disgusted him; and it was a
personal disappointment to be thus balked of that public campaign against
Melrose's enormities which would have satisfied the just and long-baffled
feelings of a whole county; and--incidentally--would surely have unmasked
a greedy and unscrupulous adventurer.

Meanwhile the whole story of Mrs. Melrose and her daughter had spread
rapidly through the neighbourhood. The local papers, now teeming with
attacks on Melrose, and the management of the Melrose property, had
fastened with avidity on the news of their arrival. "Mrs. Edmund Melrose
and her daughter, after an absence of twenty years have arrived in
Cumbria. They are now staying at Duddon Castle with Countess Tatham. Mr.
Claude Faversham is at Threlfall Tower." These few sentences served as
symbols of a dramatic situation which was being discussed in every house
of the district, in the farms and cottages no less eagerly than by the
Andovers and the Bartons. The heiress of Threlfall was not dead! After
twenty years she and her mother had returned to claim their rights from
the Ogre; and Duddon Castle, the headquarters of all that was powerful
and respected in the county, had taken up their cause. Meanwhile the
little heiress had been, it seemed, supplanted. Claude Faversham was in
possession at Threlfall, and was being treated as the heir. Mr. Melrose
had flatly refused even to see his wife and daughter whom he had left in
poverty and starvation for twenty years.

Upon these facts the twin spirit of romance and hatred swooped
vulturelike. Any story of inheritance, especially when charm and youth
are mixed up with it, kindles the popular mind. It was soon known that
Miss Melrose was pretty, and small; though, said report, worn to a
skeleton by paternal ill-usage. Romance likes its heroines small. The
countryside adopted the unconscious Felicia, and promptly married her to
Harry Tatham. What could be more appropriate? Duddon could afford to risk
a dowry; and what maiden in distress could wish for a better Perseus than
the splendid young man who was the general favourite of the
neighbourhood?

As to the hatred of Melrose which gave zest to the tale of his daughter,
it was becoming a fury. The whole Mainstairs village had now been
ejected, by the help of a large body of police requisitioned from
Carlisle for the purpose. Of the able-bodied, some had migrated to the
neighbouring towns, some were camped on Duddon land, in some wood and
iron hut