the light of gladness was in her eyes, while the nobility of her face
impressed all who saw it.

Almost without realising it, Leicester turned and saw. He remembered
accompanying her to the photographer's, and he recalled the happy day
they had spent afterwards. Yes, this was the woman he had won--and lost.
All the ghastly mockery of the business came to him as he beheld the
beautiful woman who had sent him away from her home in scorn and anger.
The shouts of the multitude maddened him. He wanted to rise and tell
them that the whole thing was a shameful lie, a bitter mockery. But he
sat still, looking and looking. Presently he became almost unconscious
of the shouting crowd, in his consciousness of his hopeless misery, and
wrecked hopes. Great God! what was this election to him now, when his
heart was all torn and bleeding, and when, to forget everything, he had
debauched himself in whisky! Never had he realised his loss more than he
realised it then. She was his no longer, she had driven him from her
because he had outraged her woman's pride, because he had made her the
subject of a drunken jest.

In a moment all had changed again. The hall was ablaze with light, and
the slide had been removed from the lantern. They were again brought
back to the business of the meeting.

"And now," said the chairman, "I have pleasure, unbounded pleasure, in
asking our brilliant candidate, who I am sure will be not only your
future member, but in good time will occupy Cabinet rank in this
country, to address you. Moreover, I want, in your name, to assure him
that we are all anxious, not only to welcome him as our future member,
but to tell him that we look forward to the time when we shall see him
and his beautiful wife upon this platform."

The chairman was not possessed of a very sensitive nature, or he would
not have uttered this last sentiment. Besides, he was carried away with
the ardour of the meeting and the dignity of his own position.

As Leicester rose to speak he felt that his head was swimming, and he
realised that his brain refused to fasten upon the things he wanted to
say. The atmosphere of the ill-ventilated hall had now become stifling
to a degree, and the whisky he had been drinking during the last two
days was having its effect. As he had said, his long abstinence had made
him more susceptible to its power, and he not only knew that he was
drunk, but he also realised that others were in danger of knowing it as