disappointment mingled
with it, yet there was a certain amount of relief.

"I was afraid for you, Maraton," he said. "I thought of those others
when they stumbled upon the easy ways, and I was afraid. With you it
may be different. Hold on your way, then. It is not for me to
criticise. But if you slacken, if your hand droops, then I shall come
again."

He turned abruptly away and disappeared, walking with quick, shambling
footsteps. Maraton looked after him thoughtfully for several moments,
then he continued on his way homewards.

CHAPTER XXIII

The last words had been spoken, the suspense of a few hours was at an
end. Maraton was on his way back to London, a duly accredited Member of
Parliament for the eastern division of Nottingham. From his place in
the railway carriage he fancied that he could hear even now the roar of
voices, feel the thrill of emotion with which he had waited for the
result. An Independent Member, even when backed as Maraton had been
backed, is never in a wholly safe position. On the whole, he had done
well. He had increased the majority of four hundred to a majority of
seven hundred. And this, too, in the face of unexpected difficulties.
At the last minute a surprise had been sprung upon the constituency. A
Labour candidate had entered the field. Maraton's telegram to Peter
Dale had produced no reply. The man, if not officially recognised, was
at least not officially discouraged. His intervention had been useless,
however. Maraton had carried the working men with him. In a sense it
was an election on the strangest issues which had ever been fought.
Many of the most far-seeing journalists of the day predicted in this new
alliance the redistribution of Parties which for some time had been
inevitable. So far as Maraton was concerned, it was, without doubt, an
unexpected phase in his career. He was Maraton, M.P., representative of
a manufacturing town; elected, indeed, as an Independent, but with a
weighty backing of the Unionist Party behind him. The next time he
spoke, probably, if he did speak before his journey to Sheffield, would
be in the House of Commons. Would he, like those others, feel the
inertia of it, the slow decay of his ambitions, the fatal tendency
towards compromise?

Arrived at St. Pancras, Maraton drove straight to his house in Russell
Square and, letting himself in with his latch-key, made his way to the
study. The lights were still burning there. Julia and Aaron were
s