Mrs. Wade listened intently, and the story seemed to move her in no slight degree.  Lilian, anxiously watching her face, found it difficult to interpret the look of suppressed excitement.  Censure she could not read there; pain, if ever visible, merely flitted over brow and lips; at moments she half believed that her hearer was exulting in this defiance of accepted morality—­what else could be the significance of that flash in the eyes; that quiver of the nostrils—­all but a triumphant smile?  They sat close to each other, Lilian in the low basket-chair, the widow on a higher seat, and when the story came to an end, their hands met.

“How can I save Denzil?” was Lilian’s last word.  “Anything—­any sacrifice I If this becomes known, his whole life is ruined!”

Mrs. Wade pressed the soft, cold fingers, and kept a thoughtful silence.

“It’s a strange coincidence,” she said at length, “very strange that this should happen on the eve of the election.”

“The secret must be kept until”——­

Lilian’s voice failed.  She looked anxiously at her friend, and added: 

“What would be the result if it were known afterwards-when Denzil is elected?”

“It’s hard to say.  But tell me, Lily:  is there no one who has been admitted to your confidence?”

What purpose would be served by keeping back the name?  Lilian’s eyes fell as she answered.

“Mr. Glazzard knows.”

“Mr. Eustace Glazzard?”

Lilian explained how and when it had become necessary to make him a sharer in the secret.

“Do you believe,” Mrs. Wade asked, “that Northway really discovered you by chance?”

“I don’t know.  He says so.  I can only feel absolutely sure that Mr. Glazzard has nothing to do with it.”

Mrs. Wade mused doubtfully.

“Absolutely sure?”

“Oh, how is it possible?  If you knew him as well as we do!—­ Impossible!—­He came to see us this very morning, on his way to be married, and laughed and talked!”

“You are right, no doubt,” returned the other, with quiet reassurance.  “If it wasn’t chance, some obscure agency has been at work.  You must remember, Lily, that only by a miracle could you have lived on in security.”

“I have sometimes felt that,” whispered the sufferer, her head falling.

“And it almost seems,” went on Mrs. Wade, “as if Northway really had no intention of using his power to extort money.  To be Sure, your own income is not to be despised by a man in his position; but most rascals would have gone to Mr. Quarrier.—­He is still in love with you, I suppose.”

The last words were murmured in a tone which caused the hearer to look up uneasily.  Mrs. Wade at once averted her face, which was curiously hard and expressionless.

“What do you think?” she said a moment after.  “Would it be any use if I had a talk with him?”

“Will you?” asked Lilian, eagerly.  “You may perhaps influence him.  You can speak so well—­so persuasively.  I don’t think he is utterly depraved.  As you say, he would have gone first to Denzil.  Perhaps he can be moved to have pity on me.”