vanity, I was not under the impression that my candidature was a
failure. All the big meetings were successful and crowds of people
have promised me votes."

"I should jolly well think they had," said Henry, grimly. "You've
made a landslide with your confounded acres and a cow, and Verner
can hardly get a vote anywhere. Oh, it's too rotten for anything!"

"What on earth do you mean?"

"Why, you lunatic," cried Henry, in tones of ringing sincerity, "you
don't suppose you were meant to _win_ the seat, did you? Oh, it's
too childish! I tell you Verner's got to get in. Of course he's got
to get in. He's to have the Exchequer next session, and there's the
Egyptian loan and Lord knows what else. We only wanted you to split
the Reform vote because accidents might happen after Hughes had made
a score at Barkington."

"I see," said Fisher, "and you, I think, are a pillar and ornament
of the Reform party. As you say, I am not clever."

The appeal to party loyalty fell on deaf ears; for the pillar of
Reform was brooding on other things. At last he said, in a more
troubled voice:

"I didn't want you to catch me; I knew it would be a shock. But I
tell you what, you never would have caught me if I hadn't come here
myself, to see they didn't ill treat you and to make sure everything
was as comfortable as it could be." There was even a sort of break
in his voice as he added, "I got those cigars because I knew you
liked them."

Emotions are queer things, and the idiocy of this concession
suddenly softened Horne Fisher like an unfathomable pathos.

"Never mind, old chap," he said; "we'll say no more about it. I'll
admit that you're really as kind-hearted and affectionate a
scoundrel and hypocrite as ever sold himself to ruin his country.
There, I can't say handsomer than that. Thank you for the cigars,
old man. I'll have one if you don't mind."

By the time that Horne Fisher had ended his telling of this story to
Harold March they had come out into one of the public parks and
taken a seat on a rise of ground overlooking wide green spaces under
a blue and empty sky; and there was something incongruous in the
words with which the narration ended.

"I have been in that room ever since," said Horne Fisher. "I am in
it now. I won the election, but I never went to the House. My life
has been a life in that little room on that lonely island. Plenty of
books and cigars and luxuries, plenty of knowledge and interest and
informati