CHAPTER I

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      "Well, that's over, thank Heaven!"

      The young man speaking drew in his head from the carriage-window. But instead of sitting down he turned with a joyous, excited gesture and lifted the flap over the little window in the back of the landau, supporting himself, as he stooped to look, by a hand on his companion's shoulder. Through this peephole he saw, as the horses trotted away, the crowd in the main street of Market Malford, still huzzaing and waving, the wild glare of half a dozen torches on the faces and the moving forms, the closed shops on either hand, the irregular roofs and chimneys sharp-cut against a wintry sky, and in the far distance the little lantern belfry and taller mass of the new town-hall.

      "I'm much astonished the horses didn't bolt!" said the man addressed. "That bay mare would have lost all the temper she's got in another moment. It's a good thing we made them shut the carriage—it has turned abominably cold. Hadn't you better sit down?"

      And Lord Fontenoy made a movement as though to withdraw from the hand on his shoulder.

      The owner of the hand flung himself down on the seat, with a word of apology, took off his hat, and drew a long breath of fatigue. At the same moment a sudden look of disgust effaced the smile with which he had taken his last glimpse at the crowd.

      "All very well!—but what one wants after this business is a moral tub! The lies I've told during the last three weeks—the bunkum I've talked!—it's a feeling of positive dirt! And the worst of it is, however you may scrub your mind afterwards, some of it must stick."

      He took out a cigarette, and lit it at his companion's with a rather unsteady hand. He had a thin, long face and fair hair; and one would have guessed him some ten years younger than the man beside him.

      "Certainly—it will stick," said the other. "Election promises nowadays are sharply looked after. I heard no bunkum. As far as I know, our party doesn't talk any. We leave that to the Government!"

      Sir George Tressady, the young man addressed, shrugged his shoulders. His mouth was still twitching under the influence of nervous excitement. But as they rolled along between the dark hedges, the carriage-lamps shining on their wet branches, green yet, in spite of November, he began to recover a half-cynical self-control. The poll for the Market Malford Division of West Mercia had been declared that afternoon, between two and three o'clock, after a hotly contested election; he, as the successful candidate by a very narrow majority, had since addressed a shouting mob from the balcony of the Greyhound Hotel, had suffered the usual taking out of horses and triumphal dragging through the town, and was now returning with his supporter and party-leader, Lord Fontenoy, to the great Tory mansion which had sent them forth in the morning, and had been Tressady's headquarters during the greater part of the fight.

      "Did you ever see anyone so down as Burrows?" he said presently, with a little leap of laughter. "By George! it is hard lines. I suppose he thought himself safe, what with the work he'd done in the division and the hold he had on the miners. Then a confounded stranger turns up, and the chance of seventeen ignorant voters kicks you out! He could hardly bring himself to shake hands with me. I had come rather to admire him, hadn't you?"

      Lord Fontenoy nodded.

      "I thought his speeches showed ability," he said indifferently, "only of a kind that must be kept out of Parliament—that's all. Sorry you have qualms—quite unnecessary, I assure you! At the present moment, either Burrows and his like knock under, or you and your like. This time—by seventeen votes—Burrows knocks under. Thank the Lord! say I"—and the speaker opened the window an instant to knock off the end of his cigar.

      Tressady made no reply. But again a look, half-chagrined, half-reflective, puckered his brow, which was smooth, white, and boyish under his straight, fair hair; whereas the rest of the face was subtly lined, and browned as though by travel and varied living. The nose and mouth, though not handsome, were small and delicately cut, while the long, pointed chin, slightly protruding, made those who disliked him say that he was like those innumerable portraits of Philip IV., by and after Velasquez, which bestrew the collections of Europe. But if the Hapsburg chin had to be admitted, nothing could be more modern, intelligent, alert, than the rest of him.

      The two rolled along a while in silence. They were passing through an undulating midland country, dimly seen under the stars. At frequent intervals rose high mounds, with tall chimneys and huddled buildings beside them or upon them which marked the sites of collieries; while the lights also, which had begun to twinkle over the face of the land, showed that it was thickly inhabited.

      Suddenly the carriage rattled into a village, and Tressady looked out.

      "I say, Fontenoy, here's a crowd! Do you suppose they know? Why, Gregson's taken us another way round!"

      Lord