Chapter 21

One Saturday in early August, some weeks after the incident described in the last chapter, Bobbie Forbes, in the worst inn's worst fly, such being the stress and famine of election time, drove up to the Tallyn front door. It was the day after the polling, and Tallyn, with its open windows and empty rooms, had the look of a hive from which the bees have swarmed. According to the butler, only Lady Niton was at home, and the household was eagerly awaiting news of the declaration of the poll at Dunscombe Town Hall. Lady Niton, indeed, was knitting in the drawing-room.

"Capital!--to find you alone," said Bobbie, taking a seat beside her. "All the others at Dunscombe, I hear. And no news yet?"

Lady Niton, who had given him one inky finger--(a pile of letters just completed lay beside her)--shook her head, looking him critically up and down the while.

The critical eye, however, was more required in her own case. She was untidily dressed, as usual, in a shabby black gown; her brown "front" was a little displaced, and her cap awry; and her fingers had apparently been badly worsted in a struggle with her pen. Yet her diminutive figure in the drawing-room--such is the power of personality--made a social place of it at once.

"I obeyed your summons," Bobbie continued, "though I'm sure Lady Lucy didn't want to invite me with all this hubbub going on. Well, what do you prophesy? They told me at the station that the result would be out by two o'clock. I very nearly went to the Town Hall, but the fact is everybody's so nervous I funked it. If Oliver's kicked out, the fewer tears over spilled milk the better."

"He won't be kicked out."

"Don't make too sure! I have been hearing the most dismal reports. The Ferrierites hate him much worse than if he'd gone against them openly. And the fellows he really agrees with don't love him much better."

"All the same he will get in; and if he don't get office now he will in a few years."

"Oliver must be flattered that you believe in him so."

"I don't believe in him at all," said Lady Niton, sharply. "Every country has the politicians it deserves."

Bobbie grinned.

"I don't find you a democrat yet."

"I'm just as much of one as anybody in this house, for all their fine talk. Only they pretend to like being governed by their plumbers and gas-fitters, and I don't."

"I hear that Oliver's speeches have been extremely good."

"H'm--all about the poor," said Lady Niton, releasing her hand from the knitting-needles, and waving it scornfully at the room in which they sat. "Well, if Oliver were to tell me from now till doomsday that his heart bled for the poor, I shouldn't believe him. It doesn't bleed. He is as comfortable in his middle region as you or I."

Bobbie laughed.

"Now look here, I'm simply famished for gossip, and I must have it." Lady Niton's ball of wool fell on the floor. Bobbie pounced upon it, and put it in his pocket. "A hostage! Surrender--and talk to me! Do you belong to the Mallory faction--or don't you?"

"Give me my ball, sir--and don't dare to mention that girl's name in this house."

Bobbie opened his eyes.

"I say!--what did you mean by writing to me like that if you weren't on the right side?"

"What do you mean?"

"You can't have gone over to Lady Lucy and the Fotheringham woman!"

Lady Niton looked at him with a queer expression of contempt in her tanned and crumpled face.

"Is that the only reason you can imagine for my not permitting you to talk of Diana Mallory in this house?"

Bobbie, looked puzzled. Then a light broke.

"I see! You mean the house isn't good enough? Precisely! What's up. Alicia? _No_!"

Lady Niton laughed.

"He has been practically engaged to her for two years. He didn't know it, of course--he hadn't an idea of it. But Alicia knew it. Oh! she allowed him his amusements. The Mallory girl was one of them. If the Sparling story hadn't broken it off, something else would. I don't believe Alicia ever alarmed herself."

"Are they engaged?"

"Not formally. I dare say it won't be announced till the autumn," said his companion, indifferently. Then seeing that Bobbie's attention was diverted, she made a dash with one skinny hand at his coat-pocket, abstracted the ball of wool, and triumphantly returned to her knitting.

"Mean!" said Bobbie. "You caught me off guard. Well, I wish them joy. Of course, I've always liked Marsham, and I'm very sorry he's got himself into such a mess. But as for Alicia, there's no love lost between us. I hear Miss Mallory's at Beechcote."

Lady Niton replied that she had only been three days in the house, that she had asked--ostentatiously--for a carriage the day before to take her to call at Beechcote, and had been refused. Everything, it seemed, was wanted for election purposes. But she understood that Miss Mallory was quite well and not breaking her heart at all. At the present moment she was the most popular person in Brookshire, and would be the most petted, if she would allow it. But she and Mrs. Colwood lived a very quiet life, and were never to be seen at the tea and garden parties in which the neighborhood abounded.

"Plucky of her to come back here!" said Bobbie. "And how's Lady Lucy?"

Lady Niton moved impatiently.

"Lucy would be all right if her son wouldn't join a set of traitors in jockeying the man who put him into Parliament, and has been Lucy's quasi-husband for twenty years!"

"Oh, you think he _is_ in the plot?"

"Of course, Lucy swears he isn't. But if not--why isn't Ferrier here? His own election was over a week ago. In the natural course of things he would have been staying here since then, and speaking for Oliver. Not a word of it! I'm glad he's shown a little spirit at last! He's put up with it about enough."

"And Lady Lucy's fretting?"

"She don't like it--particularly when he comes to stay with Sir James Chide and not at Tallyn. Such a thing has never happened before."

"Poor old Ferrier!" said Bobbie, with a shrug of the shoulders.

Lady Niton drew herself up fiercely.

"Don't pity your betters, sir! It's disrespectful."

Bobbie smiled. "You know the Ministry's resigned?"

"About time! What have they been hanging on for so long?"

"Well, it's done at last. I found a wire from the club waiting for me here. The Queen has sent for Broadstone, and the fat's all in the fire."

