“Good-bye for a night and a day at longest,” he whispered by the carriage door.  “I shall come before midnight to-morrow.”

She tried to say good-bye, but could not utter a sound.  The wheels grated, and she was driven rapidly away.

CHAPTER XXIV

Arthur James Northway reached London in a mood of imperfect satisfaction.  On the principle that half a cake was better than nothing, he might congratulate himself that he carried in his pocket-book banknotes to the value of five hundred pounds; but it was a bitter necessity that had forbidden his exacting more.  The possession of a sum greater than he had ever yet owned fired his imagination; he began to reflect that, after all, Quarrier’s defiance was most likely nothing but a ruse; that by showing himself resolved, he might have secured at least the thousand pounds.  Then he cursed the man Marks, whose political schemes would betray the valuable secret, and make it certain that none of that more substantial assistance promised by Quarrier would ever be given.  And yet, it was not disagreeable to picture Quarrier’s rage when he found that the bribe had been expended to no purpose.  If he had felt animosity against the wealthy man before meeting him face to face, he now regarded him with a fiercer malevolence.  It was hard to relinquish Lilian, and harder still to have no means of revenging himself upon her and her pretended husband.  Humiliated by consciousness of the base part he had played, he wished it in his power to inflict upon them some signal calamity.

On the next day, when he was newly arrayed from head to foot, and jingled loose sovereigns in his pocket, this tumult of feelings possessed him even more strongly.  Added to his other provocations was the uncertainty whether Marks had yet taken action.  Save by returning to Polterham, he knew not how to learn what was happening there.  To-morrow a Polterham newspaper would be published; he must wait for that source of intelligence.  Going to a news-agent’s, he discovered the name of the journal, and at once posted an order for a copy to be sent to him.

In the meantime, he was disposed to taste some of the advantages of opulence.  His passions were awakened; he had to compensate himself for years lost in suffering of body and mind.  With exultant swagger he walked about the London streets, often inspecting his appearance in a glass; for awhile he could throw aside all thought of the future, relish his freedom, take his licence in the way that most recommended itself to him.

The hours did not lag, and on the following afternoon he received the newspaper for which he was waiting.  He tore it open, and ran his eye over the columns, but they contained no extraordinary matter.  Nothing unexpected had befallen; there was an account of the nomination, and plenty of rancour against the Radicals, but assuredly, up to the hour of the Mercury’s going to press, no public scandal had exploded in Polterham.