And what,
pray, in spite of Susy's teasing, had love to say to it? Passion was
ruled out--she held the senses in leash, submissive. Harry Tatham,
indeed, was now writing to her every day; and she to him, less often.
Faversham, too, was writing to her, coming to consult her; and all that a
woman's sympathy, all that mind and spirit could do to help him in his
heavy and solitary task she would do. Toward Tatham she felt with a
tender sisterliness; anxious often; yet confident in herself, and in the
issue. In Faversham's case, it was rather a keen, a romantic curiosity,
to see how a man would quit himself in a great ordeal suddenly thrust
upon him; and a girlish pride that he should turn to her for help.
His first note to her lay there--inside her sketch book. It had reached
her the morning after his interview with Mr. Melrose.
"I didn't find Mr. Melrose in a yielding mood last night. I beg of you
don't expect too much. Please, please be patient, and remember that if I
can do as yet but little, I honestly believe nobody else could do
anything. We must wait and watch--here a step, and there a step. But I
think I may ask you to trust me; and, if you can, suggest to others to do
the same. How much your sympathy helps me I cannot express."
Of course she would be patient. But she was triumphantly certain of
him--and his power. What Susy said to her unwillingness to go south was
partly true. She would have liked to stay and watch the progress of
things on the Melrose estates; to be at hand if Mr.
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