All that might have been embarrassing in the encounter seemed dissolved by the utterly conventional tone of her greeting. Sir Leslie Borrowdean came up and joined them, and Lord and Lady Redford. Then the little party, escorted by the landlord, disappeared into the hotel. Mannering resumed his seat and continued his dinner. He leaned over and addressed his wife. His tone was kinder than usual.
"When we have had our coffee," he said, "I hope that you will feel like a walk. The moon is coming up over the sea."
She shook her head.
"Take Hester," she said. "She loves that sort of thing. I have a headache, and I should like to go upstairs as soon as possible."
So Hester walked with Mannering out to the rocks where pools of water, left by the tide, shone like silver in the moonlight. They talked very little at first, but as they leaned over the rail and looked out seawards Hester broke the silence, and spoke of the things which they both had in their minds.
"I am sorry they came," she said. "I am afraid it will upset mother, and it is not pleasant for you, is it?"
"For me it is nothing, Hester," he answered, "and I hope that your mother will not worry about it. They all behaved very nicely, and we need not see much of them."
She passed her arm through his.
"Tell me how you feel about it," she begged. "It must seem to you like a glimpse of the life you left when—when you—married!"
"Hester," he said, earnestly, "don't make any mistake about this. Don't let your mother make any mistake. It was my political change of views which separated me from all my former friends—that entirely. To them I am an apostate, and a very bad sort of one. I deserted them just when they needed me. I did it from convictions which are stronger to-day than ever. But none the less I threw them over. I always said that they very much exaggerated my importance as a factor in the situation, and my words are proved. They carried the elections without any difficulty, and they have formed a strong Government. They can afford to be magnanimous to me. If I had stayed with them I should have been in office. As it was, I lost even my seat."
"You did what you thought was right," she said, softly. "No one can do any more!"
Mannering thought over her words as they walked homewards over the sand-dunes. Yes, he had done that! Was he satisfied with the result? He had become a minor power in politics. Men spoke of him as a weakling—as one who had shrunk from the burden of great responsibility, and left the friends who had trusted him in the lurch. And then—there was the other thing. He had paid a great price for this woman's salvation. Had he succeeded? She had given up all her old ways. She dressed, she lived, she carried herself through life even with a furtive, almost a pathetic, attempt to reach his standard. Often he caught her watching him as though fearful lest some word or action of hers had been displeasing to him. And yet—he wondered—was this what she had hoped for? Had he given her what she had the right to expect? Had he indeed received value for the price he had paid? He asked Hester a sudden question:
"Hester, is your mother happy?"
Hester started a little.
"If she is not," she answered, gravely, "she must be a very ungrateful woman."
He left it at that, and together they retraced their steps to the hotel. Hester slipped up to her room by a side entrance, but Mannering was obliged to pass the table where the new arrivals were lingering over their coffee. Clara and Lord Redford both called to him.
"Come and have a smoke with us, Mannering, and tell us all about this place," the latter said. "The Duchess and your niece are charmed with it, and they want to stay for a few days. Are there any golf links?"
"Come and sit next me, uncle," Clara cried, "and tell me how you like being guardian to an heiress. How I have blessed that dear departed aunt of mine every day of my life."
Mannering accepted a cigarette, and sat down.
"The golf links are excellent," he said. "As for your aunt, Clara, she was a very sensible woman. Her money was so well invested that I have practically nothing to do. I expect my duties will commence when the young men come!"
"Miss Mannering," Sir Leslie said, gravely, "is not at all attracted by young men. She prefers something more staid. I have serious hopes that before our little tour is over I shall have persuaded her to marry me!"
"You dear man!" Clara exclaimed. "I only wish you'd give me the chance."
"There's a brazen child to have to chaperon," the Duchess said. "Positively asking for a proposal."
"And not in vain," Sir Leslie declared. "Walk down to the sea with me, Miss Clara, and I'll propose to you in my most approved fashion. I think you said that the investments were sound, Mannering?"
"The investments are all right," Mannering answered, "but I shall have nothing to do with fortune-hunters."
"And I a Cabinet Minister!" Sir Leslie declared. "Miss Clara, let us have that walk."
"To-morrow night," she promised. "When I get up it will be to go to bed. Even your love-making, Sir Leslie, could not keep me awake to-night."
The Duchess rose. The dust was gone, but she was pale, and looked tired.
"Let us leave these men to make plans for us," she said. "I hope we shall see something of you to-morrow, Mr. Mannering. Good-night, everybody."
Mannering rose and bowed with the others. For a moment their eyes met. Not a muscle of her face changed, and yet Mannering was conscious of a sudden wave of emotion. He understood that she had not forgotten!
Berenice sat at one of the small round tables in the courtyard, finishing her morning coffee. Sir Leslie sat upon the steps by her side. It was one of those brilliant mornings in early September, when the sunlight seems to find its way everywhere. Even here, surrounded by the pile of worn grey stone buildings, which threw shadows everywhere, it had penetrated. A long shaft of soft, warm light stretched across the cobbles to their feet. Berenice, slim and elegant, fresh as the morning itself, glanced up at her companion with a smile.
"Clara," she remarked, "does not like to be kept waiting."
"She is not down yet," he answered, "and there is something I want to say to you."
Her delicate eyebrows were a trifle uplifted.
"Do you think that you had better?" she asked.
"I am a man," he said, "and things are known to me which a woman would scarcely discover. Do you think that it is quite fair to send Lady Redford out motoring with Mrs. Mannering?"
"Why not?"
"Lady Redford is, of course, ignorant of Mrs. Mannering's antecedents. What you may do yourself concerns no one. You make your own social laws, and you have a right to. But I do not think that even you have a right to pass Blanche Phillimore on to your friends, even under the shelter of Mannering's name."
Berenice looked at him for several seconds without speaking. Borrowdean bit his lip.
"If we were not acquaintances of long standing, Sir Leslie," she said, calmly, "I should consider your remarks impertinent. As it is, I choose to look upon them as a regrettable mistake. The person, whoever she may be, whom the Duchess of Lenchester chooses to receive is usually acceptable to her friends. I beg that you will not refer to the subject again."
Sir Leslie bowed.
"I have no more to say," he declared. "Knowing naturally a good deal more than you concerning the lady in question, I considered it my duty to say what I have said."
"It is the sort of duty," Berenice murmured, "which the whole world seems to accept always with a relish. One does not expect it so much from your sex. Mrs. Mannering was born one of us, and she has had an unhappy life. If she has been indiscreet she has her excuses. I choose to whitewash her. Do you understand? I pay dearly enough for my social position, and I certainly claim its privileges. I recognize Mrs. Mannering, and I require my friends to do so."
