Again--a corner in the Mainstairs churchyard, filled with small, crowded
graves, barely grass-grown; the "Innocents' Corner."
And again, a wretched one-roomed cottage in the same row of hovels,
kitchen, bedroom, and living-room in one, mud-floored, the outer door
opening into it, the bed at the back, and an old husband and wife,
crippled with rheumatism, sitting opposite each other on a day of pouring
rain, shivering in the damp and the draughts.
Then, driving these out--the face of Colonel Barton with its blunt,
stupid kindliness, and that whole group at Duddon, welcoming the new man,
believing in him, ready to help him, with the instinctive trust of honest
folk.
And last, but flashing through all the rest, Lydia's eyes--the light in
them--and the tones of her voice--"You'll do it!--you'll do it!--you'll
set it all right!"
He perfectly realized at that moment--before the brain had begun to
refine on the situation--what was asked of him. He was to be Melrose's
tool and accomplice in all that Melrose's tyrannical caprice chose to do
with the lives of human beings; he was to forfeit the respect of good
men; he was to make an enemy of Harry Tatham; and he was to hurt--and
possibly alienate--Lydia.
And the price of it was a million.
He rose rather heavily to his feet, and gathered up his papers--a slim
and comely figure amid the queer medley of the room.
"I must have some time to think about what you have said to me, Mr.
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