He stood positively aghast at Netta's perfidy and wickedness, and he wrote at once to the apartment in the Via Giugno, to denounce her in the most emphatic terms. As she had chosen to steal one of his most precious possessions, which she had of course converted into money, she had no further claim on him whatever, and he broke off all relations with her. Eighty pounds a year would be paid by his lawyers to a Florentine lawyer, whom he named, for his daughter's maintenance, so long as Netta left him unmolested. But he desired to hear and see no more of persons who reminded him of the most tragical event of his history as a collector, as well as of the utter failure of his married life. Henceforth they were strangers to each other, and she might arrange her future as she pleased.
The letter was answered by Mrs. Robert Smeath in the third person, and all communications ceased. As a matter of fact the Smeath family were infinitely relieved by Melrose's letter, which showed that he did not intend to take any police steps to recover the bronze or its value. Profiting by the paternal traditions, Netta had managed the sale of the Hermes in London, where, owing to Melrose's miserly hiding of it, it was quite unknown, with considerable skill. It had realized a small fortune, and she had returned, weary, ill, but triumphant, to the apartment in the Via Giugno.
Twelve months later, Melrose had practically forgotten that he had ever known her. He returned for the winter, to Threlfall, and entered upon a course of life which gradually made him the talk and wonder of the countryside. The rooms occupied by Netta and her child were left just as he had found them when he returned after her flight. He had turned the key on them then, and nobody had since entered them. Tyson wondered whether it was sentiment, or temper; and gave it for the latter.
The years passed away. Melrose's hair turned from black to gray; Thyrza married a tradesman in Carlisle and presented him with a large family; the Dixons, as cook and manservant, gradually fitted themselves more and more closely to the queer conditions of life in the Tower, and grew old in the service of a master whose eccentricities became to them, in process of time, things to be endured without comment, like disagreeable facts of climate. In Dixon, his Methodist books, his Bible, and his weekly chapel maintained those forces of his character which were--and always continued to be--independent of Melrose; and Melrose knew his own interests well enough not to interfere with an obstinate man's religion. While Tyson, after five years, passed on triumphantly to a lucrative agency in the Dukeries, having won a reputation for tact and patience in the impossible service of a mad master, which would carry him through life. Melrose, being Melrose, found it hopeless to replace him satisfactorily; and, as he continued to buy land greedily year after year, the neglected condition of his immense estate became an ever-increasing scandal to the county.