Sir Leslie rose up.
"You are, if you will forgive my saying so," he remarked, drily, "more generous than wise."
"That," she answered, "is my affair. Here comes Clara. Before you start, find Mr. Mannering. He is in the hotel somewhere writing letters, and tell him that when he has finished I wish to speak to him."
Sir Leslie only bowed. He felt himself opposed by a will as strong as his own, and he was too seriously annoyed to trust himself to speech. Clara, in her cool white linen dress, came strolling up.
"What have you been doing to Sir Leslie?" she asked, laughing. "He has just gone into the hotel with a face like a thunder-cloud."
"I have been giving him a lesson in Christian charity," Berenice answered. "He needs it."
Clara nodded. She understood.
"I think you are awfully kind," she said.
Berenice smiled.
"I hate all narrowness," she said, "and if there is a man on God's earth who deserves to have people kind to him it is your uncle."
Sir Leslie returned, and he and Clara departed for the golf links. Berenice was left alone in the little grey courtyard, fragrant with the perfume of scented shrubs and blossoming plants, filled too, with the warm sunlight, which seemed to find its way into every corner. She sat at her little table, paler than a few moments ago, her teeth clenched, her white fingers clasped together. Underneath her muslin blouse her heart had suddenly commenced to beat fiercely—a sense of excitement, long absent, was stealing through her veins. The bonds which a year's studied self-repression had forged were snapped apart. She knew now what it meant, the great inexpressible thing, the one eternal emotion which has come throbbing down the world from the days when poets sung their first song and painters flung truth on to canvas. She was a woman like the others, and she loved. Her unique position in society, her carefully studied life, her lofty ambitions, were like vain things crumbling into dust before her eyes. A year of cold misery seemed atoned for by the simple fact that within a few yards of her he sat writing—that within a few minutes he would be by her side. Of the future she scarcely thought. Hers was the woman's love, content with small things. Its passion was of the soul, and its song was self-sacrifice. But if she had known—if she had only known!
He came out to her soon. His manner was quiet and a little grave. Self-control came easier to him because the truth had been with him longer. Nevertheless, he was not wholly at his ease.
"You know what has happened?" she asked, smiling. "The Redfords have taken Mrs. Mannering and her daughter motoring, and Sir Leslie and Clara have gone to the golf links. You and I are left to entertain one another."
"What would you like to do?" he asked, simply.
"I should like to walk," she answered, "down by the sea somewhere. I am ready now."
They made their way through the little town, along the promenade and on to the sands beyond. Then a climb, and they found themselves in a thick wood stretching back inland from the sea. She pointed to a fallen trunk.
"Let us sit down," she said. "There are so many things I want to ask you."
On the way they had spoken only of indifferent matters, yet from the first Mannering had felt the presence of a subtle something in her deportment towards him, for which he could find no explanation. He himself was feeling the tension of this meeting. He had expected to find her so different. Gracious, perhaps, because she was a great lady, but certainly without any of these suggestions of something kept back, which continually, without any sort of direct expression, made themselves felt. And when they sat down she said nothing. He had the feeling that it was because she dared not trust herself to speak. Surprise and agitation kept him, too, silent.
At last she spoke. Her voice was not very steady, and she avoided looking at him.
"I should like," she said, "to have you tell me about yourself—about your life—and your work."
"It is told in a few words," he answered. "Somewhere, somehow, I have failed! I could not adopt the Birmingham programme, I could not oppose it. You know what isolation means politically?—abuse from one side and contempt from the other. That is what I am experiencing. The working classes have some faith in me, I believe. My work, such as it is, is solely for them. I suppose the papers tell the truth when they say that mine is a ruined career—only, you see, I am trying to do the best I can with the pieces."
"Yes," she said, softly, "that is something. To do the best one can with the pieces. We all might try to do that."
He smiled.
"You, at least, have no need to consider such a thing," he said. "So far as any woman can be preeminent in politics you have succeeded in becoming so. I saw that a lady's paper a few weeks ago said that your influence outside the Cabinet was more powerful than any one man's within it."
"Yes," she said, calmly, "the papers talk like that. It gives their readers something to laugh at! I wonder what you would say, my friend, if I told you that I, too, am engaged in that same thankless task. I, too, am striving to do the best I can with the pieces."
"You are not serious!" he protested.
"I am very serious indeed," she declared. "Shall I tell you more? Shall I tell you when I made my mistake?"
"No!" he cried, hoarsely.
"But I shall," she continued, suddenly gripping his arm. "I meant to tell you. I brought you here to tell you. I made my mistake when I let Leslie Borrowdean take you back to Lord Redford just as we were entering the rose-garden at Bayleigh. Do you remember? I made my mistake when I suffered anything in this great world to come between me and a woman's only chance of happiness! I made my mistake when I was too proud to tell you that I loved you, and that nothing else in the world mattered. There! You tried me hard! You know that! But my mistake was none the less fatal. I ought to have held fast by you, and I let you go. And I shall suffer for it all my days."
"You cared like that?" he cried.
"Worse!" she answered, turning her flushed face towards him. "I care now. Kiss me, Lawrence!"
He held her in his arms. Time stood still until she stole away with an odd little laugh.
"There," she said, "I have vindicated myself. No one can ever call me a proud woman again. And you know the truth! I might have had you all to myself and I let you go. Now I am going to do the best I can with the pieces. The half of you I want belongs to your wife. I must be content with the other half. I suppose I may have that?"
"But your friends—"
"Bosh! My friends and your wife must make the best of it. I shan't rob her again as I did just now. You can blot that out—antedate it. It belonged to the past. But I am not going through life as I have gone through this last year, longing for a sight of you, longing to hear you speak, and denying myself just because you are married. Live with your wife, Lawrence, and make her as happy as you can, but remember that you owe me a great deal, too, and you must do your best to pay it. Don't look at me as though I were talking nonsense."
He held her hand. She placed it in his unresistingly. All the lines in his face seemed smoothed out. The fire of youth was in his eyes.
"Do you wonder that I am surprised?" he asked. "All this year you have made no sign. All the time I have been schooling myself to forget you."
"Don't dare to tell me that you have succeeded!" she exclaimed.
"Not an iota!" he answered. "It was the most miserable failure of my life."
She smiled upon him delightfully, and gently withdrew her hand.
"Lawrence," she said, "I am going to talk to you seriously for one minute. You are too conscientious for a politician. Don't let the same vice spoil our friendship! Certain things you owe to your wife. Mind, I admit that, though from some points of view even that might be disputed. But you also owe me certain things—and I mean to be paid. I won't be avoided, mind. I want to be treated as a very close—and dear—companion—and—kiss me once more, Lawrence, and then we'll begin," she wound up, with a little sob in her throat.