The two fell into an excited discussion of the situation. The two rival heroes of the electoral six weeks on the Liberal side had been, of course, Ferrier and Lord Philip. Lord Philip had conducted an astonishing campaign in the Midlands, through a series of speeches of almost revolutionary violence, containing many veiled, or scarcely veiled, attacks on Ferrier. Ferrier, on the whole held the North; but the candidates in the Midlands had been greatly affected by Lord Philip and Lord Philip's speeches, and a contagious enthusiasm had spread through whole districts, carrying in the Liberal candidates with a rush. In the West and South, too, where the Darcy family had many friends and large estates, the Liberal nominees had shown a strong tendency to adopt Lord Philip's programme and profess enthusiastic admiration for its author. So that there were now two kings of Brentford. Lord Philip's fortunes had risen to a threatening height, and the whole interest of the Cabinet-making just beginning lay in the contest which it inevitably implied between Ferrier and his new but formidable lieutenant. It was said that Lord Philip had retired to his tent--alias, his Northamptonshire house--and did not mean to budge thence till he had got all he wanted out of the veteran Premier.

"As for the papers," said Bobbie, "you see they're already at it hammer and tongs. However, so long as the _Herald_ sticks to Ferrier, he has very much the best of it. This new editor Barrington is an awfully clever fellow."

"Barrington!--Barrington!" said Lady Niton, looking up, "That's the man who's coming to-night."

"Coming here?--Barrington? Hullo, I wonder what's up?"

"He proposed himself, Oliver says; he's an old friend."

"They were at Trinity together. But he doesn't really care much about Oliver. I'm certain he's not coming here for Oliver's _beaux yeux_, or Lady Lucy's."

"What does it matter?" cried Lady Niton, disdainfully.

"H'm!--you think 'em all a poor lot?"

"Well, when you've known Dizzy and Peel, Palmerston and Melbourne, you're not going to stay awake nights worriting about John Ferrier. In any other house but this I should back Lord Philip. But I like to make Oliver uncomfortable."

"Upon my word! I have heard you say that Lord Philip's speeches were abominable."

"So they are. But he ought to have credit for the number of 'em he can turn out in a week."

"He'll be heard, in fact, for his much speaking?"

Bobbie looked at his companion with a smile. Suddenly his cheek flushed. He sat down beside her and tried to take her hand.

"Look here," he said, with vivacity, "I think you were an awful brick to stick up for Miss Mallory as you did."

Lady Niton withdrew her hand.

"I haven't an idea what you're driving at."

"You really thought that Oliver should have given up all that money?"

His companion looked at him rather puzzled.

"He wouldn't have been a pauper," she said, dryly; "the girl had some."

"Oh, but not much. No!--you took a dear, unworldly generous view of it!--a view which has encouraged me immensely!"

"You!" Lady Niton drew back, and drew up, as though scenting battle, while her wig and cap slipped more astray.

"Yes--me. It's made me think--well, that I ought to have told you a secret of mine weeks ago."

And with a resolute and combative air, Bobbie suddenly unburdened himself of the story of his engagement--to a clergyman's daughter, without a farthing, his distant cousin on his mother's side, and quite unknown to Lady Niton.

His listener emitted a few stifled cries--asked a few furious questions--and then sat rigid.

"Well?" said Bobbie, masking his real anxiety under a smiling appearance.

With a great effort, Lady Niton composed herself. She stretched out a claw and resumed her work, two red spots on her cheeks.

"Marry her, if you like," she said, with delusive calm. "I sha'n't ever speak to you again. A scheming minx without a penny!--that ought never to have been allowed out of the school-room."

Bobbie leaped from his chair.

"Is that the way you mean to take it?"

Lady Niton nodded.

"That is the way I mean to take it!"

"What a fool I was to believe your fine speeches about Oliver!"

"Oliver may go to the devil!" cried Lady Niton.

"Very well!" Bobbie's dignity was tremendous. "Then I don't mean to be allowed less liberty than Oliver. It's no good continuing this conversation. Why, I declare! some fool has been meddling with those books!"

And rapidly crossing the floor, swelling with wrath and determination, Bobbie opened the bookcase of first editions which stood in this inner drawing-room and began to replace some volumes, which had strayed from their proper shelves, with a deliberate hand.

"You resemble Oliver in one thing!" Lady Niton threw after him.

"What may that be?" he said, carelessly.

"You both find gratitude inconvenient!"

Bobbie turned and bowed. "I do!" he said, "inconvenient, and intolerable! Hullo!--I hear the carriage. I beg you to remark that what I told you was confidential. It is not to be repeated in company."

Lady Niton had only time to give him a fierce look when the door opened, and Lady Lucy came wearily in.

Bobbie hastened to meet her.

"My dear Lady Lucy!--what news?"

"Oliver is in!"

"Hurrah!" Bobbie shook her hand vehemently. "I am glad!"

Lady Niton, controlling herself with difficulty, rose from her seat, and also offered a hand.

"There, you see, Lucy, you needn't have been so anxious."

Lady Lucy sank into a chair.

"What's the majority?" said Bobbie, astonished by her appearance and manner. "I say, you know, you've been working too hard."

"The majority is twenty-four," said Lady Lucy, coldly, as though she had rather not have been asked the question; and at the same time, leaning heavily back in her chair, she began feebly to untie the lace strings of her bonnet. Bobbie was shocked by her appearance. She had aged rapidly since he had last seen her, and, in particular, a gray shadow had overspread the pink-and-white complexion which had so long preserved her good looks.

