Borrowdean stood up.  His tone acquired a new earnestness.  He became at once more of a man.  The cynical curve of his lips had vanished.

“We are on the eve of great opportunities, Mannering,” he said.  “Six months ago the result of the next General Election seemed assured.  We appeared to be as far off any chance of office as a political party could be.  To-day the whole thing is changed.  We are on the eve of a general reconstruction.  It is our one great chance of this generation.  I come to you as a patriot.  Rochester asks you to forget.”

Mannering held up his hand.

“Stop one moment, Borrowdean,” he said.  “I want you to understand this once and for all.  I have no grievance against Rochester.  The old wound, if it ever amounted to that, is healed.  If Rochester were here at this moment I would take his hand cheerfully.  But—­”

“Ah!  There is a but, then,” Borrowdean interrupted.

“There is a but,” Mannering assented.  “You may find it hard to understand, but here is the truth.  I have lost all taste for public life.  The whole thing is rotten, Borrowdean, rotten from beginning to end.  I have had enough of it to last me all my days.  Party policy must come before principle.  A man’s individuality, his whole character, is assailed and suborned on every side.  There is but one life, one measure of days, that you or I know anything of.  It doesn’t last very long.  The months and years have a knack of slipping away emptily enough unless we are always standing to attention.  Therefore I think that it becomes our duty to consider very carefully, almost religiously, how best to use them.  Come here for a moment, Borrowdean.  I want to show you something.”

The two men stood side by side upon the grassy bank, Mannering broad-shouldered and vigorous, his clean, hard-cut features tanned with wind and sun, his eyes bright and vigorous with health; Leslie Borrowdean, once his greatest friend, a man of almost similar physique, but with the bent frame and listless pallor of a dweller in the crowded places of life.  Without enthusiasm his tired eyes followed the sweep of Mannering’s arm.

“You see those yellow sandhills beyond the marshes there?  Behind them is the sea.  Do you catch that breath of wind?  Take off your hat, man, and get it into your lungs.  It comes from the North Sea, salt and fresh and sweet.  I think that it is the purest thing on earth.  You can walk here for miles and miles in the open, and the wind is like God’s own music.  Borrowdean, I am going to say things to you which one says but once or twice in his life.  I came to this country a soured man, cynical, a pessimist, a materialist by training and environment.  To-day I speak of a God with bowed head, for I believe that somewhere behind all these beautiful things their prototype must exist.  Don’t think I’ve turned ranter.  I’ve never spoken like this to any one else before, and I don’t suppose I ever shall again.  Here is Nature, man, the greatest force on earth, the mother, the mistress, beneficent, wonderful!  You are a creature of cities.  Stay with me here for a day or two, and the joy of all these things will steal into your blood.  You, too, will know what peace is.”