An hour later the whole party haddéjeunertogether in the courtyard of the little hotel. The Duchess was noticeably kind to Mrs. Mannering, and she snubbed Sir Leslie. Clara looked on a little gravely. The situation contained many elements of interest.
The first cloud appeared towards the end of the third day at Bonestre. Blanche and Sir Leslie were left alone, and he hastened to improve the opportunity.
"The Duchess and your husband," he remarked, "appear very easily to have picked up again the threads of their old friendship."
"The Duchess," she answered, "is a very charming woman. I am sure that you find her so, don't you?"
"We are very old friends," he answered, "but I was never admitted to exactly the same privileges as your husband enjoys."
"The Duchess," she answered, calmly, "is a woman of taste!"
Sir Leslie muttered something under his breath. Blanche made a movement as though to take up again the book which she had been reading in a sheltered corner of the hotel garden.
"Don't you think," he said, "that we should make better friends than enemies?"
"I am not at all sure," she answered, calmly. "To tell you the truth, I don't fancy you particularly in either capacity."
He laughed unpleasantly.
"You are scarcely complimentary," he remarked.
"I did not mean to be," she answered. "Why should I?"
"You are content, then, to let your husband drift back into his old relations with the Duchess? I presume that you know what they were?"
"Whether I am or not," she answered, "what business is it of yours?"
"I will tell you, if you like," he answered. "In fact, I think it would be better. It has been the one desire of my life to marry the Duchess of Lenchester myself."
She smiled at him scornfully.
"Come," she said, "let me give you a little advice. Give up the idea. They say that lookers-on see most of the game, and so far as I am concerned I'm certainly the looker-on of this party. The Duchess doesn't care a row of pins about you!"
"There are other marriages, besides marriages of affection," Sir Leslie said, stiffly. "The Duchess is ambitious."
"But she is also a woman," Blanche declared. "And she is in love."
"With whom?"
"With my husband! I presume that is clear enough to most people!"
Sir Leslie was a little staggered.
"You take it very coolly," he remarked.
"Why not? The Duchess is too proud a woman to give herself away, and my husband—belongs to me!"
"You haven't any idea of taking poison, or anything of that sort, I suppose, have you?" he inquired. "The other woman nearly always does that."
"Not in real life," Blanche answered, composedly. "Besides, I'm not the other woman—I'm the one. The Duchess is the other!"
"But your husband—"
"Do you know, I should prefer not to discuss my husband—with you," Blanche said, calmly, taking up her book. "He is not the sort of man you would be at all likely to understand. If you want a rich wife why don't you propose to Clara Mannering? I suppose you knew that some unheard-of aunt had left her fifty thousand pounds?"
Sir Leslie rose to his feet.
"I don't fancy that you and I are very sympathetic this afternoon," he remarked. "I will go and see if any one has returned."
"Do," she answered. "I shall miss you, of course, but my book is positively absorbing, and I am dying to go on with it."
Sir Leslie left the garden without another word. Blanche held her book before her face until he had disappeared. Then it slipped from her fingers. She looked hard into a cluster of roses, and she saw only two figures—always the same figures. Her eyes were set, her face was wan and old.
"The other woman!" she murmured to herself. "That is what I am. And I can't live up to it. I ought to take poison, or get run over or something, and I know very well I shan't. Bother the man! Why couldn't he leave me alone?"
After dinner that evening she accepted her husband's nightly invitation and walked with him for a little while. The others followed.
"How much longer can you stay away from England, Lawrence?" she asked him.
"Oh—a fortnight, I should think," he answered. "I am not tied to any particular date. You like it here, I hope?"
"Immensely! Are—our friends going to remain?"
"I haven't heard them say anything about moving on yet," he answered.
"Are you in love with the Duchess still, Lawrence?"
"Am I—Blanche!"
"Don't be angry! You made a mistake once, you know. Don't make another. I'm not a jealous woman, and I don't ask much from you, but I'm your wife. That's all!"
She turned and called to Hester. The little party rearranged itself. Mannering found himself with Berenice.
"What was your wife saying to you?" she asked.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"It was the beginning," he remarked.
Berenice sighed.
"It is a strange thing," she said, "but in this world no one can ever be happy except at some one else's expense. It is a most unnatural law of compensation. Shall we move on to-morrow?"
"The day after," he pleaded. "To-morrow we are going to Berneval."
She nodded.
"We are queer people, I think," she said. "I have been perfectly satisfied this week simply to be with you. When it comes to an end I should like it to come suddenly."
He thought of her words an hour later, when on his return to the hotel they handed him a telegram. He passed it on at once to Lord Redford, and glanced at his watch.
"Poor Cunningham," he said, "it was a short triumph for him. I must go back to-night, or the first train to-morrow morning. The sitting member for my division of Leeds died suddenly last night, Blanche," he said to his wife. "I must be on the spot at once."
She rose to her feet.
"I will go and pack," she said.
Lady Redford followed her very soon. Clara and Sir Leslie had not yet returned from their stroll. Lord Redford remained alone with them.
"I scarcely know what sort of fortune to wish you, Mannering," he said. "Perhaps your first speech will tell us."
Berenice leaned back in her chair.
"I can't imagine you as a labour member in the least," she remarked.
"Doesn't this force your hand a little, Mannering?" Lord Redford said. "I understand that you were anxious to avoid a direct pronouncement upon the fiscal policy for the present."
Mannering nodded gravely.
"It is quite time I made up my mind," he said. "I shall do so now."
"May we find ourselves in the same lobby!" Lord Redford said. "I will go and find my man. He may as well take you to the station in the car."
Berenice smiled at Mannering luminously through the shadowy lights.
"Dear friend," she said, "I am delighted that you are going. Our little time here has been delightful, but we had reached its limit. I like to think that you are going back into the thick of it. Don't be faint-hearted, Lawrence. Don't lose faith in yourself. You have chosen a terribly lonely path; if any man can find his way to the top, you can. And don't dare to forget me, sir!"
He caught her cheerful tone.
"You are inspiring," he declared. "Thank heaven, I have a twelve hours' journey before me. I need time for thought, if ever a man did."
"Don't worry about it," she answered, lightly. "The truth is somewhere in your brain, I suppose, and when the time comes you will find it. Much better think about your sandwiches."
The car backed into the yard. Blanche reappeared, and behind her Mannering's bag.
"I do hope that Hester and I have packed everything," she said. "We could come over to-morrow, if there's anything you want us for. If not we shall stay here for another week. Good-bye!"
