st henceforth treat on quasi-equal terms. Ashe was now Home
Secretary, and, if Lord Parham's gout should take an evil turn, there
was no saying to what height fortune might not soon conduct him.

The will--the iron purpose--with which it had all been done--that was
the amazing part of it. The complete independence, moreover. Darrell
imagined that Lord Parham must often have regretted the small intrigue
by which Ashe's promotion had been barred in the crisis of the summer.
It had roused an indolent man to action, and freed him from any
particular obligation towards the leader who had ill-treated him. Ashe's
campaign had not been in all respects convenient; but Lord Parham had
had to put up with it.

The summer evening broadened as the two men sauntered on through the
park, beside a small stream fringed with yellow flags. Even the dingy
Midland landscape, with its smoke-blackened woods and lifeless grass,
assumed a glory of great light; the soft, interlacing clouds parted
before the dying sun; the water received the golden flood, and each coot
and water-hen shone jet and glossy in the blaze. A few cries of birds,
the distant shouts of harvesters, the rustling of the water-flags along
the stream, these were the only sounds--traditional sounds of English
peace.

"Jolly, isn't it?" said Ashe, looking round him--"even this spoiled
country! Why did we go and stifle in that beastly show!"

The sensuous pleasure and relaxation of his mood communicated itself to
Darrell. They talked more intimately, more freely than they had done for
months. Darrell's gnawing consciousness of his own meaner fortunes, as
contrasted with the brilliant and expanding career of his school-friend,
softened and relaxed. He almost forgave Ashe the successes of the
winter, and that subtly heightened tone of authority and self-confidence
which here and there bore witness to them in the manner or talk of the
minister. They scarcely touched on politics, however. Both were tired,
and their talk drifted into the characteristic male gossip--"What's ----
doing now?" "Do you ever see So-and-so?" "You remember that fellow at
Univ.?"--and the like, to the agreeable accompaniment of Ashe's best
cigars.

So pleasant was the half-hour, so strongly had the old college intimacy
reasserted itself, that suddenly a thought struck upward in Darrell's
mind. He had not come to Haggart bent merely on idle holiday--far from
it. At the moment he was weary of literature as a