imself. She will be naught to him but
one that belongs. He'll never try to do her good. Doing good to any but
himself never comes to his mind."

"How does thee know him, to speak so surely?"

"When, at the first, he gave me a letter for her one day, and slipped a
sovereign into my hand, and nodded, and smiled at me, I knew him right
enough. He never could be true to aught."

"Did thee keep the sovereign?" Faith asked anxiously.

"Ay, that I did. If he was for giving his money away, I'd take it fast
enough. The gold gave father boots for a year. Why should I mind?"

Faith's face suffused. How low was Eglington's estimate of humanity!

In the silence that followed the door of her room opened, and her father
entered. He held in one hand a paper, in the other a candle. His face
was passive, but his eyes were burning.

"David--David is coming," he cried, in a voice that rang. "Does thee
hear, Faith? Davy is coming home!" A woman laughed exultantly. It was
not Faith. But still two years passed before David came.

CHAPTER XVIII. TIME, THE IDOL-BREAKER

Lord Windlehurst looked meditatively round the crowded and brilliant
salon. His host, the Foreign Minister, had gathered in the vast golden
chamber the most notable people of a most notable season, and in as
critical a period of the world's politics as had been known for a
quarter of a century. After a moment's survey, the ex-Prime-Minister
turned to answer the frank and caustic words addressed to him by the
Duchess of Snowdon concerning the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs.
Presently he said:

"But there is method in his haste, dear lady. He is good at his
dangerous game. He plays high, he plunges; but, somehow, he makes it
do. I've been in Parliament a generation or so, and I've never known an
amateur more daring and skilful. I should have given him office had I
remained in power. Look at him, and tell me if he wouldn't have been
worth the backing."

As Lord Windlehurst uttered the last word with an arid smile, he looked
quizzically at the central figure of a group of people gaily talking.

The Duchess impatiently tapped her knee with a fan. "Be thankful you
haven't got him on your conscience," she rejoined. "I call Eglington
unscrupulous and unreliable. He has but one god--getting on; and he
has got on, with a vengeance. Whenever I look at that dear thing he's
married, I feel there's no trusting Providence, who seems to make the
deserving a footstool fo