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—­