he had ever seen, he did linger.

"I wonder if I might ask you another question? Can you tell me whether
that fine old house over there is Duddon Castle?"

"Duddon Castle!" Lydia lifted her eyebrows. "Duddon Castle is seven miles
away. That place is called Threlfall Tower. Were you going to Duddon?"

"No. But"--he hesitated--"I know young Tatham a little. I should like to
have seen his house. But, that's a fine old place, isn't it?" He looked
with curiosity at the pile of building rising beyond a silver streak of
river, amid the fresh of the May woods.

"Well--yes--in some ways," said Lydia, dubiously. "Don't you know who
lives there?"

"Not the least. I am a complete stranger here. I say, do let me do that
up for you?" And, letting his bicycle fall, the young man seized the
easel which had still to be taken to pieces and put into its case.

Lydia shot a wavering look at him. He ought certainly to have departed by
now, and she ought to be snubbing him. But the expression on his sunburnt
face as he knelt on the grass, unscrewing her easel, seemed so little to
call for snubbing that instead she gave him further information;
interspersed with directions to him as to what to do and what not to do
with her gear.

"It belongs to a Mr. Melrose. Did you never hear of him?"

"Never. Why should I?"

"Not from the Tathams?"

"No. You see I only knew Tatham at college--in my last year. He
was a good deal junior to me. And I have never stayed with them at
Duddon--though they kindly asked me--years ago."

The girl beside him took not the smallest notice of his information. She
was busy packing up brushes and paints, and her next remark showed him
subtly that she did not mean to treat him as an acquaintance of the
Tathams, whom she probably knew, but was determined to keep him to his
role of stranger and tourist.

"You had better look at Threlfall as you pass. It has a splendid
situation."

"I will. But why ought I to have heard of the gentleman? I forget his
name."

"Mr. Melrose? Oh, well--he's a legend about here. We all talk about him."

"What's wrong with him? Is he a nuisance?--or a lunatic?"

"It depends what you have to do with him. About here he goes by the name
of the 'Ogre.'"

"How, does he eat people up?" asked the stranger, smiling.

The girl hesitated.

"Ask one of his tenants!" she said at last.

"Oh, he's a landlord, and a bad one?"

She nodded, a sudden sharpness in her gray eyes.

"But th