nce. By the way, I have not
congratulated you. How is Mrs. Leicester?"

He turned on his heel and walked away.

"Hullo, Leicester," said another man, "here you are. By the way, what is
the truth about that paragraph I saw in the papers?"

"Oh, it's all right."

"Is--is Miss Castlemaine seriously ill?"

"I don't know, and I don't care."

"You don't mean to say that----"

"I mean to say that I'll have a drink with you, Bryant," he said.

"But you've turned teetotaler."

"Then I'll break my pledge. What'll you take?"

"But, I say, Leicester----"

"Will you have a drink?"

"With pleasure, only I thought that----"

"I was a reformed rake, eh? Well, I'm not. Whiskies for two, waiter. I
say, tell us about this dissolution. What do you think about it?"

"I think our side will have a stiff fight. Besides, you know what has to
be our chief card?"

"I know nothing, I've been busy with--other things."

Bryant laughed.

"What _is_ the meaning of this postponement of your marriage, Leicester?
Did you know the Government was going to smash up?"

"Why, you know we've been expecting it every day." He despised himself
for using this subterfuge, but he could think of nothing better to say.
"What is to be our chief card, Bryant?"

"The drink question, licensing reform, and all that kind of rot."

"Then let's drink to the success of the destruction of the drink curse,
Bryant," he said. "It's all of a piece."

The other looked at him curiously. This was not like the Leicester he
had known lately.

"I say, Leicester, has that girl jilted you?" he said.

The words stung him more than anything he had heard during the day.

"Yes," he said angrily, "and your wife would have jilted you, if I had
proposed to her on the morning of your wedding-day."

With that he got up and walked away. He could not stay among these men
any longer. He would go down to the National, and find out more
particulars about the dissolution. It would help him to forget. When he
returned, two hours later, he found a telegram awaiting him. It was from
the chairman of his political association. "Urgent that you come down
immediately," he read; "to-morrow, if possible. Wire if I may arrange
for a big meeting in Taviton to-morrow night. Have forestalled others
and taken hall provisionally. Don't fail. Deeply sorry to hear about
Miss Castlemaine."

Scarcely knowing what he was doing, he seized a telegraph form, and said
that he would be at Tavito