The photograph must have been hers; the child was
hers--and Melrose's! The likeness indeed cried out.
He replaced the photograph, his mind absorbed in the excitement of its
discovery. Where were they now--the forlorn pair? He had no doubt
whatever that they were alive--at the old man's mercy, somewhere.
He let in the dawn, and stood long in thought beside the open window. But
in the end, he satisfied himself. He would find a way of meeting all just
claims, when the time arrived. Why not?
BOOK III
XIII
When Delorme left Duddon, carrying with him a huge full-length of
Victoria, which must, Victoria felt, entirely cut her off from London
during the ensuing spring and summer--for it was to go into the Academy,
and on no account could she bear to find herself in the same room with
it--he left behind him a cordial invitation to the "little painting girl"
to come and work in his Somersetshire studio--where he was feverishly
busy with a great commission for an American town-hall for the remainder
of August and September. Such invitations were extraordinarily coveted;
and Lydia, "advanced" as she was, should have been jubilant. She accepted
for her art's sake; but no one could have called her jubilant.
Mrs. Penfold, who for some weeks had been in a state of nervous and
rather irritable mystification with regard to Lydia, noticed the fact at
once. She consulted Susy.
"I can't make her out!" said the mother plaintively.
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