Denzil pondered, with knitted brows.

“I have no faith in it!” he exclaimed at length, beginning to walk about.  “Come—­I want to get to Lilian she must be in misery.  I will order the carriage; it will be needed to bring her back.”

He rang the bell violently; a servant appeared, and hurried away to do his bidding.

“Mrs. Wade,” he said, as soon as the door had closed, “shouldn’t I do better to throw up the game?  I hate these underhand affairs I don’t think I could go through with the thing—­I don’t, indeed!  Speak your whole mind.  I am not a slave of ambition—­at bottom I care precious little for going into Parliament.  I enjoyed the excitement of it—­I believe I have a knack of making speeches; but what does it all amount to?  Tell me your true thought.”  He drew near to her.  “Shall I throw it up and go abroad with my wife?—­my wife! that is her true name!”

He looked a fine fellow as he spoke this; better than he had looked on the platform.  Mrs. Wade gazed at him fixedly, as if she could not take away her eyes.  She trembled, and her forehead was wrung with pain.

“Do this,” she replied, eagerly, “if you wish to make Lilian unhappy for the rest of her life.”

“What do you mean?”

“It seems I understand her better than you do—­perhaps because I am a woman.  She dreads nothing so much as the thought that she has been the ruin of your prospects.  You have taught her to believe that you are made for politics; you can never undo that.  The excitement of this election had fixed the belief in her for ever.  For her sake, you are bound to make every attempt to choke this scandal!  Be weak—­give in—­and (she is weak too) it’s all over with her happiness.  Her life would be nothing but self-reproach.”

“No, no, no!  For a short time, perhaps, but security would be the best thing of all for her.”

“Try, then—­try, and see the result!”

She spoke with suppressed passion, her voice shaking.  Denzil turned away, struggled with his thoughts, again faced her.  Mrs. Wade read his features as if her life depended on what he would resolve.  Seeing him in a misery of indecision, she repeated, at greater length and more earnestly still, her cogent reasonings.  Quarrier argued in reply, and they were still thus engaged when it was announced that the carriage waited.

“Let us go!” He threw his overcoat on to his shoulders.

Mrs. Wade caught his hand.

“Are you bent on doing the hopeless thing?”

“Let us talk in the carriage.  I can’t wait any longer.”

But in the carriage both kept silence.  Mrs. Wade, exhausted by stress of emotion, by the efforts of her scheming brain, lay back as if she had abandoned the contest; Denzil, his face working ceaselessly, stared through the windows.  When they were nearing their destination, the widow leaned towards him.

“I have done my best for you.  I have nothing so much at heart as your welfare—­and Lilian’s.”