* * * * *

In the afternoon, during an exciting debate on a subject Marsham had made to some extent his own, and in which he was expected to speak, two letters were brought to him.  One was from Diana.  He put it into his pocket, feeling an instinctive recoil—­with his speech in sight—­from the emotion it must needs express and arouse.  The other was from the chairman of a Committee in Dunscombe, the chief town of his division.  The town was, so far, without any proper hall for public meetings.  It was proposed to build a new Liberal Club with a hall attached.  The leading local supporter of the scheme wrote—­with apologies—­to ask Marsham what he was prepared to subscribe.  It was early days to make the inquiry, but—­in confidence—­he might state that he was afraid local support for the scheme would mean more talk than money.  Marsham pondered the letter gloomily.  A week earlier he would have gone to his mother for a thousand pounds without any doubt of her reply.

It was just toward the close of the dinner-hour that Marsham caught the Speaker’s eye.  Perhaps the special effort that had been necessary to recall his thoughts to the point had given his nerves a stimulus.  At any rate, he spoke unusually well, and sat down amid the cheers of his party, conscious that he had advanced his Parliamentary career.  A good many congratulations reached him during the evening; he “drank delight of battle with his peers,” for the division went well, and when he left the House at one o’clock in the morning it was in a mood of tingling exhilaration, and with a sense of heightened powers.

It was not till he reached his own room, in his mother’s hushed and darkened house, that he opened Diana’s letter.

The mere sight of it, as he drew it out of his pocket, jarred upon him strangely.  It recalled to him the fears and discomforts, the sense of sudden misfortune and of ugly associations, which had been, for a time, obliterated in the stress and interest of politics.  He opened it almost reluctantly, wondering at himself.

“MY DEAR OLIVER,—­This letter from your mother reached me last night.  I don’t know what to say, though I have thought for many hours.  I ought not to do you this great injury; that seems plain to me.  Yet, then, I think of all you said to me, and I feel you must decide.  You must do what is best for your future and your career; and I shall never blame you, whatever you think right.  I wish I had known, or realized, the whole truth about your mother when you were still here.  It was my stupidity.

     “I have no claim—­none—­against what is best for you.  Just
     two words, Oliver!—­and I think they ought to be
     ‘Good-bye.’

“Sir James Chide came after you left, and was most dear and kind.  To-day I have my father’s letter—­and one from my mother—­that she wrote for me—­twenty years ago.  I mustn’t write any more.  My eyes are so tired.

     “Your grateful DIANA.”