On hearing the figures (the majority five years before had been fifteen hundred), Bobbie could not forbear an exclamation which produced another contraction of Lady Lucy's tired brow. Lady Niton gave a very audible "Whew!"--to which she hastened to add: "Well, Lucy, what does it matter? Twenty-four is as good as two thousand."

Lady Lucy roused herself a little.

"Of course," she said, languidly, "it is disappointing. But we may be glad it is no worse. For a little while, during the counting, we thought Oliver was out. But the last bundles to be counted were all for him, and we just saved it." A pause, and then the speaker added, with emphasis: "It has been a _horrid_ election! Such ill-feeling--and violence--such unfair placards!--some of them, I am sure, were libellous. But I am told one can do nothing."

"Well, my dear, this is what Democracy comes to," said Lady Niton, taking up her knitting again with vehemence. "'_Tu l'as voulu, Georges Dandin_.' You Liberals have opened the gates--and now you grumble at the deluge."

"It has been the injustice shown him by his own side that Oliver minds." The speaker's voice betrayed the bleeding of the inward wound. "Really, to hear some of our neighbors talk, you would think him a Communist. And, on the other hand, he and Alicia only just escaped being badly hurt this morning at the collieries--when they were driving round. I implored them not to go. However, they would. There was an ugly crowd, and but for a few mounted police that came up, it might have been most unpleasant."

"I suppose Alicia has been careering about with him all day?" said Lady Niton.

"Alicia--and Roland Lankester--and the chairman of Oliver's committee. Now they've gone off on the coach, to drive round some of the villages, and thank people." Lady Lucy rose as she spoke.

"Not much to thank for, according to you!" observed Lady Niton, grimly.

"Oh, well, he's in!" Lady Lucy drew a long breath. "But people have behaved so extraordinarily! That man--that clergyman--at Beechcote--Mr. Lavery. He's been working night and day against Oliver. Really, I think parsons ought to leave politics alone."

"Lavery?" said Bobbie. "I thought he was a Radical. Weren't Oliver's speeches advanced enough to please him?"

"He has been denouncing Oliver as a humbug, because of what he is pleased to call the state of the mining villages. I'm sure they're a great, great deal better than they were twenty years ago!" Lady Lucy's voice was almost piteous. "However, he very nearly persuaded the miners to run a candidate of their own, and when that fell through, he advised them to abstain from voting. And they must have done so--in several villages. That's pulled down the majority."

"Abominable!" said Bobbie, who was comfortably conservative. "I always said that man was a firebrand."

"I don't know what he expects to get by it," said Lady Lucy, slowly, as she moved toward the door. Her tone was curiously helpless; she was still stately, but it was a ghostly and pallid stateliness.

"Get by it!" sneered Lady Niton. "After all, his friends are in. They say he's eloquent. His jackasseries will get him a bishopric in time--you'll see."

"It was the unkindness--the ill-feeling--I minded," said Lady Lucy, in a low voice, leaning heavily upon her stick, and looking straight before her as though she inwardly recalled some of the incidents of the election. "I never knew anything like it before."

Lady Niton lifted her eyebrows--not finding a suitable response. Did Lucy really not understand what was the matter?--that her beloved Oliver had earned the reputation throughout the division of a man who can propose to a charming girl, and then desert her for money, at the moment when the tragic blow of her life had fallen upon her?--and she, that of the mercenary mother who had forced him into it. Precious lucky for Oliver to have got in at all!

The door closed on Lady Lucy. Forgetting for an instant what had happened before her hostess entered, Elizabeth Niton, bristling with remarks, turned impetuously toward Forbes. He had gone back to first editions, and was whistling vigorously as he worked. With a start, Lady Niton recollected herself. Her face reddened afresh; she rose, walked with as much majesty as her station admitted to the door, which she closed sharply behind her.

As soon as she was gone Bobbie stopped whistling. If she was really going to make a quarrel of it, it would certainly be a great bore--a hideous bore. His conscience pricked him for the mean and unmanly dependence which had given the capricious and masterful little woman so much to say in his affairs. He must really find fresh work, pay his debts, those to Lady Niton first and foremost, and marry the girl who would make a decent fellow of him. But his heart smote him about his queer old Fairy Blackstick. No surrender!--but he would like to make peace.

* * * * *

It was past eight o'clock when the four-in-hand on which the new member had been touring the constituency drove up to the Tallyn door. Forbes hurried to the steps to greet the party.

"Hullo, Oliver! A thousand congratulations, old fellow! Never mind the figures. A win's a win! But I thought you would have been dining and junketing in Dunscombe to-night. How on earth did you get them to let you off?"

Oliver's tired countenance smiled perfunctorily as he swung himself down from the coach. He allowed his hand to be shaken; his lips moved, but only a husky whisper emerged.

"Lost his voice," Roland Lankester explained. "And so done that we begged him off from the Dunscombe dinner. He's only fit for bed."

And with a wave of the hand to the company, Marsham, weary and worn, mounted the steps, and, passing rapidly through the hall, went up-stairs. Alicia Drake and Lankester followed, pausing in the hall to talk with Bobbie.

Alicia too looked tired out. She was dressed in a marvellous gown of white chiffon, adorned with a large rosette of Marsham's colors--red-and-yellow--and wore a hat entirely composed of red and yellow roses. The colors were not becoming to her, and she had no air of happy triumph. Rather, both in her and in Marsham there were strong signs of suppressed chagrin and indignation.

"Well, that's over!" said Miss Drake, throwing down her gloves on the billiard-table with a fierce gesture; "and I'm sure neither Oliver nor I would go through it again for a million of money. How _revolting_ the lower classes are!"

Lankester looked at her curiously.

"You've worked awfully hard," he said. "I hope you're going to have a good rest."

