he Gore household, whether by
imagination or not, the equipoise of life had been most skilfully
adjusted. The amount of shining phantasies that had interwoven
themselves into the woof of the family destiny had become so much a part
of the real fabric that they were indistinguishable from it.

As far as Sir William's career, if we may give it that name, was
concerned, the calamity which had fallen upon his wife had in some
strange manner explained and justified it. The younger son of a country
gentleman of good family, he had, by the death of his elder brother,
come into the title, the estate, and the sufficient means bequeathed by
his father. Elinor Calthorpe, the daughter of a neighbouring squire, had
been ever since her childhood on terms of intimate friendship with the
Gore boys; as far back as she could remember, William Gore, big, strong,
full of life and spirits, a striking contrast to his delicate elder
brother, had been her ideal of everything that was manly and splendid:
and when after his brother's death he asked her to marry him, she felt
that life had nothing more to offer. In that belief she had never
wavered. Sir William, by nature estimable and from circumstances
irreproachable, made an excellent husband; that is to say, that during
nearly a quarter of a century of marriage he had never wavered either in
his allegiance to his wife or in his undivided acceptance of her
allegiance, and hers alone. She on her side had never once during all
those years realised that the light which shone round her idol came from
the lamp she herself kept alive before the shrine, nor even that it was
her more acute intelligence, blind in one direction only, which
suggested the opinion or course of action that he quite unconsciously
afterwards offered to the world as his own. It was she who infused into
his life every possibility beyond the obvious. It was her keenness, her
ardent interest in those possibilities, that urged him on. When she
finally persuaded him to stand for Parliament as member for their county
town, it was in a great measure her popularity that won him the seat.

He was in the House without making any special mark for two years, with
a comfortable sense, not clearly stated perhaps even to himself, that
there was time before him. Men go long in harness in these days; some
day for certain that mark would be made. Then his party went out, and in
spite of another unsuccessful attempt in his own constituency, and