

"You're getting to know the estate?"

"I've been motoring about it for a fortnight, that's something for a
beginning. And I've got plenty of things to tell you."

He plunged into them. It was evident that he was resuming topics familiar
to them both. Their talk indeed showed them already intimate, sharers in
a common enterprise, where she was often inspiration, and he executive
and practical force. Ever since, indeed, she had said to him with that
kindled, eager look--"Accept! Accept!"--he had been sharply aware of how
best to approach, to attract her. She was, it seemed, no mere passive
girl. She was in her measure a thinker--a character. He perceived in
her--deep down--enthusiasms and compassions, that seemed often as though
they shook her beyond her strength. They made him uncomfortable; they
were strange to his own mind; and yet they moved and influenced him.
During the short time, for instance, that she had lived in their midst,
she had made friends everywhere--so he discovered--among these Cumbria
folk. She never harangued about them; a few words, a few looks, burning
from an inward fire--these expressed her: as when, twice, he had met her
at dusk, with the aspect of a wounded spirit, coming out of hovels that
he himself must now be ashamed of, since they were Melrose's hovels.

"I've just come from Mainstairs," he said to her abruptly, as the house
in front drew nearer.

The colour rushed into Lydia's cheeks.

"Are you going to put that right?"

"I'm going to try. I've been talking to your old friend Dobbs. I saw his
poor daughter, and I went into most of the cottages."

Somewhat to his dismay he saw the delicate face beside him quiver, and
the eyes cloud. But the emotion was driven back.

"You're too late--for Bessie!" she said--how sadly! The accent touched
him.

"The girl is really dying? Was it diphtheria?"

"She has been dying for months--and in such _pain_."

"It is paralysis?"

"After diphtheria. Did they show you the graves in the churchyard?--they
call it the Innocents' Corner. Thirty children died in that village last
year and the year before."

There was silence a little.

"I wonder what I can do," said Faversham, at last, reflectiv