I don't know what I shall do if you go away!"

She was angered by his tones of proprietorship, and almost instinctively
she compared him with the young fellow who had spoken so rudely to her
the night before. Wilson was commonplace, unlettered; he had only the
tastes of the ordinary common, money-making manufacturer, and for the
first time a feeling amounting to revulsion came into her heart as she
thought of the hopes which she knew he entertained.

That afternoon she left Brunford, in spite of the protests that were
made, and found her way to London.

"Returned so soon, Mary?" said her father when she arrived. "I quite
expected you to stay another week. I have heard about the success of
your work in Brunford, and I imagined that you were going to win me a
great many more votes before you returned. I had no idea that you would
be such a valuable asset when I started this fight, and although I am
awfully glad to have you back, we shall have to strain every nerve if we
are to beat that fellow."

"Do you think you will beat him, father?" she asked.

"If we go on as we are doing, we shall," he replied. "I know he has a
tremendous hold upon the town, and I know that a great deal of prejudice
has been roused against me, but we must beat him, Mary; we must."

"Why, is there any special reason for this?" she asked, noting the tone
of her father's voice.

"Of course, I want to win," was his reply. "I never like to engage in a
fight without winning. I think that my success at the Bar has been
mainly owing to the fact that I've always set out to win. Besides all
that, I don't know how it is, but I've taken a personal dislike to that
fellow. By the way, have you ever met him?"

"Yes," replied the girl.

"Of course, you've never spoken to him?"

To this she made no reply. She did not know why it was, but she felt she
could not tell her father of their meeting in the fields behind Howden
Clough.

"Well, I shall have to go up to Brunford myself in two or three weeks,"
continued Mr. Bolitho, "and, if you can, I hope you will go with me."

"Can we not stay at an hotel when we go again, father?" she asked.

"Why?" asked Mr. Bolitho, turning upon her quickly. "Have not the
Wilsons always been kind to you? And do you not feel comfortable there?
Besides, there is no hotel in Brunford that I care to stay at, and
there's a sort of general understanding between Wilson and myself that we
shall be his guests."

The