And not even Susy's impatience could
penetrate beyond appearance. She longed to say, "Enough of the Tatham
affair--now let us come to business. How do you stand with Claude
Faversham?" A number of small indications pointed her subtly,
irresistibly in that direction. But the strength of Lydia's personality
stood guard over her secret--if she had one.
All Susy could do was to give Lydia the gossip of the neighbourhood,
which she did--copiously, including the "cutting" of Faversham at the
County Club, by Colonel Barton and others. Lydia said nothing.
In the course of the evening, however, a letter arrived for Lydia,
brought by messenger from Threlfall Tower. Lydia was alone in the
sitting-room; Susy was writing upstairs. The letter ran:
"I hear you have returned to-day. May I come and see you to-morrow
afternoon--late?"
To which Lydia replied in her firmest handwriting, "Come by all means. I
shall be here between five and six to-morrow." After which she went about
with head erect and shining eyes, like one who has secretly received and
accepted a challenge. She was going to sift this matter for herself.
Since a hurried note reporting the latest news of the Mainstairs victims,
which had reached her from Faversham on the morning of her departure for
London, she had heard nothing from him; and during her weeks of nursing
in a darkened room, she had sounded the dim and perilous ways of her own
heart as best she could.
She spent the following day in sketching the Helvellyn range, still
radiant under its first snow-cap; sitting warmly sheltered on a southern
side of a wall, within sound of the same stream beside which she and
Faversham had met for the first time in the spring, amid the splendid
light and colour of the May sunset.
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