She calmly held up her lips, and Mannering kissed them after a moment's hesitation. She remained by his side even when he turned to say farewell to Berenice.
"I am sure you ought to be going," she said calmly. "I will send on your letters if there are any to-morrow. Wire your address as soon as you arrive. Good luck!"
The car glided away. They all stood in a group to see him go, and waved indiscriminate farewells. Blanche moved a little apart as the car disappeared, and Berenice watched her curiously. She was rubbing her lips with her handkerchief.
"A sting!" she remarked, becoming suddenly aware of the other's scrutiny. "Nothing that hurts very much!"
Mannering, in his sitting-room at last, locked the door and drew a long breath of relief. Upon his ear-drums there throbbed still the yells of his enthusiastic but noisy adherents—the truculent cries of those who had heard his great speech with satisfaction, of those who saw pass from amongst themselves to a newer school of thought one whom they had regarded as their natural leader. It was over at last. He had made his pronouncement. To some it might seem a compromise. To himself it was the only logical outcome of his long period of thought. He spoke for the workingman. He demanded inquiry, consideration, experiment. He demanded them in a way of his own, at once novel and convincing. Many of the most brilliant articles which had ever come from his pen he abjured. He drew a sharp line between the province of the student and the duty of the politician.
And now he was alone at last, free to think and dream, free to think of Bonestre, to wonder what reports of his meeting would reach the little French watering-place, and how they would be received. He could see Berenice reading the morning paper in the little grey courtyard, with the pigeons flying above her head and the sunlight streaming across the flags. He could hear Borrowdean's sneer, could see Lord Redford's shrug of the shoulders. There is little sympathy in the world for the man who dares to change his mind.
There was a knock at the door, and his servant entered with a tray.
"I have brought the whiskey and soda, sandwiches and cigarettes, sir," he announced. "I am sorry to say that there is a person outside whom I cannot get rid of. His name is Fardell, and he insists upon it that his business is of importance."
Mannering smiled.
"You can show him up at once," he ordered; "now, and whenever he calls."
Fardell appeared almost directly. Mannering had seen him before during the day, but noticed at once a change in him. He was pale, and looked like a man who had received some sort of a shock.
"Come in, Fardell, and sit down," Mannering said. "You look tired. Have a drink."
Fardell walked straight to the tray and helped himself to some neat whiskey.
"Thank you, sir," he said. "I—I've had rather a knockout blow."
He emptied the tumbler and set it down.
"Mr. Mannering, sir," he said, "I've just heard a man bet twenty to one in crisp five-pound bank-notes that you never sit for West Leeds."
"Was he drunk or sober?" Mannering asked.
"Sober as a judge!"
Mannering smiled.
"How often did you take him?" he asked.
"Not once! I didn't dare!"
Mannering, who had been in the act of helping himself to a whiskey and soda, looked around with the decanter in his hand.
"I don't understand you," he said, bewildered. "You know very well that the chances, so far as they can be reckoned up, are slightly in my favour."
"They were!" Fardell answered. "Heaven knows what they are now."
Mannering was a little annoyed. It seemed to him that Fardell must have been drinking.
"Do you mind explaining yourself?" he asked.
"I can do so," Fardell answered. "I must do so. But while I am about it I want you to put on your hat and come with me."
Mannering laughed shortly.
"What, to-night?" he exclaimed. "No, thank you. Be reasonable, Fardell. I've had my day's work, and I think I've earned a little rest. To be frank with you, I don't like mysteries. If you've anything to say, out with it."
"Right!" Richard Fardell answered. "I am going to ask you a question, Mr. Mannering. Go back a good many years, as many years as you like. Is there anything in your life as a younger man, say when you first entered Parliament, which—if it were brought up against you now—might be—embarrassing?"
Mannering did not answer for several moments. He was already pale and tired, but he felt what little colour remained leave his face. Least of all he had expected this. Even now—what could the man mean? What could be known?
"I am not sure that I understand you," he said. "There is nothing that could be known! I am sure of that."
"There is a person," Fardell said, slowly, "who has made extraordinary statements. Our opponents have got hold of him. The substance of them is this: He says that many years ago you were the lover of a married woman, that you sold her husband worthless shares and ruined him, and that finally—in a quarrel—he declares that he was an eye-witness of this—that you killed him."
Mannering slowly subsided into his chair. His cheeks were blanched. Richard Fardell watched him with feverish anxiety.
"It is a lie," Mannering declared. "There is no man living who can say this."
"The man says," Fardell continued, stonily, "that his name is Parkins, and that he was butler to Mr. Stephen Phillimore eleven years ago."
"Parkins is dead!" Mannering said, hoarsely. "He has been dead for many years."
"He is living in Leeds to-day," Fardell answered. "A journalist from theYorkshire Heraldwas with him for two hours this afternoon."
"Blanche—I was told that he was dead," Mannering said.
"Then the story is true?" Fardell asked.
"Not as you have told it," Mannering answered.
"There is truth in it?"
"Yes."
Richard Fardell was silent for several moments. He paced up and down the room, his hands behind his back, his eyebrows contracted into a heavy frown. For him it was a bitter moment. He was only a half-educated, illiterate man, possessed of sturdy common sense and a wonderful tenacity of purpose. He had permitted himself to indulge in a little silent but none the less absolute hero-worship, and Mannering had been the hero.
"You must come with me at once and see this man," he said at last. "He has not yet signed his statement. We must do what we can to keep him quiet."
Mannering took up his coat and hat without a word. They left the hotel, and Fardell summoned a cab.
"It is a long way," he explained. "We will drive part of the distance and walk the rest. We may be watched already."
Mannering nodded. The last blow was so unexpected that he felt in a sense numbed. His speech only a few hours ago had made large inroads upon his powers of endurance. His partial recantation had cost him many hours of torture, from which he was still suffering. And now, without the slightest warning, he found himself face to face with a crisis far graver, far more acute. Never in his most gloomy moments had he felt any real fear of a resurrection of the past such as that with which he was now threatened. It was a thunderbolt from a clear sky. Even now he found it hard to persuade himself that he was not dreaming.
They were in the cab for nearly half an hour before Fardell stopped and dismissed it. Then they walked up and down and across streets of small houses, pitiless in their monotony, squalid and depressing in their ugliness.
Finally Fardell stopped, and without hesitation knocked at the door of one of them. It was opened by a man in shirt-sleeves, holding a tallow candle in his hand.
"What yer want?" he inquired, suspiciously.
"Your lodger," Fardell answered, pushing past him and drawing Mannering into the room. "Where is he?"
