ereupon dinner was announced, and they left
the room hand in hand.

That evening it was rumoured throughout the town that Mr. Welwyn-Baker
had telegraphed a resolve _not_ to offer himself for re-election. In a
committee-room at the Constitutional Literary Society was held an
informal meeting of Conservatives, but no one of them had definite
intelligence to communicate. Somebody had told somebody else that Hugh
Welwyn-Baker held that important telegram from his father; that was
all. Mr. Mumbray's hopes rose high. On the morrow, at another meeting
rather differently constituted (miserable lack of organization still
evident among the Tories), it was made known on incontestable authority
that the sitting Member _would_ offer himself for re-election. Mr.
Mumbray and his supporters held high language. "It would be party
suicide," they went about repeating. With such a man as Denzil Quarrier
on the Radical side, they _must_ have a new and a strong candidate! But
all was confusion; no one could take the responsibility of acting.

Already the affairs of the Liberals were in perfect crier, and it took
but a day or two to decide even the minutiae of the campaign. To
Quarrier's candidature no one within the party offered the least
opposition. Mr. Chown, who had for some time reserved his judgment,
declared to all and sundry that "all things considered, a better man
could scarcely have been chosen." Before thus committing himself he had
twice called upon Quarrier, and been closeted with him for a longtime.
Now, in these days of arming, he received a card inviting him (and his
wife) to dine at the candidate's house on a certain evening a fortnight
ahead; it was the second dinner that Denzil had planned, but Mr. Chown
was not aware of this, nor that the candidate had remarked of him to
Lilian: "We must have that demagogue among his kind, of course."
Denzil's agent (Hummerstone by name) instantly secured rooms in
admirable situations, and the Public Hall was at the disposal of the
party for their first great meeting a few days hence.

In facing that assembly (Toby Liversedge was chairman) Denzil had a
very slight and very brief recurrence of his platform nervousness.
Determined to risk nothing, he wrote out his speech with great care and
committed it to memory. The oration occupied about two hours, with not
a moment of faltering. It was true that he had discovered his vocation;
he spoke like a man of long Parliamentary experience, to