isdom in it. Nothing tired him, as
he had said, and addressing woman or man, no prospect of fatigue or
of hopeless effort daunted him in the endeavour to correct an error of
judgement in politics--his notion of an error. The value he put upon
speaking, urging his views, was really fanatical. It appeared that he
canvassed the borough from early morning till near midnight, and nothing
would persuade him that his chance was poor; nothing that an entrenched
Tory like her father, was not to be won even by an assault of all the
reserve forces of Radical pathos, prognostication, and statistics.

Only conceive Nevil Beauchamp knocking at doors late at night, the
sturdy beggar of a vote! or waylaying workmen, as he confessed without
shame that he had done, on their way trooping to their midday meal;
penetrating malodoriferous rooms of dismal ten-pound cottagers, to
exhort bedraggled mothers and babes, and besotted husbands; and exposed
to rebuffs from impertinent tradesmen; and lampooned and travestied,
shouting speeches to roaring men, pushed from shoulder to shoulder of
the mob!...

Cecilia dropped a curtain on her mind's picture of him. But the blinding
curtain rekindled the thought that the line he had taken could not but
be the desperation of a lover abandoned. She feared it was, she feared
it was not. Nevil Beauchamp's foe persisted in fearing that it was not;
his friend feared that it was. Yet why? For if it was, then he could not
be quite in earnest, and might be cured. Nay, but earnestness works out
its own cure more surely than frenzy, and it should be preferable to
think him sound of heart, sincere though mistaken. Cecilia could not
decide upon what she dared wish for his health's good. Friend and foe
were not further separable within her bosom than one tick from another
of a clock; they changed places, and next his friend was fearing what
his foe had feared: they were inextricable.

Why had he not sprung up on a radiant aquiline ambition, whither one
might have followed him, with eyes and prayers for him, if it was
not possible to do so companionably? At present, in the shape of a
canvassing candidate, it was hardly honourable to let imagination dwell
on him, save compassionately.

When he rose to take his leave, Cecilia said, 'Must you go to Itchincope
on Wednesday, Nevil?'

Colonel Halkett added: 'I don't think I would go to Lespel's if I were
you. I rather suspect Seymour Austin will be coming on Wednesday, a