The man jerked his thumb upwards.
"Where he won't be long," he answered, shortly. "The likes of 'im having visitors, and one a toff, too. Say, are yer going to pay his rent?"
"We may do that," Fardell answered. "Is he upstairs?"
"Ay!" the man answered, shuffling away. "Pay 'is rent, and yer can chuck 'im out of the winder, if yer like!"
They climbed the crazy staircase. Fardell opened the door of the room above without even the formality of knocking. An old man sat there, bending over a table, half dressed. Before him were several sheets of paper.
"I believe we're in time," Fardell muttered, half to himself. "Parkins, is that you?" he asked, in a louder tone.
The old man looked up and blinked at them. He shaded his eyes with one hand. The other he laid flat upon the papers before him. He was old, blear-eyed, unkempt.
"Is that Master Ronaldson?" he asked, in a thin, quavering tone. "I've signed 'em, sir. Have yer brought the money? I'm a poor old man, and I need a drop of something now and then to keep the life in me. If yer'll just hand over a trifle I'll send out for—eh—eh, my landlord, he's a kindly man—he'll fetch it. Eh? Two of yer! I don't see so well as I did. Is that you, Mr. Ronaldson, sir?"
Fardell threw some silver coins upon the table. The old man snatched them up eagerly.
"It's not Mr. Ronaldson," he said, "but I daresay we shall do as well. We want to talk to you about those papers there."
The old man nodded. He was gazing at the silver in his hand.
"I've writ it all out," he muttered. "I told 'un I would. A pound a week for ten years. That's what I 'ad! And then it stopped! Did she mean me to starve, eh? Not I! John Parkins knows better nor that. I've writ it all out, and there's my signature. It's gospel truth, too."
"We are going to buy the truth from you," Fardell said. "We have more money than Ronaldson. Don't be afraid. We have gold to spare where Ronaldson had silver."
The old man lifted the candle with shaking fingers. Then it dropped with a crash to the ground, and lay there for a moment spluttering. He shrank back.
"It's 'im!" he muttered. "Don't kill me, sir. I mean you no harm. It's Mr. Mannering!"
The old man had sunk into a seat. His face and hands were twitching with fear. His eyes, as though fascinated, remained fixed upon Mannering's. All the while he mumbled to himself. Fardell drew Mannering a little on one side.
"What can we do with him?" he asked. "We might tear up those sheets, give him money, keep him soddened with drink. And even then he'd give the whole show away the moment any one got at him. It isn't so bad as he makes out, I suppose?"
"It is not so bad as that," Mannering answered, "but it is bad enough."
"What became of the woman?" Fardell asked. "Parkins's mistress, I mean?"
"She is my wife," Mannering answered.
Fardell threw out his hands with a little gesture of despair.
"We must get him away from here," he said. "If Polden gets hold of him you might as well resign at once. It is dangerous for you to stay. He was evidently expecting that fellow Ronaldson to-night."
Mannering nodded.
"What shall you do with him?" he asked.
"Hide him if I can," Fardell answered, grimly. "If I can get him out of this place, it ought not to be impossible. The most important thing at present is for you to get away without being recognized."
Mannering took up his hat.
"I will go," he said. "I shall leave the cab for you. I can find my way back to the hotel."
Fardell nodded.
"It would be better," he said. "Turn your coat-collar up and draw your hat down over your eyes. You mustn't be recognized down here. It's a pretty low part."
Nevertheless, Mannering had not reached the corner of the street before he heard hasty footsteps behind him, and felt a light touch upon his shoulder. He turned sharply round.
"Well, sir!" he exclaimed, "what do you want with me?"
The newcomer was a tall, thin young man, wearing glasses, and although he was a complete stranger to Mannering, he knew at once who he was.
"Mr. Mannering, I believe?" he said, quickly.
"What has my name to do with you, sir?" Mannering answered, coldly.
"Mine is Ronaldson," the young man answered. "I am a reporter."
Mannering regarded him steadily for a moment.
"You are the young man, then," he said, "who has discovered the mare's nest of my iniquity."
"If it is a mare's nest," the young man answered, briskly, "I shall be quite as much relieved as disappointed. But your being down here doesn't look very much like that, does it?"
"No man," Mannering answered, "hears that a bomb is going to be thrown at him without a certain amount of curiosity as to its nature. I have been down to examine the bomb. Frankly, I don't think much of it."
"You are prepared, then, to deny this man Parkins's story?" the reporter asked.
"I am prepared to have a shot at your paper for libel, anyhow, if you use it," Mannering answered.
"Do you know the substance of his communication?"
"I can make a pretty good guess at it," Mannering answered.
"You really mean to deny it, then?" the reporter asked.
"Assuredly, for it is not true," Mannering answered. "Pray don't let me detain you any longer!"
He turned on his heel and walked away, but the reporter kept pace with him.
"You will pardon me, but this is a very serious affair, Mr. Mannering," he said. "Serious for both of us. Do you mind discussing it with me?"
"Not in the least," Mannering answered, "so long as you permit me to continue my way homewards."
"I will walk with you, sir, if you don't mind," the reporter said. "It is a very serious matter indeed, this! My people are as keen as possible to make use of it. If they do, and it turns out a true story, you, of course, will never sit for Leeds. And if on the other hand it is false, I shall get the sack!"
"Well, it is false," Mannering said.
"Some parts of it, perhaps," the young man answered, smoothly. "Not all, Mr. Mannering."
"Old men are garrulous," Mannering remarked. "I expect you will find that your friend has been letting his tongue run away with him."
"He has committed his statements to paper," Ronaldson remarked.
"And signed them?"
"He is willing to do so," the reporter answered. "I was to have fetched them away to-night."
"You may be a little late," Mannering remarked.
Thedouble ententein his tone did not escape Ronaldson's notice. He stopped short on the pavement.
"So you have bought him," he remarked.
Mannering glanced at him superciliously.
"Will you pardon me," he said, "if I remark that this conversation has no particular interest for me? Don't let me bring you any further out of your way."
Ronaldson took off his hat.
"Very good, sir," he remarked. "I will wish you good-night!"
Mannering pursued his way homeward with the briefest of farewells. The young reporter retraced his steps. Arrived at Parkins's lodgings he mounted the stairs, and found the room empty. He returned and interviewed the landlord. From him he only learned that Parkins had departed with one of two gentlemen who had come to see him that evening, and that they had paid his rent for him. The reporter was obliged to depart with no more satisfactory information. But next morning, before nine o'clock, he was waiting to see Mannering, and would not be denied. He was accompanied, too, by a person of no less importance than the editor of theYorkshire Heraldhimself.