"I wouldn't bother about rest if I could pay out some of the people here," said Alicia, passionately. "I should like to see a few score of them hanged in chains, _pour encourager les autres_."

So saying, she gathered up her gloves and parasol, and swept up-stairs declaring that she was too dog-tired to talk.

Bobbie Forbes and Lankester looked at each other.

"It's been really a beastly business!" said Lankester, under his breath. "Precious little politics in it, too, as far as I could see. The strong Ferrierites no doubt have held aloof on the score of Marsham's supposed disloyalty to the great man; though, as far as I can make out, he has been careful not to go beyond a certain line in his speeches. Anyway, they have done no work, and a good many of them have certainly abstained from voting. It is our vote that has gone down; the Tories have scarcely increased theirs at all. But the other side--and the Socialists--got hold of a lot of nasty little things about the estate and the collieries. The collieries are practically in rebellion, spoiling for a big strike next November, if not before. When Miss Drake and Marsham drove round there this morning they were very badly received. Her parasol was broken by a stone, and there was a good deal of mud-throwing."

Bobbie eyed his companion.

"Was any of the Opposition personal to _her_?"

Lankester nodded.

"There's an extraordinary feeling all over the place for--"

"Of course there is!" said Bobbie, hotly. "Marsham isn't such a fool as not to know that. Why did he let this aggressive young woman take such a prominent part?"

Lankester shrugged his shoulders, but did not pursue the subject. The two men went up-stairs, and Lankester parted from his companion with the remark:

"I must say I hope Marsham won't press for anything in the Government. I don't believe he'll ever get in for this place again."

Forbes shook his head.

"Marsham's got a lot of devil in him somewhere. I shouldn't wonder if this made him set his teeth."

* * * * *

Lankester opened the door of the ugly yet luxurious room which had been assigned him. He looked round it with fresh distaste, resenting its unnecessary size and its pretentious decoration, resenting also the very careful valeting which had evidently been bestowed on his shabby clothes and personal appointments, as though the magnificent young footman who looked after him had been doing his painful best with impossible materials.

"Why, the idiots have shut the windows!"

He strode vehemently across the floor, only to find the park outside, as he hung across the sill, even less to his liking than the room within.

Then, throwing himself into a chair, tired out with the canvassing, speaking, and multifarious business of the preceding days, he fell to wondering what on earth had made him--after the fatigues of his own election--come down to help Marsham with his. There were scores of men in the House he liked a great deal better, and requests for help had been showered upon him.

He had, no doubt, been anxious, as a keen member of the advanced group, that Marsham should finally commit himself to the programme of the Left Wing, with which he had been so long coquetting. Oliver had a considerable position in the House, and was, moreover, a rich man. Rich men had not, so far, been common in the advanced section of the party. Lankester, in whom the idealist and the wire-puller were shrewdly mixed, was well aware that the reforms he desired could only be got by extensive organization; and he knew precisely what the money cost of getting them would be. Rich men, therefore, were the indispensable tools of his ideas; and among his own group he who had never possessed a farthing of his own apart from the earnings of his brain and pen was generally set on to capture them.

Was that really why he had come down?--to make sure of this rich Laodicean? Lankester fell into a reverie.

He was a man of curious gifts and double personality. It was generally impossible to lure him, on any pretext, from the East End and the House of Commons. He lived in a block of model dwellings in a street opening out of the East India Dock Road, and his rooms, whenever he was at home, were overrun by children from the neighboring tenements. To them he was all gentleness and fun, while his command of invective in a public meeting was little short of terrible. Great ladies and the country-houses courted him because of a certain wit, a certain charm--above all, a certain spiritual power--which piqued the worldling. He flouted and refused the great ladies--with a smile, however, which gave no offence; and he knew, notwithstanding, everybody whom he wanted to know. Occasionally he made quiet spaces in his life, and disappeared from London for days or weeks. When he reappeared it was often with a battered and exhausted air, as of one from whom virtue had gone out. He was, in truth, a mystic of a secular kind: very difficult to class religiously, though he called himself a member of the Society of Friends. Lady Lucy, who was of Quaker extraction, recognized in his ways and phrases echoes from the meetings and influences of her youth. But, in reality, he was self-taught and self-formed, on the lines of an Evangelical tradition, which had owed something, a couple of generations back, among his Danish forebears, to the influence of Emanuel Swedenborg. This tradition had not only been conveyed to him by a beloved and saintly mother; it had been appropriated by the man's inmost forces. What he believed in, with all mystics, was _prayer_--an intimate and ineffable communion between the heart and God. Lying half asleep on the House of Commons benches, or strolling on the Terrace, he pursued often an inner existence, from which he could spring in a moment to full mundane life--arguing passionately for some Socialist proposal, scathing an opponent, or laughing and "ragging" with a group of friends, like a school-boy on an _exeat_. But whatever he did, an atmosphere went with him that made him beloved. He was extremely poor, and wrote for his living. His opinions won the scorn of moderate men; and every year his influence in Parliament--on both sides of the House and with the Labor party--increased. On his rare appearance in such houses as Tallyn Hall every servant in the house marked and befriended him. The tall footman, for instance, who had just been endeavoring to make the threadbare cuffs of Lankester's dress coat present a more decent appearance, had done it in no spirit of patronage, but simply in order that a gentleman who spoke to him as a man and a brother should not go at a disadvantage among "toffs" who did nothing of the kind.

But again--why had he come down?

