y. "There is joy
enough for them, because the finger has never touched their eyes. But for
us--no, we have to go on! I was a foolish woman, Lawrence. I lost my
sense of proportion. Traditions, you see, were hard to break away from. I
did not understand. Let this be the end of all mention of such things
between us. We have missed the turning, and we must go on. That is the
hardest thing in life. One can never retrace one's steps."

"We go on--apart?"

"We must," she said. "Don't think me prejudiced, Lawrence. I must stand
by my party. Theoretically, I think that you are the only logical
politician I have ever known. Actually, I think that you are steering
your course towards the sandbanks. You will fail, but you will fail
magnificently. Well, that is something."

"It is a good deal," he answered, "but if I live long enough, and my
strength remains, I shall succeed. I shall place the Government of
this country upon an altogether different basis. I shall empty the
work-houses and fill the factories. Nothing short of that will content
me. Nothing short of that would content any man upon whose shoulders the
burden has fallen."

"You have centuries of prejudice to fight," she warned him. "You may not
succeed! Yet you have all my good wishes. I shall always watch you."

They turned homeward in silence. All that had passed between them seemed
to be already far back in the past. Their retrogression seemed almost
symbolical. They spoke of indifferent things.

"Tell me," he asked, "how you came to know what was going on in Leeds."

"It was your wife," she said, "who discovered it!"

"My wife?"

"She saw a telegram on Sir Leslie's table at breakfast, a telegram from
the man Polden. She read it and demanded an explanation. Sir Leslie tried
all he could to wriggle out of it, but in vain. She appealed to me. Even
I had a great deal of difficulty in dealing with him, but eventually he
gave way."

"Then the telegram," Mannering asked, "wasn't that from you?"

She shook her head.

"It was from your wife," she said. "I cannot take much credit for myself.
It is she whom you must thank for your election. I came out at rather
a dramatic moment. Sir Leslie had just offered her money, five hundred
pounds, I think, to give him back his telegram and say nothing. She
appealed to me at once, and Sir Leslie looked positively foolish."

"I am much obliged to you for telling me," Mannering muttered. He
remembered now that he had scarc