“I fear that you will never discover more than you have done from me,” was the quiet reply.  “Your father had been living for years in profound solitude when I found him.  Frankly, I considered from the first that his mind was unhinged.  Therein I fancy lies the whole explanation of his silence and his voluntary disappearance.  I am assuming, of course, that there was nothing in England to make his absence desirable.”

“There was nothing,” Brooks declared with conviction.  “That I can personally vouch for.  His life as a police-court missionary was the life of a militant martyr’s, the life of a saint.  The urgent advice of his physicians alone led him to embark upon that voyage; I see now that it was a mistake.  He left before he had sufficiently recovered to be safely trusted alone.  By the bye,” Brooks continued, after a moment’s hesitation, “you have not told me your name, whom I have to thank for this kindness.  Your letters from Canada were not signed.”

There was a short silence.  From outside came the sound of the pawing of horses’ feet and the jingling of harness.

“I was a fellow-traveller in that great unpeopled world,” the visitor said, “and there was nothing but common humanity in anything I did.  I lived out there as Philip Ferringshaw, here I have to add my title, the Marquis of Arranmore.  I was a younger son in those days.  If there is anything which I have forgotten, I am at Enton for a month or so.  It is an easy walk from Medchester, if your clients can spare you for an afternoon.  Good-night, Mr. Brooks.”

He held out his hand.  He was sleepy apparently, for his voice had become almost a drawl, and he stifled a yawn as he passed along the little passage.  Kingston Brooks returned to his little room, and threw himself back into his easy-chair.  Truly this had been a wonderful day.

CHAPTER IV

A QUESTION FOR THE COUNTRY

For the first time in many years it seemed certain that the Conservatives had lost their hold upon the country.  The times were ripe for a change of any sort.  An ill-conducted and ruinous war had drained the empire of its surplus wealth, and every known industry was suffering from an almost paralyzing depression—­Medchester, perhaps, as severely as any town in the United Kingdom.  Its staple manufactures were being imported from the States and elsewhere at prices which the local manufacturers declared to be ruinous.  Many of the largest factories were standing idle, a great majority of the remainder were being worked at half or three-quarters time.  Thoughtful men, looking ten years ahead, saw the cloud, which even now was threatening enough, grow blacker and blacker, and shuddered at the thought of the tempest which before long must break over the land.  Meanwhile, the streets were filled with unemployed, whose demeanour day by day grew less and less pacific.  People asked one another helplessly what was being done to avert the threatened crisis.  The manufacturers, openly threatened by their discharged employees, and cajoled by others higher in authority and by public opinion, still pronounced themselves helpless to move without the aid of legislation.  For the first time for years Protection was openly spoken of from a political platform.