“I will make public later on the reasons for our respective changes of name.  For the present it is enough to state the fact of our relationship and of our mutual affection and respect.  That I thank you for electing me goes without saying; and I will do everything in my power to advance the great cause you have enabled me to represent.  I regret I cannot address you in another place to-night, as I had intended.  I must ask you of your kindness to let me go quietly where my duty and my heart call me to my father’s death-bed.”

He bowed and waved a dignified gesture of farewell, and turning into the hall met the assemblage of long, astounded faces.  From outside came the dull rumbling of the dispersing crowd.  The mayor, the first to break the silence, murmured a platitude.

Paul thanked him gravely.  Then he went to Wilson.  “Forgive me,” said he, “for all that has been amiss with me to-day.  It has been a strain of a very peculiar kind.”

“I can well imagine it,” said Wilson.

“You see I’m not an aristocrat, after all,” said Paul.

Wilson looked the young man in the face and saw the steel beneath the dark eyes, and the Proud setting of the lips.  With a sudden impulse he wrung his hand.  “I don’t care a damn!” said he.  “You are.”

Paul said, unsmiling:  “I can face the music.  That’s all.”  He drew a note from his pocket.  “Will you do me a final service?  Go round to the Conservative Club at once, and tell the meeting what has happened, and give this to Colonel Winwood.”

“With pleasure,” said Wilson.

Then Paul shook hands with all his fellow-workers and thanked them in his courtly way, and, pleading for solitude, went through the door of the great chamber and, guided by an attendant, reached the exit in a side street where his car awaited him.  A large concourse of people stood drawn up in line on each side of the street, marshalled by policemen.  A familiar crooked figure limped from the shadow of the door, holding a hard felt hat, his white poll gleaming in the shaft of light.  “God bless you, sonny,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

Paul took the old man by the arm and drew him across the pavement to the car.  “Get in,” said he.

Barney Bill hung back.  “No, sonny; no.”

“It’s not the first time we’ve driven together.  Get in.  I want you.”

So Barney Bill allowed himself to be thrust into the luxurious car, and Paul followed.  And perhaps for the first time in the history of great elections the successful candidate drove away from the place where the poll was declared in dead silence, attended only by the humblest of his constituents.  But every man in the throng bared his head.

CHAPTER XXI

“He had the stroke in the night,” said Barney Bill suddenly.

Paul turned sharply on him.  “Why wasn’t I told?”