As she spoke she kissed me, and I thought—­but this may have been fancy—­that her breath felt cold upon my cheek.

“I daresay,” I said, and we sat down to table.  By my plate lay a great pile of correspondence, which I opened while making pretence to eat, but all the time I was watching Jane over the top of those wearisome letters, most of them from beggars or constituents who “wanted to know.”  One, however, was anonymous, from a person who signed herself “Mother.”  It ran:—­

“Sir,—­After hearing your speeches some years ago, and being told that you were such a clever man, I became a Conscientious Objector, and would not let them vaccinate any more of my children.  The three who were not vaccinated have all been taken to the hospital with the smallpox, and they tell me (for I am not allowed to see them) that one of them is dead; but the two who were vaccinated are quite well.  Sir, I thought that you would like to know this, so that if you have made any mistake you may tell others.  Sir, forgive me for troubling you, but it is a terrible thing to have one’s child die of smallpox, and, as I acted on your advice, I take the liberty of writing the above.”

Again I looked at Jane, and saw that although she was sipping her tea and had some bacon upon her plate she had eaten nothing at all.  Like the catch of a song echoed through my brain that fearsome sentence:  “It is a terrible thing to have one’s child die of the smallpox.”  Terrible, indeed, for now I had little doubt but that Jane was infected, and if she should chance to die, then what should I be?  I should be her murderer!

After breakfast I started upon my rounds of canvassing and speech-making.  Oh, what a dreadful day was that, and how I loathed the work.  How I cursed the hour in which I had taken up politics, and sold my honour to win a seat in Parliament and a little cheap notoriety among my fellow-men.  If Stephen Strong had not tempted me Jane would have been vaccinated in due course, and therefore, good friend though he had been to me, and though his wealth was mine to-day, I cursed the memory of Stephen Strong.  Everywhere I went that afternoon I heard ominous whispers.  People did not talk openly; they shrugged their shoulders and nodded and hinted, and all their hints had to do with the smallpox.

“I say, Therne,” said an old friend, the chairman of my committee, with a sudden outburst of candour, “what a dreadful thing it would be if after all we A.V.’s were mistaken.  You know there are a good many cases of it about, for it’s no use disguising the truth.  But I haven’t heard of any yet among the Calf-worshippers” (that was our cant term for those who believed in vaccination).

“Oh, let be!” I answered angrily, “it is too late to talk of mistakes, we’ve got to see this thing through.”

“Yes, yes, Therne,” he said with a dreary laugh, “unless it should happen to see us through.”