d with the result that the three weeks occupied in
settling his affairs at New Wanley and withdrawing from the Manor were
full of cheerful activity. He did not meet Hubert Eldon, all business
being transacted through Mr. Yottle. When he heard from the latter that
it was Eldon's intention to make a clean sweep of mines, works, and
settlements, though for a moment chagrined, he speedily saw that such
action, by giving dramatic completeness to his career at Wanley and
investing its close with something of tragic pathos, was in truth what
he should most have desired. It enabled him to take his departure with
an air of profounder sadness; henceforth no gross facts would stand in
the way of his rhetoric when he should enlarge on the possibilities
thus nipped in the bud. He was more than ever a victim of cruel
circumstances; he could speak with noble bitterness of his life's work
having been swept into oblivion.

He was supported by a considerable amount of epistolary sympathy. The
local papers made an interesting story of what had happened in the
old church at Wanley, and a few of the London journals reported the
circumstances; in this way Mutimer became known to a wider public than
had hitherto observed him. Not only did his fellow-Unionists write to
encourage and moralise, but a number of those people who are ever ready
to indite letters to people of any prominence, the honestly admiring and
the windily egoistic, addressed communications either to Wanley Manor or
to the editor of the 'Fiery Cross.' Mutimer read eagerly every word of
each most insignificant scribbler; his eyes gleamed and his cheeks
grew warm. All such letters he brought to Adela, and made her read
them aloud; he stood with his hands behind his back, his face slightly
elevated and at a listening angle. At the end he regarded her, and his
look said: 'Behold the man who is your husband!'

But at length there came one letter distinct from all the rest; it had
the seal of a Government office. With eyes which scarcely credited what
they saw Mutimer read some twenty or thirty words from a Minister of the
Crown, a gentleman of vigorously Radical opinions, who had 'heard
with much regret that the undertaking conceived and pursued with such
single-hearted zeal' had come to an untimely end. Mutimer rushed to
Adela like a schoolboy who has a holiday to announce.

'Read that now! What do you think of that? Now there's some hope of a
statesman like that!'

Adela gave