He sighed and frowned, his muscles stiffening unconsciously.  Yes, for both their sakes he must try and play the master with Kitty, ridiculous as it seemed.

...  He turned away, remembering his sick child—­and went noiselessly to the nursery.  There, along the darkened passages, he found a night-nurse, sitting working beside a shaded lamp.  The child was sleeping, and the report was good.  Ashe stole on tiptoe to look at him, holding his breath, then returned to his dressing-room.  But a faint call from Kitty pursued him.  He opened the door, and saw her sitting up in bed.

“How is he?”

She was hardly awake, but her expression struck him as very wild and piteous.  He went to her and took her in his arms.

“Sleeping quietly, darling—­so must you!”

She sank back on her pillows, his arm still round her.

“I was there an hour ago,” she murmured.  “I shall soon wake up—­”

But for the moment she was asleep again, her fair head lying against his shoulder.  He sat down beside her, supporting her.  Suddenly, as he looked down upon her with mingled passion, tenderness, and pain, a sharp perception assailed him.  How thin she was—­a mere feather’s weight!  The face was smaller than ever—­the hands skin and bone!  Margaret French had once or twice bade him notice this, had spoken with anxiety.  He bent over his wife and observed her attentively.  It was merely the effect of a hot summer, surely, and of a constant nervous fatigue?  He would take her abroad for a fortnight in September, if his official work would let him, and perhaps leave her in north Italy, or Switzerland, with Margaret French.

* * * * *

The great day was half-way through, and the throng in Haggart Park and grounds was at its height.  A flower-show in the morning; then a tenants’ dinner with a speech from Ashe; and now, in a marquee erected for the occasion, Lord Parham was addressing his supporters in the county.  Around him on the platform sat the Whig gentry, the Radical manufacturers, the town wire-pullers and local agents on whom a great party depended; in front of him stretched a crowded meeting drawn in almost equal parts from the coal-mining districts to the north of Haggart and from the agricultural districts to the south....

The August air was stifling; perspiration shone on the broad brows and cheeks of the farmers sitting in the front half of the audience; Lord Parham’s gray face was almost white; his harsh voice labored against the acoustic difficulties of the tent; effort and heat, discomfort and ennui breathed from the packed benches, and from the short-necked, large-headed figure of the Premier.