The Mating of Lydia

that there had been passing gleams and perceptions, soon lost again in the delusions of fever, or narcotic sleep. A big room-strange faces-pain-a doctor coming and going-intervals of misery foll

ty of a point gained and passed. And at last on this tenth morning-a still and cloudy morning of early June, he found himself suddenly fully awake, and as it seemed to him once more in possession of himself.

d with wreaths and festoons in raised stucco, or with medallion g

e that one," he t

s with a

e light than usual in the room-of an open window somewher

saw that he had been nursed by hands as refined as they were skilful, and he dimly perceived that he owed his life mainly to the wholly impersonal yet absorbed devotion of two women-gentle, firm-faced, women-who had fought death for h

aded room. He watched it enchanted. Flowers were on the table n

s bandaged head stiffly to

se of Mr. Edmund Melrose,"

e saw hi

eer. What

tructions not to tire his head with trying to remember. He lay disconnectedly dreaming. A stream of clear water, running shallow over greenish pebbles and among s

a girl's figure, in a blue dress, against a backgroun

ws, and had been allowed to lift a shaking hand to help the nurse's hand as i

to inquire for you to-day.

table near and read the

. They've sent you flow

up a glass vase before

Pen

his hea

now any

on laughe

one day soon. And Miss Penfold saw you just before the accident. She was ske

said, slowly. "Tatham?

much obli

nt to sle

. His hold upon himself seemed to have grown much stronger. It was ev

e asked, amazed at the c

man moved hi

ll soon be well now. Do

well. How long

three

e! I'm very sorry to pu

ou here." The tone of the words was round and maste

are A1. I say-has some o

last week. He was ill with rheumatic gout,

ng man

ion I've got. The ot

d into his breast and found nothing. He ra

tly at Melrose. "Where a

They were brought to me

laxed. He let himself sli

!-if I'd l

tudied hi

ht. What do you

was my guardian. I lived with him in the holidays after my pa

are the

ritish Museum. He promised to lock it up in one of the

se la

at should have been locked up.

n slowly tur

ow my Uncle

of those six, anyway, for generations. If it hadn't been for a fool of

some induction of thought. But he gave it up as too much for h

e, sir. But it's all right. As soon as they

tales of me. Take 'em with a grain of salt. He'll tell you I'm mad, and I daresay I am. I'm a hermit anyway, and I like my own society. But

uck Faversham as surprising, he hardly knew

ut here calls

re was tame enough. But the conversation-the longest he had yet

*

of the locked rooms, of the passages huddled and obstructed with bric-à-brac, of the standing feuds between Melrose and his tenants. None of the ordinary comforts of life existed in the Tower, except indeed a vast warming apparatus which kept it like an oven in winter; the only personal expenditure, beyond bare necessaries, that Melrose allowed himself. Yet it was commonly believed that he was enormously rich, and that he still spent enormously on his collectio

; 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

imself 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

he natural and the human worlds. He was the son, it seemed, of an Indian Civil Servant, and had inherited from his parents, who were both dead, an income-so Melrose shrewdly gathered from various indications-just sufficient to keep him; whereby a will, ambitious rather than strong, had been able to have its way. He had dabbled in many things, journalism, law, politics; had travelled a good deal; a

hieve them; hungry for money also-probably as the only possible means of achieving them-and determined, meanwhile, not to accept any second b

amount of information and the considerable number of useful acquaintances he possessed to speculate cautiously on his own account-without much result, but without disaster. Also it was very soon clear that, independently of his special reasons for knowing something ab

the Spitzer sale, arrived at the Tower, it was to Faversham's room that Melrose first conveyed them; and it was from Faversham's mouth that he also, for the first time, accepted any remarks on his purchases that were not wholly rapturous.

of "finds" and bargains. Of the store, indeed, of precious or curious objects lying heaped together in the confusion of Melrose's den, the only treasures of a portable kind that Faversham found any difficulty in handling were his own gems. Melrose would br

them back into the breast-pocket from which

hem," he had said, smiling, to his h

man, in his weakness, did not resist. Rather sulkily, h

be applied to the queer glitter that for a mome

n offer for them,"

don't wish

likely to get elsewhere-simply because t

entiment about them. I have had many of

he patient, in whose pale cheeks two spots of

on't excite y

ought Faversham irritably, when he was left alo

e money would be soon spent; whereas the beauty of these things, the associations connected with them, the thoughts they arouse-would give you pleasure for a lifetime. I have loved you like a father, and I have left you all the little cash I possess. Use that as

ndered, though not without guesses at the answer. But anyway he had loved his adopted father; he protest

