ulously; "you've been to bed in his
house?"

"You've got it, my sister; lay on his bed just as I am . . . and he
woke me at six and sent me home on his bicycle."

"But why--why should he have interfered? I should have thought he'd
have been _glad_ for you to be taken up, interrupting his meeting and
being on the other side . . . and everything."

"Well, anyway, that's what he did, and whatever his motives may have
been it was jolly decent of him . . . and . . ." here Grantly lowered
his voice to the faintest mumble, "he never said a word of reproof or
exhortation . . . I tell you he behaved like a gentleman. What's to
be done?"

"Nothing," said Mary decidedly. "You've played the fool, and by the
mercy of Providence you've got off uncommonly cheap. It would worry
mother horribly if she knew, and as for father . . . well you know what
_he_ thinks of people who can't carry their liquor like gentlemen, and
grandfather too . . . and . . . oh, Grantly--father's not going South
till the very end of January; he decided to-night that as the weather
was so mild he'd wait till then. So it would _never_ do if it was to
come out, your life would be unbearable, all of our lives; he'd say it
was the Grantly strain coming out--you know how he blames every bit of
bad in us on mother's people."

"I know," groaned Grantly, "I know."

"Well, anyway," Mary said in quite a different tone, "there's one thing
we've got to remember, and that is we must be uncommonly civil to that
young man if we happen to meet him--he's put us under an obligation."

"I know . . . I know, that's what I feel, and I shall never have an
easy minute till I've done something for him . . . and I don't see
anything I can do with the pater like he is and all. Isn't it a
_beastly_ state of things?"

In the darkness Mary leant forward and stroked the tousled head bent
down over Parker.

"Poor old boy," she said softly, "poor old boy," and Parker licked
something that tasted salt off the end of his nose.

When Grantly left his sister's room Parker went with him.

* * * * * *

Eloquent's housekeeper found the missing key under his bed, and he sent
it out to the Manor House that morning, addressed to Grantly, in a
sealed envelope by special messenger.

In the evening the poll was declared in Marlehouse, and the Liberal
candidate was elected by a majority of three hundred and forty-nine
votes.

CHAPTER XV

OF TH