s native
land, and the country recognised his honesty and loved him for it. He
was a member of the Cabinet now, but as certainly as he lived he would
be Prime Minister another day. As he walked through the streets the
people pointed him out to each other.

"That's Lowther. Our best man. He'll be Prime Minister before he's
done. The sooner the better. A straight, fair man. The man we want.
What a position for a man to gain by sheer personal force--the virtual
ruler over a fifth part of the world! What power, my dear fellow--what
power!"

"You may say so, indeed; extraordinary power!"

CHAPTER SIX.

THE MAN WHO WISHED FOR COMFORT.

It seemed hard to Francis Manning that he, who had asked of fate nothing
more exorbitant than an easy, comfortable existence, should have been
called on to endure one of the most uncomfortable of experiences--that
of being jilted by the girl to whom he had believed himself engaged to
be married! For years past he had intended to marry Lilith Wastneys,
and when he told his love she had been everything that was sweet and
complaisant, had said, in so many words, that she loved him in return.
He had gone home feeling the happiest man in the world, had lain awake
for a solid hour by the clock, rejoicing in his happiness, and the very
next morning, behold a letter to tell him that she was engaged to
another man!

Francis could not endure to recall the shock, the misery, the
discomfort, of that hour. If the news had come from another source he
would have refused to believe it; but it was Lilith herself who wrote,
so there was no loophole of escape.

During the following days he felt stunned and wretched. His heart was
wounded, but he was not sentimental by nature, and it seemed to him that
he could have schooled his heart into subjection if it had not been
for--for the other things! There did not seem a single interest in life
which this wretched disillusionment had left untouched. To begin with,
there was his work. He had worked for a home in which Lilith should
live as his wife. Work seemed suddenly dull and purposeless now that
the proposed home had crumbled into ruins. Then, as regards amusement--
he had grown into the habit of arranging his engagements to fit in with
Lilith's own. A dinner meant the chance of Lilith for a partner; a
ball, a dance or two with Lilith, and a _tete-a-tete_ in a conservatory;
a reception, the chance of edging his way towards a little whit