Mannering kept them waiting an hour, and then received them coolly.
"I am glad to see you, Mr. Polden," he said, glancing at the editor's card. "I have already had some conversation with our young friend there," he added, glancing towards the reporter. "What can I have the pleasure of doing for you?"
Mr. Polden produced a sheet of proofs from his pocket. He passed them over to Mannering.
"I should like you to examine these, sir," he said.
"In type already!" Mannering remarked, calmly.
"In proof for our evening's issue," Polden answered.
Mannering read them through.
"It will cost you several thousand pounds!" he said.
"Then the money will be well spent," Polden answered. "No one has a higher regard for you politically than I have, Mr. Mannering, but we don't want you as member for West Leeds. That's all!"
"It happens," Mannering said, "that I am particularly anxious to sit for West Leeds."
"You will go on—in the face of this?" the editor asked Mannering.
"Yes, and with the suit for libel which will follow," Mannering answered.
The editor shrugged his shoulders.
"Do me the favour to believe, Mr. Mannering," he said, "that we have not gone into this matter blindfold. We had a preliminary intimation as to this affair from a person whose word carries considerable weight, and our investigations have been searching. I will admit that the disappearance of the man Parkins is a little awkward for us, but we have ample justification in publishing his story."
"I trust for your sakes that the law courts will support your views," Mannering said, coldly. "I scarcely think it likely."
"Mr. Mannering," Polden said, "I quite appreciate your attitude, but do you really think it is a wise one? I very much regret that it should have been our duty to unearth this unsavoury story, and having unearthed it, to use it. But you must remember that the issue on hand is a great one. I belong to the Liberal party and the absolute Free Traders, and I consider that for this city to be represented by any one who shows the least indication of being unsafe upon this question would be a national disaster and a local disgrace. I want you to understand, therefore, that I am not playing a game of bluff. The proofs you hold in your hand have been set and corrected. Within a few hours the story will stand out in black and white. Are you prepared for this?"
Mannering shrugged his shoulders.
"I am not prepared to resign my candidature, if that is what you mean," he said. "I presume that nothing short of that will satisfy you?"
"Nothing," the editor answered, firmly.
"Then there remains nothing more," Mannering remarked, coldly, "than for me to wish you a very good-morning."
"I am sorry," Mr. Polden said. "I trust you will believe, Mr. Mannering, that I find this a very unpleasant duty."
Mannering made no answer save a slight bow. He held open the door, and Mr. Polden and his satellite passed out. Afterwards he strolled to the window and looked down idly upon the crowd.
"If I act in accordance with the conventions," he murmured to himself, "I suppose I ought to take, a glass of poison, or blow my brains out. Instead of which—"
He shrugged his shoulders, and rang for his hat and coat. He was due at one of the great foundries in half an hour to speak to the men during their luncheon interval.
"Instead of which," he muttered, as he lit a cigarette, "I shall go on to the end."
The sunlight streamed down into the little grey courtyard of theLeon D'orat Bonestre. Sir Leslie Borrowdean, in an immaculate grey suit, and with a carefully chosen pink carnation in his button-hole, sat alone at a small table having his morning coffee. His attention was divided between a copy of theFigaroand a little pile of letters and telegrams on the other side of his plate. More than once he glanced at the topmost of the latter and smiled.
Mrs. Mannering and Hester came down the grey stone steps and crossed towards their own table. The former lingered for a moment as she passed Sir Leslie, who rose to greet the two women.
"Another glorious day!" he remarked. "What news from Leeds?"
"None," she said. "My husband seldom writes."
Sir Leslie smiled reflectively, and glanced towards the pile of papers at his side.
"Perhaps," she remarked, "you know better than I do how things are going there."
He shook his head.
"I have no correspondents in Leeds," he answered.
At that moment a puff of wind disturbed the papers by his side. A telegram would have fluttered away, but Blanche Mannering caught it at the edge of the table. She was handing it back, when a curious expression on Borrowdean's face inspired her with a sudden idea. She deliberately looked at the telegram, and her fingers stiffened upon it. His forward movement was checked. She stood just out of his reach.
"No correspondents in Leeds," she repeated. "Then what about this telegram?"
"You will permit me to remind you," he said, stretching out his hand for it, "that it is addressed to me."
Her hands were behind her. She leaned over towards him.
"It can be addressed to you a thousand times over," she answered, "but before I part with it I want to know what it means."
Borrowdean was thinking quickly. He wanted to gain time.
"I do not even know which document you have—purloined," he said.
"It is from Leeds," she answered, "and it is signed Polden. 'Parkins found, has made statement, appears to-night.' Can you explain what this means, Sir Leslie Borrowdean?"
Her voice was scarcely raised above a whisper, but there was a dangerous glitter in her eyes. There were few traces left of the woman whom once before he had found so easy a tool.
"I cannot tell you," he answered. "It is not an affair for you to concern yourself with at all."
"Not an affair for me to concern myself about!" she repeated, leaning a little over towards him. "Isn't it my husband against whom you are scheming? Don't I know what low tricks you are capable of? Isn't this another proof of it? Not an affair for me to concern myself about, indeed! Didn't you worm the whole miserable story out of me?"
"My dear Mrs. Mannering!"
She checked a torrent of words. Her bosom was heaving underneath her lace blouse. She was pale almost to the lips. The sudden and complete disuse of all manner of cosmetics had to a certain extent blanched her face. There was room there now for the writing of tragedy. Borrowdean, still outwardly suave, was inwardly cursing the unlucky chance which had blown the telegram her way.
"Might I suggest," he said, in a low tone, "that we postpone our conversation till after breakfast time? The waiters seem to be favouring us with a great deal of attention, and several of them understand English."
She did not even turn her head. Thinner a good deal since her marriage, she seemed to him to have grown taller, to have gained in dignity and presence, as she stood there before him, her angry eyes fixed upon his face. She was no longer a person to be ignored.
"You must tell me about this—or—"
"Or?" he repeated, stonily.
"Or I will make a public statement," she answered. "If you ruin my husband's career, I can at least do the same with yours. Politics is supposed to be a game for honourable men to play with honourable weapons. I wonder if Lord Redford would approve of your methods?"
"You can go and ask him, my dear madam," he answered. "I am perfectly ready to defend myself."
"Defend! You have no defence," she answered. "Can you deny that you are plotting to keep my husband out of Parliament now, just as a few months ago you plotted to bring him back? You are making use of a personal secret, a forgotten chapter of his life, to move him about like a puppet to do your will."
"I work for the good of a cause and a great party," he answered. "You do not understand these things."