During the last months of Parliament, Lankester had seen a good deal of Oliver. The story of Diana, and of Marsham's interrupted wooing was by that time public property, probably owing to the indignation of certain persons in Brookshire. As we have seen, it had injured the prestige of the man concerned in and out of Parliament. But Lankester, who looked at life intimately and intensely, with the eye of a confessor, had been roused by it to a curiosity about Oliver Marsham--whom at the time he was meeting habitually on political affairs--which he had never felt before. He, with his brooding second sight based on a spiritual estimate of the world--he and Lady Lucy--alone saw that Marsham was unhappy. His irritable moodiness might, of course, have nothing to do with his failure to play the man in the case of Miss Mallory. Lankester was inclined to think it had--Alicia Drake or no Alicia Drake. And the grace of repentance is so rare in mankind that the mystic--his own secret life wavering perpetually between repentance and ecstasy--is drawn to the merest shadow of it.

These hidden thoughts on Lankester's side had been met by a new and tacit friendliness on Marsham's. He had shown an increasing liking for Lankester's company, and had finally asked him to come down and help him in his constituency.

By George, if he married that girl, he would pay his penalty to the utmost!

Lankester leaned out of window again, his eyes sweeping the dreary park. In reality they had before them Marsham's aspect at the declaration of the poll--head and face thrown back defiantly, hollow eyes of bitterness and fatigue; and the scene outside--in front, a booing crowd--and beside the new member, Alicia's angry and insolent look.

The election represented a set-back in a man's career, in spite of the bare victory. And Lankester did not think it would be retrieved. With a prophetic insight which seldom failed him, he saw that Marsham's chapter of success was closed. He might get some small office out of the Government. Nevertheless, the scale of life had dropped--on the wrong side. Through Lankester's thought there shot a pang of sympathy. Defeat was always more winning to him than triumph.

* * * * *

Meanwhile the new member himself was in no melting mood.

Forbes was right. Marsham, in his room, looking over the letters which his servant had brought him, was only conscious of two feelings--disgust and loathing with regard to the contest just over, and a dogged determination with regard to the future. He had been deserted by the moderates--by the Ferrierites--in spite of all his endeavors to keep within courteous and judicial bounds; and he had been all but sacrificed to a forbearance which had not saved him apparently a single moderate vote, and had lost him scores on the advanced side.

With regard to Ferrier personally, he was extremely sore, A letter from him during the preceding week would certainly have influenced votes. Marsham denied hotly that his speeches had been of a character to offend or injure his old friend and leader. A man must really be allowed some honest latitude of opinion, even under party government!--and in circumstances of personal obligation. He had had to steer a most difficult course. But why must he give up his principles--not to speak of his chances of political advancement--because John Ferrier had originally procured him his seat in Parliament, and had been his parents' intimate friend for many years? Let the Whig deserters answer that question, if they could!

His whole being was tingling with anger and resentment. The contest had steeped him in humiliations which stuck to him like mud-stains.

The week before, he had written to Ferrier, imploring him if possible to come and speak for him--or at least to write a letter; humbling his pride; and giving elaborate explanations of the line which he had taken.

There, on the table beside him, was Ferrier's reply:

"My Dear Oliver,--I don't think a letter would do you much good, and for a speech, I am too tired--and I am afraid at the present moment too thin-skinned. Pray excuse me. We shall meet when this hubbub is over. All success to you.

"Yours ever, J.F."

Was there ever a more ungracious, a more uncalled-for, letter? Well, at any rate, he was free henceforward to think and act for himself, and on public grounds only; though of course he would do nothing unworthy of an old friendship, or calculated to hurt his mother's feelings. Ferrier, by this letter, and by the strong negative influence he must have exerted in West Brookshire during the election, had himself loosened the old bond; and Marsham would henceforth stand on his own feet.

As to Ferrier's reasons for a course of action so wholly unlike any he had ever yet taken in the case of Lucy Marsham's son, Oliver's thoughts found themselves engaged in a sore and perpetual wrangle. Ferrier, he supposed, suspected him of a lack of "straightness"; and did not care to maintain an intimate relation, which had been already, and might be again, used against him. Marsham, on his side, recalled with discomfort various small incidents in the House of Commons which might have seemed--to an enemy--to illustrate or confirm such an explanation of the state of things.

Absurd, of course! He _was_ an old friend of Ferrier's, whose relation to his mother necessarily involved close and frequent contact with her son. And at the same time--although in the past Ferrier had no doubt laid him under great personal and political obligations--he had by now, in the natural course of things, developed strong opinions of his own, especially as to the conduct of party affairs in the House of Commons; opinions which were not Ferrier's--which were, indeed, vehemently opposed to Ferrier's. In his, Oliver's, opinion, Ferrier's lead in the House--on certain questions--was a lead of weakness, making for disaster. Was he not even to hold, much less to express such a view, because of the quasi-parental relation in which Ferrier had once stood to him? The whole thing was an odious confusion--most unfair to him individually--between personal and Parliamentary duty.

Frankness?--loyalty? It would, no doubt, be said that Ferrier had always behaved with singular generosity both toward opponents and toward dissidents in his own party. Open and serious argument was at no time unwelcome to him.

All very well! But how was one to argue, beyond a certain point, with a man twenty-five years your senior, who had known you in jackets, and was also your political chief?

Moreover, he had argued--to the best of his ability. Ferrier had written him a striking series of letters, no doubt, and he had replied to them. As to Ferrier's wish that he should communicate certain points in those letters to Barton and Lankester, he had done it, to some extent. But it was a most useless proceeding. The arguments employed had been considered and rejected a hundred times already by every member of the dissident group.

And with regard to the meeting, which had apparently roused so sharp a resentment in Ferrier, Marsham maintained simply that he was not responsible. It was a meeting of the advanced Radicals of the division. Neither Marsham nor his agents had been present. Certain remarks and opinions of his own had been quoted indeed, even in public, as leading up to it, and justifying it. A great mistake. He had never meant to countenance any personal attack on Ferrier or his leadership. Yet he uncomfortably admitted that the meeting had told badly on the election. In the view of one side, he had not had pluck enough to go to it; in the view of the other, he had disgracefully connived at it.

