The very next
morning she and her mother had been summoned to London by the grave
illness of Mrs. Penfold's elder sister. And there they were still; though
Lydia was expected home shortly.
Victoria walked on, with relieved feelings, she scarcely knew why. At any
rate there had been no personal contact between Faversham and a charming
though foolish girl, during these weeks of popular indignation.
By what shabby arts had the mean and grasping fellow now installed at
Threlfall ever succeeded in obtaining a hold over a being so refined, so
fastidious and--to all appearances--so high-minded, as Lydia Penfold?
To refuse Harry and decline on Claude Faversham! Victoria acknowledged
indeed a certain pseudo-Byronic charm in the man. She could not forget
the handsome head as she had seen it last at the door of Melrose's
library; or the melodramatic black and white of the face, of the small,
peaked beard, the dark brows, pale lantern cheeks, and heavy-lidded eyes.
All the picturesque adventurers of the world betray something, she
thought, of a common stamp.
At last one evening, when Tatham was away on county business, and Felicia
had gone to bed, Victoria suddenly unburdened herself to Cyril Boden, as
they sat one on either side of a November fire, while a southwesterly
gale from the high fells blustered and raged outside.
Boden was the confessor of a good many people. Not that he was by any
means an orthodox Christian; his ascetic ways had very little to do with
any accepted form of doctrine.
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