*

ident. He demanded to see Melrose one morning, and quietly communicated the fact that he had advised Faversham to transfer himself to Ke

at him with a

n for such an extraordinary

"that you were anxious to have your hou

hurry this poor fellow now into new quarters, in his present state, when he might s

encounter between them, could not

feels a delicacy in trespassing upon you any longer. I know the house at Keswick to which I propose to take

y lack of attention here from me o

s no other to which he can be moved. It would be a great advantage, too, to be able to carry him into a garden. In fact"-the little doctor spoke with the same cool frankness h

frowned

many rooms do you suppose there are in this house, e

er room he told me that every hole and corner in the house was occupied by your collections, except two on the ground floor that you had never furnished.

earth do

ce-as bare as a hospital ward, and not so cheerful. Then as to the garden"-Undershaw moved to a side window and pointed to the overgrown and gloomy wilderness outside-"nurse and I have tried in vain to find a spot to

hat's what every one's after nowadays. A man must be as c

oak he habitually wore, even in the house and on a s

stood in

, except with his doctor, Mr. Melrose. It would be both wise

stared

down the broad corridor to the right. Undershaw followed unwillingly. He was d

ight of a rainy June day penetrated through a few chinks in the barred shutters. Melrose went to the windows, and with a physical strength which amazed his companion unshuttered and opened them all, hel

his do

the doors, at the stately mantelpiece, with its marble caryatides, and at the Chinese wall-paper which covered the walls, its ma

e. "Have you any idea, sir,

w shook

t, and took breath. Then

Tell him to send me over four men here to-morrow, to do what they're told. Stop al

octor's face wit

sment. The owner of the Tower appear

will. But-why should you put yourself out to this extent? It would be much s

-and quarters infinitely more comfortable than he can get in any infernal 'home' you

ce. "But I warn you, I reserve my own right of advice. And moreover-supposing you do furnish this room for him, allow me to p

word was c

is point of convalescence, and inclined to be depressed-the natural result of such an

Melrose, shortly. "When the room is in o

houlders, anxious to esc

n to-morrow. I have tol

rned

ve that orde

haw la

as aiding and abetting you. B

oor. "Ten o'clock, sharp." He stood, with raised forefinger, on

Faversham's room. She reported some fresh trouble in one of the wounds on the leg caused by the

*

ays afterward he saw little or nothing of Melrose. But he and Nurse Aston were well aware that unusual things were going on in the house. Owing to the great thickness of the walls, the distance of Faversham's room from the scene of action, and the vigilanc

day, Melrose met Undershaw in t

is

nd doing well. I hope we sha

me ten minutes-before

rand-seigneur_ish. Undershaw, consumed wit

been strangers for nearly a score of years. A mass of thick shrubbery outside, which had grown up close to the house, and had been allowed for years to block this window, together with many others on the ground floor, had been cut sheer away. The effect was startling, and through the panes, freed from the dust and cobwebs of a generation, the blue distant line of the Pennines could be distinctly seen far away to the southeast. The floor of the g

Undershaw's admiring comments; and the doctor wondered whether he was

rn sofa, and some armchairs-branches of white rhododendron in a great enamelled vase-and two oval portraits on the walls, a gentleman in red, and a gentleman in blue, both pastels by Latour-in some such way one might have catalogued the contents of the room. But no catalogue could have rendered its effect on Undershaw, who

army-encircling it; a blaze of flowers; and beyond the low parapet wall of lichened stone, from which also a dense thicket of yew and laurel had been removed, the winding cou

se of wonder, warmly e

eived it un

have broken the half of them, if I hadn't been here," he said, morosely.

*

ot unpleasant bewilderment. What on earth had made the strange old fellow take such an odd fancy to him? He had had singularly little "spoi

han sheer ingratitude were he not to do so. At the same time, his temperament was cautious; he was no green youngster; and he could

ng his treasures had put him in a glow of excitement. The sudden interruption of habit had acted with stimulating power, his mind, like his home, had shaken off some of its dust. He talked about the pict

owever, he stopped abr

ou wri

. My arm's r

you. That man-Undershaw-says you must

ham la

oul, either at Ke

some people inq

am? Yes, I knew

women-who

ham ex

ndershaw's account. They are your nearest neighb

se, emphatically. "But as for that young

ns-if you s

se ch

ld you-he's thick with them. The young man has been insolent to me on one or two occasions. I shall have to take him down. He's one of your popularity-hu

the whites had a trick of showing disag

rom the window the day they came to inquire. The mother

tation in Faversham. But he merely sa

d in writing them himself; and in the exhilaration of what seemed to him a much-quickened convalescence, he made arrangements the following