ton was safe, had previously resolved not to vote at all, came
up in the last hour, plumped for Egerton, and carried him to the head
of the poll; so that poor John, whose vote, involving that of Mark
Fairfield, had secured the first opening in public life to the young
ambition of the unknown son-in-law, still contributed to connect with
success and triumph, but also with sorrow, and, it may be, with death,
the names of the high-born Egerton and the humble Avenel.

The great town-clock strikes the hour of four; the returning officer
declares the poll closed; the formal announcement of the result will
be made later. But all the town knows that Audley Egerton and Richard
Avenel are the members for Lausmere. And flags stream, and drums beat,
and men shake each other by the hand heartily; and there is talk of the
chairing to-morrow; and the public-houses are crowded; and there is an
indistinct hubbub in street and alley, with sudden bursts of uproarious
shouting; and the clouds to the west look red and lurid round the sun,
which has gone down behind the church tower,--behind the yew-trees that
overshadow the quiet grave of Nora Avenel.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

Amidst the darkening shadows of twilight, Randal Leslie walked through
Lansmere Park towards the house. He had slunk away before the poll was
closed,--crept through bylanes, and plunged into the leafless copses
of the earl's stately pasture-grounds. Amidst the bewilderment of
his thoughts--at a loss to conjecture how this strange mischance had
befallen him, inclined to ascribe it to Leonard's influence over Avenel,
but suspecting Harley, and half doubtful of Baron Levy--he sought to
ascertain what fault of judgment he himself had committed, what wile he
had forgotten, what thread in his web he had left ragged and incomplete.
He could discover none. His ability seemed to him unimpeachable,--totus,
teres, atque rotundas. And then there came across his breast a sharp
pang,--sharper than that of baffled ambition,--the feeling that he had
been deceived and bubbled and betrayed. For so vital a necessity to all
living men is TRUTH, that the vilest traitor feels amazed and wronged,
feels the pillars of the world shaken, when treason recoils on himself.
"That Richard Avenel, whom I trusted, could so deceive me!" murmured
Randal, and his lip quivered.

He was still in the midst of the Park, when a man with a yellow cockade
in his hat, and running fast from the direction of the