use of a story which I told him once
concerning my husband, to drive him out of political life. Duchess, will
you do me the favour to let me talk with you for five minutes, and to
make Sir Leslie Borrowdean promise not to leave this hotel till you have
seen him again?"

"I have no intention of leaving the hotel," Sir Leslie said, stiffly.

Berenice pointed to her table.

"Come and take your coffee with me, Mrs. Mannering," she said.

* * * * *

Mannering passed through the day like a man in a nightmare. He addressed
two meetings of working-men, and interviewed half a dozen of his workers.
At mid-day the afternoon edition of the _Yorkshire Herald_ was being sold
in the streets. He bought a copy and glanced it feverishly through.
Nothing! He lunched and went on with his work. At three o'clock a second
edition was out. Again he purchased a copy, and again there was nothing.
The suspense was getting worse even than the disaster itself. Between
four and five they brought him in a telegram. He tore it open, and found
that it was from Bonestre. The words seemed to stare up at him from the
pink form. It was incredible:

"Polden muzzled. Go in and win."

The form fluttered from his fingers on to the floor of his sitting-room.
He stood looking at it, dazed. Outside, a mob of people, standing round
his carriage, were shouting his name.

CHAPTER VII

MR. MANNERING, M.P.

Mannering threw up his window with a sigh of immense relief. The air was
cold and fresh. The land, as yet unwarmed by the slowly rising sun, was
hung with a faint autumn mist. Traces of an early frost lay in the brown
hedgerows inland; the sea was like a sheet of polished glass. Gone the
smoke-stained rows of shapeless houses, the atmosphere polluted by a
thousand chimneys belching smuts and black vapour, the clanging of
electric cars, the rattle of all manner of vehicles over the cobbled
streets. Gone the hoarse excitement of the shouting mobs, the poisonous
atmosphere of close rooms, all the turmoil and racket and anxiety of
those fighting days. He was back again in Bonestre. Below in the
courtyard the white cockatoo was screaming. The waiters in their linen
coats were preparing the tables for the few remaining guests. And the
other things were of yesterday!

Mannering had arrived in the middle of the night unexpectedly, and his
appearance was a surprise to every one. He had knocked at his wife's door
on his wa