The whole affair had reduced
itself indeed so far to a correspondence duel between Tatham, as
representing a scandalized neighbourhood, and Faversham, as representing
Melrose.
Tatham's letters, in which a man, with no natural gift for the pen, had
developed a surprising amount of effective sarcasm, had all appeared in
the local press; with Faversham's ingenious and sophistical replies.
Tatham discussed them now with Undershaw in a tone of passionate
bitterness. The doctor said little. He had his own shrewd ideas on the
situation.
* * * * *
When Undershaw left him, Tatham rode on, up the forest lane, till again
the trees fell away, the wide valley with its boundary fells opened
before him, and again his eye sought through the windy dusk for the
far-gleaming light that spoke to him of Lydia. His mind was full of fresh
agitation, stirred by Undershaw's remark about her. The idea of a breach
between Lydia and Faversham was indeed most welcome, since it seemed to
restore Lydia to that pedestal from which it had been so hard and strange
to see her descend. It gave him back the right to worship her! And yet,
the notion did nothing--now--to revive any hope for himself. He kept the
distant light in view for long, his heart full of a tenderness which,
though he did not know it, had already parted with much of the bitterness
of unsatisfied passion. Unconsciously, the healing process was on its
way; the healing of the normal man, on whom a wound is no sooner
inflicted than all the reparative powers of life rush together for its
cure.
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