"I understand you so far as this," she answered. "You are one of those to whom life is a chessboard, and your one aim is to make the pieces work for you, and at your bidding, till you sit in the place you covet. There isn't much of the patriot about you, Sir Leslie Borrowdean."
He glanced down at his unfinished breakfast. He had the air of one who is a little bored.
"My dear lady," he said, "is this discussion really worth while?"
"No," she answered, bluntly, "it isn't. You are quite right. We are wandering from the subject."
"Let us talk," he suggested, "after breakfast. Give me back that telegram now, and I will explain it, say, in the garden in half an hour. I detest cold coffee."
"You can do like me, order some fresh," she said. "If I let you out of my sight I know very well how much I shall see of you for the rest of the day. Explain now if you can. What does that telegram mean?"
"Surely it is obvious enough," he answered. "The man Parkins, whom you told me was dead, is alive and in Leeds. He has seen Mannering's name about, has been talking, and the press have got hold of his story. I am sorry, but there was always this possibility, wasn't there?"
"And this telegram?" she asked.
"I know Polden, the editor of the paper, and he referred to me to know if there could be any truth in it."
"These are lies!" she declared. "You were the instigator. You set them on the track."
"I have nothing more to say," Borrowdean declared, coldly.
"I have," she said. "I shall take this telegram to Lord Redford. I shall tell him everything!"
A faint smile flickered upon Borrowdean's lips.
"Lord Redford would, I am sure, be charmed to hear your story," he remarked. "Unfortunately he started for Dieppe this morning before eight o'clock, and will not be back until to-morrow."
"And to-morrow will be too late," she added, rapidly pursuing his train of thought. "Then I will try the Duchess!"
He started very slightly, but she saw it.
"Sit down for a moment, Mrs. Mannering," he said.
She accepted the chair he placed for her. There was a distinct change in his manner. He realized that this woman held a trump card against him. Even in her hands it might mean disaster.
"Blanche—" he began.
"Thank you," she interrupted, "I prefer 'Mrs. Mannering.'"
He bit his lips in annoyance.
"Mrs. Mannering, then," he continued, "we have been allies before, and I think that you will admit that I have always kept faith with you. I don't see any reason why we should play at being enemies. You have a price, I suppose, for that telegram and your silence. Name it."
She nodded.
"Yes, I have a price," she admitted.
"Remember that, after all, this is not a great issue," he said. "If your husband does not get in for Leeds he will probably find a seat somewhere else."
"That is false," she answered, "If your man Polden publishes Parkins's story my husband's political career is over, and you know it. Do keep as near to the truth as you can."
"I will give you," he said, "five hundred pounds for that telegram and your silence."
She rose slowly to her feet. A dull flush of colour mounted almost to her eyes. Borrowdean watched her anxiously. Then for a moment came an interruption. The Duchess was descending the grey stone steps from the hotel.
She had addressed some word of greeting to them. They both turned towards her. She wore a white serge dress, and she carried a white lace parasol over her bare head. She moved towards them with her usual languid grace, followed by her maid carrying a tiny Maltese dog and a budget of letters. The loiterrers in the courtyard stared at her with admiration. It was impossible to mistake her for anything but a great lady.
"You have the air of conspirators, you two!" she said, as she approached them. "Is it an expedition for the day that you are planning?"
Blanche Mannering turned her back upon Borrowdean.
"Sir Leslie," she said, "has just offered me five hundred pounds for a telegram which I have here and for my silence concerning its contents. I was wondering whether he had bid high enough."
The Duchess looked from one to the other. She almost permitted herself to be astonished. Borrowdean's face was dark with anger. Blanche Mannering's apparent calmness was obviously of the surface only.
"Are you serious?" she asked.
"Miserably so!" Blanche answered. "Sir Leslie has strange ideas of honour, I find. He is making use of a story which I told him once concerning my husband, to drive him out of political life. Duchess, will you do me the favour to let me talk with you for five minutes, and to make Sir Leslie Borrowdean promise not to leave this hotel till you have seen him again?"
"I have no intention of leaving the hotel," Sir Leslie said, stiffly.
Berenice pointed to her table.
"Come and take your coffee with me, Mrs. Mannering," she said.
Mannering passed through the day like a man in a nightmare. He addressed two meetings of working-men, and interviewed half a dozen of his workers. At mid-day the afternoon edition of theYorkshire Heraldwas being sold in the streets. He bought a copy and glanced it feverishly through. Nothing! He lunched and went on with his work. At three o'clock a second edition was out. Again he purchased a copy, and again there was nothing. The suspense was getting worse even than the disaster itself. Between four and five they brought him in a telegram. He tore it open, and found that it was from Bonestre. The words seemed to stare up at him from the pink form. It was incredible:
"Polden muzzled. Go in and win."
The form fluttered from his fingers on to the floor of his sitting-room. He stood looking at it, dazed. Outside, a mob of people, standing round his carriage, were shouting his name.
Mannering threw up his window with a sigh of immense relief. The air was cold and fresh. The land, as yet unwarmed by the slowly rising sun, was hung with a faint autumn mist. Traces of an early frost lay in the brown hedgerows inland; the sea was like a sheet of polished glass. Gone the smoke-stained rows of shapeless houses, the atmosphere polluted by a thousand chimneys belching smuts and black vapour, the clanging of electric cars, the rattle of all manner of vehicles over the cobbled streets. Gone the hoarse excitement of the shouting mobs, the poisonous atmosphere of close rooms, all the turmoil and racket and anxiety of those fighting days. He was back again in Bonestre. Below in the courtyard the white cockatoo was screaming. The waiters in their linen coats were preparing the tables for the few remaining guests. And the other things were of yesterday!
Mannering had arrived in the middle of the night unexpectedly, and his appearance was a surprise to every one. He had knocked at his wife's door on his way downstairs, but Blanche had taken to early rising, and was already down. He found them all breakfasting together in a sheltered corner of the courtyard.
Berenice, after the usual greetings and explanations, smiled at him thoughtfully.
"I am not sure," she said, "whether I ought to congratulate you or not. Sir Leslie here thinks that you mean mischief!"
"Only on the principle," Borrowdean said, "that whoever is not with us is against us."
"We are all agreed upon one thing," Berenice said. "It was your last speech, the one the night before the election, which carried you in. A national party indeed! A legislator, not a politician! You talked to those canny Yorkshiremen with your head in the clouds, and yet they listened."
Mannering smiled as he poured out his coffee.
"I talked common sense to them," he remarked, "and Yorkshiremen like that. We have been slaves to the old-fashioned idea of party Government long enough. It's an absurd thing when you come to think of it. Fancy a great business being carried on by a board of partners of divergent views, and unable to make a purchase or a sale or effect any change whatever without talking the whole thing threadbare, and then voting upon it. The business would go down, of course!"
