med tamed and softened. So Randal went on,

"May I say what I have heard expressed with regard to you and your
position--in the streets, in the clubs?"

"Yes, it is in the streets and the clubs that statesmen should go to
school. Say on."

"Well, then, I have heard it made a matter of wonder why you, and one or
two others I will not name, do not at once retire from the ministry,
and on the avowed ground that you side with the public feeling on this
irresistible question."

"Eh!"

"It is clear that in so doing you would become the most popular man
in the country,--clear that you would be summoned back to power on the
shoulders of the people. No new Cabinet could be formed without you, and
your station in it would perhaps be higher, for life, than that which
you may now retain but for a few weeks longer. Has not this ever
occurred to you?"

"Never," said Audley, with dry composure.

Amazed at such obtuseness, Randal exclaimed, "Is it possible! And yet,
forgive me if I say I think you are ambitious, and love power."

"No man more ambitious; and if by power you mean office, it has grown
the habit of my life, and I shall not know what to do without it."

"And how, then, has what seems to me so obvious never occurred to you?"

"Because you are young, and therefore I forgive you; but not the gossips
who could wonder why Audley Egerton refused to betray the friends of his
whole career, and to profit by the treason."

"But one should love one's country before a party."

"No doubt of that; and the first interest of a country is the honour of
its public men."

"But men may leave their party without dishonour!"

"Who doubts that? Do you suppose that if I were an ordinary independent
member of parliament, loaded with no obligations, charged with no trust,
I could hesitate for a moment what course to pursue? Oh, that I were but
the member for ----------! Oh, that I had the full right to be a free
agent! But if a member of a Cabinet, a chief in whom thousands confide,
because he is outvoted in a council of his colleagues, suddenly retires,
and by so doing breaks up the whole party whose confidence he has
enjoyed, whose rewards he has reaped, to whom he owes the very position
which he employs to their ruin,--own that though his choice may be
honest, it is one which requires all the consolations of conscience."

"But you will have those consolations. And," added Randal,
energetically, "the gain to your career will be s