* * * * *

The arrival of the evening post and papers did something to brush away these dismal self-communings. Wonderful news from the counties! The success of the latest batch of advanced candidates had been astonishing. Other men, it seemed, had been free to liberate their souls! Well, now the arbiter of the situation was Lord Philip, and there would certainly be a strong advanced infusion in the new Ministry. Marsham considered that he had as good claims as any of the younger men; and if it came to another election in Brookshire, hateful as the prospect was, he should be fighting in the open, and choosing his own weapons. No shirking! His whole being gathered itself into a passionate determination to retaliate upon the persons who had injured, thwarted, and calumniated him during the contest just over. He would fight again--next week, if necessary--and he would win!

As to the particular and personal calumnies with which he had been assailed--why, of course, he absolved Diana. She could have had no hand in them.

Suddenly he pushed his papers from him with a hasty unconscious movement.

In driving home that evening past the gates and plantations of Beechcote it seemed to him that he had seen through the trees--in the distance--the fluttering of a white dress. Had the news of his inglorious success just reached her? How had she received it? Her face came before him--the frank eyes--the sweet troubled look.

He dropped his head upon his arms. A sick distaste for all that he had been doing and thinking rose upon him, wavelike, drowning for a moment the energies of mind and will. Had anything been worth while--for _him_--since the day when he had failed to keep the last tryst which Diana had offered him?

He did not, however, long allow himself a weakness which he knew well he had no right to indulge. He roused himself abruptly, took pen and paper, and wrote a little note to Alicia, sending it round to her through her maid.

* * * * *

Marsham pleaded fatigue, and dined in his room. In the course of the meal he inquired of his servant if Mr. Barrington had arrived.

"Yes, sir; he arrived in time for dinner."

"Ask him to come up afterward and see me here."

As he awaited the new-comer, Marsham had time to ponder what this visit of a self-invited guest might mean. The support of the _Herald_ and its brilliant editor had been so far one of Ferrier's chief assets. But there had been some signs of wavering in its columns lately, especially on two important questions likely to occupy the new Ministry in its first session--matters on which the opinion of the Darcy, or advanced section, was understood to be in violent conflict with that of Ferrier and the senior members of the late Front Opposition Bench in general.

Barrington, no doubt, wished to pump him--one of Ferrier's intimates--with regard to the latest phase of Ferrier's views on these two principal measures. The leader himself was rather stiff and old-fashioned with regard to journalists--gave too little information where other men gave too much.

Oliver glanced in some disquiet at the pile of Ferrier's letters lying beside him. It contained material for which any ambitious journalist, at the present juncture, would give the eyes out of his head. But could Barrington be trusted? Oliver vaguely remembered some stories to his disadvantage, told probably by Lankester, who in these respects was one of the most scrupulous of men. Yet the paper stood high, and was certainly written with conspicuous ability.

Why not give him information?--cautiously, of course, and with discretion. What harm could it do--to Ferrier or any one else? The party was torn by dissensions; and the first and most necessary step toward reunion was that Ferrier's aims and methods should be thoroughly understood. No doubt in these letters, as he had himself pointed out, he had expressed himself with complete, even dangerous freedom. But there was not going to be any question of putting them into Barrington's hands. Certainly not!--merely a quotation--a reference here and there.

As he began to sketch his own share in the expected conversation, a pleasant feeling of self-importance crept in, soothing to the wounds of the preceding week. Secretly Marsham knew that he had never yet made the mark in politics that he had hoped to make, that his abilities entitled him to make. The more he thought of it the more he realized that the coming half-hour might be of great significance in English politics; he had it in his own power to make it so. He was conscious of a strong wish to impress Barrington--perhaps Ferrier also. After all, a man grows up, and does not remain an Eton boy, or an undergraduate, forever. It would be well to make Ferrier more aware than he was of that fact.

In the midst of his thoughts the door opened, and Barrington--a man showing in his dark-skinned, large-featured alertness the signs of Jewish pliancy and intelligence--walked in.

"Are you up to conversation?" he said, laughing. "You look pretty done!"

"If I can whisper you what you want," said Oliver, huskily, "it's at your service! There are the cigarettes."

The talk lasted long. Midnight was near before the two men separated.

* * * * *

The news of Marsham's election reached Ferrier under Sir James Chide's roof, in the pleasant furnished house about four miles from Beechcote, of which he had lately become the tenant in order to be near Diana. It was conveyed in a letter from Lady Lucy, of which the conclusion ran as follows:

"It is so strange not to have you here this evening--not to be able to talk over with you all these anxieties and trials. I can't help being a little angry with Sir James. We are the oldest friends.

"Of course I have often been anxious lately lest Oliver should have done anything to offend you. I have spoken to him about that tiresome meeting, and I think I could prove to you it was _not_ his fault. Do, my dear friend, come here as soon as you can, and let me explain to you whatever may have seemed wrong. You cannot think how much we miss you. I feel it a little hard that there should be strangers here this evening--like Mr. Lankester and Mr. Barrington. But it could not be helped. Mr. Lankester was speaking for Oliver last night--and Mr. Barrington invited himself. I really don't know why. Oliver is dreadfully tired--and so am I. The ingratitude and ill-feeling of many of our neighbors has tried me sorely. It will be a long time before I forget it. It really seems as though nothing were worth striving for in this very difficult world."