"Party Government," Borrowdean declared, "is the natural evolution of any republican form of administration. A nation that chooses its own representatives must select them from its varying standpoint."
"Their views may differ slightly upon some matters," Mannering said, "but their first duty should be to come into accord with one another. It is a matter for compromises, of course. The real differences between intelligent men of either party are very slight. The trouble is that under the present system everything is done to increase them instead of bridging them over."
"If you had to form a Government, then," Berenice asked, "you would not choose the members from one party?"
"Certainly not," Mannering answered. "Supposing I were the owner of Redford's car there, and wanted a driver. I should simply try to get the best man I could, and I should certainly not worry as to whether he were, say, a churchman or a dissenter. The best man for the post is what the country has a right to expect, whatever he may call himself, and the country doesn't get it. The people pay the piper, and I consider that they get shocking bad value for their money. The Boer War, for instance, would have cost us less than half as much if we had had the right men to direct the commercial side of it. That money would have been useful in the country just now."
"An absolute monarchy," Hester said, smiling, "would be really the most logical form of Government, then? But would it answer?"
"Why not?" Borrowdean asked. "If the monarch were incapable he would of course be shot!"
"A dictator—" Berenice began, but Mannering held out his hands, laughing.
"Think of my last few days, and spare me!" he begged. "I have thirty-six hours' holiday. How do you people spend your time here?"
Berenice took him away with her as a matter of course. Blanche watched them depart with a curious tightening of the lips. She was standing alone in the gateway of the hotel, and she watched them until they were out of sight. Borrowdean, sauntering out to buy some papers, paused for a moment as he passed.
"Your husband, Mrs. Mannering," he said, drily, "is a very fortunate man."
She made no reply, and Borrowdean passed on. Hester came out with a message from Lady Redford—would Mrs. Mannering care to motor over to Berneval for luncheon? Blanche shook her head. She scarcely heard the invitation. She was still watching the two figures disappearing in the distance. Hester understood, but she spoke lightly.
"I believe," she said, "that the Duchess still has hopes of Mr. Mannering."
"She is a persistent woman," Blanche answered. "They say that she generally succeeds. Let us go in."
Berenice was listening to Mannering's account of his last few days' electioneering.
"The whole affair came upon me like a thunderclap," he told her. "Richard Fardell found it out somehow, and he took me to see Parkins. But it was too late. Polden had hold of the story and meant to use it. I never imagined but that Parkins had been talking and this journalist had got hold of him by accident. Now I understand that it was Borrowdean who was pulling the strings."
She nodded.
"He traced Parkins out some time ago, and knew exactly where he was to be found."
"I think," Mannering said, "that it is time Borrowdean and I came to some understanding. I haven't said anything about it yet. I don't exactly know what to say now. You are a very generous woman."
She sighed.
"No," she said, "I don't think that. Sir Leslie is a schemer of the class I detest. I listened to him once, and I have regretted it ever since. Yet you must remember this! If it had not been for him you would have been at Blakely to-day."
His thoughts carried him backwards with a rush. Once more the thrall of that quiet life of passionless sweetness held him. He looked back upon it curiously, as a man who has passed into another country. Days of physical exaltation, alone with the sun and the wind and all the murmuring voices of Nature, God's life he had called it then. And now! The stress of battle was hard upon him. He was fighting in the front ranks, a somewhat cheerless battle, fighting for great causes with inefficient weapons. But he could not go back. Life had become a more strenuous, a more vital, a less beautiful thing! He felt himself ageing. All the inevitable sadness of the man in touch with the world's great problems was in his heart. But he could not go back.
"Yes," he said, quietly, "I owe that much to Borrowdean."
"There is a question," she said, "which I have wanted to ask you. Do you regret, or are you glad to have been forced out once more upon the world's stage?"
He smiled.
"How can I answer you?" he asked. "At Blakely I was as happy as I knew how to be, and until you came I was content! But to-day, well, there are different things. How can I answer your question, indeed? Tell me what happiness means! Tell me whether it is an ignoble or a praiseworthy state!"
Berenice was silent. Into her face there had come a sudden gravity. Mannering, glancing towards her, was at once conscious of the change. He saw the weariness so often and zealously repressed, the ageing of her face, the sudden triumph of the despair which in the quiet moments chilled her heart. It seemed to him that for that moment they had come into some closer communion. He bent over towards her.
"Ah!" he murmured, "you, too, are beginning to understand. Happiness is only for the ignorant. For you and for me knowledge has eaten its way too far into our lives. We climb all the while, but the flowers in the meadows are the fairest."
She shook her head.
"The little white flower which grows in the mountains is what we must always seek," she answered. "The meadows are for the others."
"We are accursed with this knowledge, and the desire for it," he declared, fiercely. "The suffering is for us, and the joy for the beasts of the field. Why not throw down the cards? We are the devil's puppets in this game of life."
"There is no place for us down there," she answered, sadly. "There is joy enough for them, because the finger has never touched their eyes. But for us—no, we have to go on! I was a foolish woman, Lawrence. I lost my sense of proportion. Traditions, you see, were hard to break away from. I did not understand. Let this be the end of all mention of such things between us. We have missed the turning, and we must go on. That is the hardest thing in life. One can never retrace one's steps."
"We go on—apart?"
"We must," she said. "Don't think me prejudiced, Lawrence. I must stand by my party. Theoretically, I think that you are the only logical politician I have ever known. Actually, I think that you are steering your course towards the sandbanks. You will fail, but you will fail magnificently. Well, that is something."
"It is a good deal," he answered, "but if I live long enough, and my strength remains, I shall succeed. I shall place the Government of this country upon an altogether different basis. I shall empty the work-houses and fill the factories. Nothing short of that will content me. Nothing short of that would content any man upon whose shoulders the burden has fallen."
"You have centuries of prejudice to fight," she warned him. "You may not succeed! Yet you have all my good wishes. I shall always watch you."
They turned homeward in silence. All that had passed between them seemed to be already far back in the past. Their retrogression seemed almost symbolical. They spoke of indifferent things.
"Tell me," he asked, "how you came to know what was going on in Leeds."
"It was your wife," she said, "who discovered it!"
"My wife?"
"She saw a telegram on Sir Leslie's table at breakfast, a telegram from the man Polden. She read it and demanded an explanation. Sir Leslie tried all he could to wriggle out of it, but in vain. She appealed to me. Even I had a great deal of difficulty in dealing with him, but eventually he gave way."