He paused impressively.  The listener was panting as if she had run a race.

“And the will?” she asked.

“It dates from a year ago.  May Tomalin is not mentioned in it.  I, of course, have nothing.”

Iris gazed at the floor.  A little sound as of consternation had passed her lips, but she made no attempt to console the victim of destiny who sat with bowed head before her.  After a brief silence, Lashmar told of the will as it concerned Constance Bride, insisting on the fact that she was a mere trustee of the wealth bequeathed to her.  With a humorously doleful smile, he spoke of Lady Ogram’s promise to defray his election expenses, and added that Miss Bride, in virtue of her trusteeship, would carry out this wish.  Another exclamation sounded from the listener, this time one of joy.

“Well, that’s something!  I suppose the expenses are heavy, aren’t they?”

“Oh, not very.  But what’s the use?  Of course I withdraw.”

He let his hand fall despondently.  Again there was silence.

“And that is why you thought of taking poison?” asked Iris, with a quick glance at his lowering visage.

“Isn’t it a good reason?  All is over with me.  If Lady Ogram had lived to make her new will, I should have been provided for.  Now I am penniless and hopeless.”

“But, if she had lived, you would have had to marry Miss Bride.”

Dyce made a sorrowful gesture.

“No.  She would never have consented, even if I could have brought myself to such a sacrifice.  In any case, I was doomed.”

“But—­”

Iris paused, biting her lip.

“You were going to say?”

“Only—­that I suppose you would have been willing to marry that girl, the niece.”

“I will answer you frankly.”  He spoke in the softest tone and his look had a touching candour.  “You, better than anyone, know the nature of my ambition.  You know it is not merely personal.  One doesn’t like to talk grandiloquently, but, alone with you, there is no harm in saying that I have a message for our time.  We have reached a point in social and political evolution where all the advance of modern life seems to be imperilled by the growing preponderance of the multitude.  Our need is of men who are born to guide and rule, and I feel myself one of these.  But what can I do as long as I am penniless?  And so I answer you frankly:  yes, if May Tomalin had inherited Lady Ogram’s wealth, I should have felt it my duly to marry her.”

Iris listened without a smile.  Lashmar had never spoken with a more convincing show of earnestness.

“What is she going to do?” asked the troubled little woman, her eyes cast down.

Dyce told all that he knew of May’s position.  He was then questioned as to the state of things political at Hollingford:  his replies were at once sanguine and disconsolate.

“Well,” he said at length, “I have done my best, but fortune is against me.  In coming to see you, I discharged what I felt to be a duty.  Let me again thank you for your generous kindness.  Now I must work, work—­”