"Poor Lucy!" said Ferrier to himself, his heart softening, as usual. "Barrington? H'm. That's odd." He had only time for a short reply:

"My dear Lady Lucy,--It's horrid that you are tired and depressed. I wish I could come and cheer you up. Politics are a cursed trade. But never mind, Oliver is safely in, and as soon as the Government is formed, I will come to Tallyn, and we will laugh at these woes. I can't write at greater length now, for Broadstone has just summoned me. You will have seen that he went to Windsor this morning. Now the agony begins. Let's hope it may be decently short. I am just off for town.

"Yours ever, John Ferrier."

Two days passed--three days--and still the "agony" lasted. Lord Broadstone's house in Portman Square was besieged all day by anxious journalists watching the goings and comings of a Cabinet in the making. But nothing could be communicated to the newspapers--nothing, in fact, was settled. Envoys went backward and forward to Lord Philip in Northamptonshire. Urgent telegrams invited him to London. He took no notice of the telegrams; he did not invite the envoys, and when they came he had little or nothing of interest to say to them. Lord Broadstone, he declared, was fully in possession of his views. He had nothing more to add. And, indeed, a short note from him laid by in the new Premier's pocket-book was, if the truth were known, the _fons et origo_ of all Lord Broadstone's difficulties.

Meanwhile the more conservative section exerted itself, and by the evening of the third day it seemed to have triumphed. A rumor spread abroad that Lord Philip had gone too far. Ferrier emerged from a long colloquy with the Prime Minister, walking briskly across the square with his secretary, smiling at some of the reporters in waiting. Twenty minutes later, as he stood in the smoking-room of the Reform, surrounded by a few privileged friends, Lankester passed through the room.

"By Jove," he said to a friend with him, "I believe Ferrier's done the trick!"

* * * * *

In spite, however, of a contented mind, Ferrier was aware, on reaching his own house, that he was far from well. There was nothing very much to account for his feeling of illness. A slight pain across the chest, a slight feeling of faintness, when he came to count up his symptoms; nothing else appeared. It was a glorious summer evening. He determined to go back to Chide, who now always returned to Lytchett by an evening train, after a working-day in town. Accordingly, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House dined lightly, and went off to St. Pancras, leaving a note for the Prime Minister to say where he was to be found, and promising to come to town again the following afternoon.

* * * * *

The following morning fulfilled the promise of the tranquil evening and starry night, which, amid the deep quiet of the country, had done much to refresh a man, in whom, indeed, a stimulating consciousness of success seemed already to have repaired the ravages of the fight.

Ferrier was always an early riser, and by nine o'clock he and Sir James were pottering and smoking in the garden. A long case in which Chide had been engaged had come to an end the preceding day. The great lawyer sent word to his chambers that he was not coming up to town; Ferrier ascertained that he was only half an hour from a telegraph office, made a special arrangement with the local post as to a mid-day delivery of letters, and then gave himself up for the morning to rest, gossip, and a walk.

By a tiresome _contretemps_ the newspapers did not arrive at breakfast-time. Sir James was but a new-comer in the district, and the parcel of papers due to him had gone astray through the stupidity of a newsboy. A servant was sent into Dunscombe, five miles off; and meanwhile Ferrier bore the blunder with equanimity. His letters of the morning, fresh from the heart of things, made newspapers a mere superfluity. They could tell him nothing that he did not know already. And as for opinions, those might wait.

He proposed, indeed, before the return of the servant from Dunscombe, to walk over to Beechcote. The road lay through woods, two miles of shade. He pined for exercise; Diana and her young sympathy acted as a magnet both on him and on Sir James; and it was to be presumed she took a daily paper, being, as Ferrier recalled, "a terrible little Tory."

In less than an hour they were at Beechcote. They found Diana and Mrs. Colwood on the lawn of the old house, reading and working in the shade of a yew hedge planted by that Topham Beauclerk who was a friend of Johnson. The scent of roses and limes; the hum of bees; the beauty of slow-sailing clouds, and of the shadows they flung on the mellowed color of the house; combined with the figure of Diana in white, her eager eyes, her smile, and her unquenchable interest in all that concerned the two friends, of whose devotion to her she was so gratefully and simply proud--these things put the last touch to Ferrier's enjoyment. He flung himself on the grass, talking to both the ladies of the incidents and absurdities of Cabinet-making, with a freedom and fun, an abandonment of anxiety and care that made him young again. Nobody mentioned a newspaper.

Presently Chide, who had now taken the part of general adviser to Diana, which had once been filled by Marsham, strolled off with her to look at a greenhouse in need of repairs. Mrs. Colwood was called in by some household matter. Ferrier was left alone.

As usual, he had a book in his pocket. This time it was a volume of selected essays, ranging from Bacon to Carlyle. He began lazily to turn the pages, smiling to himself the while at the paradoxes of life. Here, for an hour, he sat under the limes, drunk with summer breezes and scents, toying with a book, as though he were some "indolent irresponsible reviewer"--some college fellow in vacation--some wooer of an idle muse. Yet dusk that evening would find him once more in the Babel of London. And before him lay the most strenuous, and, as he hoped, the most fruitful passage of his political life. Broadstone, too, was an old man; the Premiership itself could not be far away.

As for Lord Philip--Ferrier's thoughts ran upon that gentleman with a good-humor which was not without malice. He had played his cards extremely well, but the trumps in his hand had not been quite strong enough. Well, he was young; plenty of time yet for Cabinet office. That he would be a thorn in the side of the new Ministry went without saying. Ferrier felt no particular dismay at the prospect, and amused himself with speculations on the letters which had probably passed that very day between Broadstone and the "iratus Achilles" in Northamptonshire.

And from Lord Philip, Ferrier's thoughts--shrewdly indulgent--strayed to the other conspirators, and to Oliver Marsham in particular, their spokesman and intermediary. Suddenly a great softness invaded him toward Oliver and his mother. After all, had he not been hard with the boy, to leave him to his fight without a word of help? Oliver's ways were irritating; he had more than one of the intriguer's gifts; and several times during the preceding weeks Ferrier's mind had recurred with disquiet to the letters in his hands. But, after all, things had worked out better than could possibly have been expected. The _Herald_, in particular, had done splendid service, to himself personally, and to the moderates in general. Now was the time for amnesty and reconciliation all round. Ferrier's mind ran busily on schemes of the kind. As to Oliver, he had already spoken to Broadstone about him, and would speak again that night. Certainly he must have something--Junior Lordship at least. And if he were opposed on re-election, why, he should be helped--roundly helped. Ferrier already saw himself at Tallyn once more, with Lady Lucy's frail hand in one of his, the other perhaps on Oliver's shoulder. After all, where was he happy--or nearly happy--but with them?

* * * * *

His eyes returned to his book. With a mild amusement he saw that it had opened of itself at an essay, by Abraham Cowley, on "Greatness" and its penalties: "Out of these inconveniences arises naturally one more, which is, that no greatness can be satisfied or contented with itself; still, if it could mount up a little higher, it would be happy; if it could not gain that point, it would obtain all its desires; but yet at last, when it is got up to the very top of the peak of Teneriffe, it is in very great danger of breaking its neck downward, but in no possibility of ascending upward--into the seat of tranquillity about the moon."

The new Secretary of State threw himself back in his garden chair, his hands behind his head. Cowley wrote well; but the old fellow did not, after all, know much about it, in spite of his boasted experiences at that sham and musty court of St.-Germain's. Is it true that men who have climbed high are always thirsty to climb higher? No! "What is my feeling now? Simply a sense of _opportunity_. A man may be glad to have the chance of leaving his mark on England."

Thoughts rose in him which were not those of a pessimist--thoughts, however, which the wise man will express as little as possible, since talk profanes them. The concluding words of Peel's great Corn Law speech ran through his memory, and thrilled it. He was accused of indifference to the lot of the poor. It was not true. It never had been true.

"Hullo! who comes?"

Mrs. Colwood was running over the lawn, bringing apparently a letter, and a newspaper.

She came up, a little breathless.

"This letter has just come for you, Mr. Ferrier, by special messenger. And Miss Mallory asked me to bring you the newspaper."

Ferrier took the letter, which was bulky and addressed in the Premier's handwriting.

"Kindly ask the messenger to wait. I will come and speak to him."

He opened the letter and read it. Then, having put it deliberately in his pocket, he sat bending forward, staring at the grass. The newspaper caught his eye. It was the _Herald_ of that morning. He raised it from the ground, read the first leading article, and then a column "from a correspondent" on which the article was based.

As he came to the end of it a strange premonition took possession of him. He was still himself, but it seemed to him that the roar of some approaching cataract was in his ears. He mastered himself with difficulty, took a pencil from his pocket, and drew a wavering line beside a passage in the article contributed by the _Herald's_ correspondent. The newspaper slid from his knee to the ground.

Then, with a groping hand, he sought again for Broadstone's letter, drew it out of its envelope, and, with a mist before his eyes, felt for the last page which, he seemed to remember, was blank. On this he traced, with difficulty, a few lines, replaced the whole letter in the torn envelope and wrote an address upon it--uncertainly crossing out his own name.

Then, suddenly, he fell back. The letter followed the newspaper to the ground. Deadly weakness was creeping upon him, but as yet the brain was clear. Only his will struggled no more; everything had given way, but with the sense of utter catastrophe there mingled neither pain nor bitterness. Some of the Latin verse scattered over the essay he had been reading ran vaguely through his mind--then phrases from his last talk with the Prime Minister--then remembrances of the night at Assisi--and the face of the poet--

A piercing cry rang out close beside him--Diana's cry. His life made a last rally, and his eyes opened. They closed again, and he heard no more.

Sir James Chide stooped over Diana.

"Run for help!--brandy!--a doctor! I'll stay with him. Run!"

Diana ran. She met Mrs. Colwood hurrying, and sent her for brandy. She herself sped on blindly toward the village.

A few yards beyond the Beechcote gate she was overtaken by a carriage. There was an exclamation, the carriage pulled up sharp, and a man leaped from it.

"Miss Mallory!--what is the matter?"

She looked up, saw Oliver Marsham, and, in the carriage behind him, Lady Lucy, sitting stiff and pale, with astonished eyes.

"Mr. Ferrier is ill--very ill! Please go for the doctor! He is here--at my house."

The figure in the carriage rose hurriedly. Lady Lucy was beside her.

"What is the matter?" She laid an imperious hand on the girl's arm.

"I think--he is dying," said Diana, gasping. "Oh, come!--come back at once!"

Marsham was already in the carriage. The horse galloped forward. Diana and Lady Lucy ran toward the house.

"In the garden," said Diana, breathlessly; and, taking Lady Lucy's hand, she guided her.

Beside the dying man stood Sir James Chide, Muriel Colwood, and the old butler. Sir James looked up, started at the sight of Lady Lucy, and went to meet her.

"You are just in time," he said, tenderly; "but he is going fast. We have done all we could."

Ferrier was now lying on the grass, his head supported. Lady Lucy sank beside him.

"John!" she called, in a voice of anguish--"John--dear, dear friend!"

But the dying man made no sign. And as she lifted his hand to her lips--the love she had shown him so grudgingly in life speaking now undisguised through her tears and her despair--Sir James watched the gentle passage of the last breaths, and knew that all was done--the play over and the lights out.