continued
keen as ever, and each year saw the workers winning slightly increased
power through the advance of labour interests.

Raymond Ironsyde was satisfied and remained largely unchanged. He had
hardened in opinion and increased in knowledge. He lacked imagination
and, as of old, trusted to the machine; but he was rational and proved a
capable, second class man of sound judgment and trustworthy in all his
undertakings. Sport continued to be a living interest of his life, and
since he had no ties that involved an establishment, he gladly accepted
Arthur Waldron's offer of a permanent home.

It came to him after he had travelled largely and been for three years
master of the works. Arthur was delighted when Raymond accepted his
suggestion and made his abode at North Hill. They hunted and shot
together; and Waldron, who now judged that the time for golf had come in
his case, devoted the moiety of his life to that pastime.

Ironsyde worked hard and was held in respect. The circumstance of his
child had long been accepted and understood. He exhausted his energy and
patience in endeavours to maintain and advance the boy; and those
justified in so doing lost no opportunity to urge on Sabina Dinnett the
justice of his demand; but here nothing could change her. She refused to
recognise Raymond, or receive from him any assistance in the education
and nurture of his son. She had called him Abel, and as Abel Dinnett
the lad was known. He resembled her in that he was dark and of an
excitable and uneven temperament. He might be easily elated and as
easily cast down. Raymond, who kept a secret eye upon the child, trusted
that in a few years his turn would come, though at present denied. At
first he resented the resolution that shut him out of his son's life;
but the matter had long since sunk to unimportance and he believed that
when Abel came to years of understanding, he would recognise his own
interests and blame those responsible for ignoring them in his
childhood. Upon this opinion hinged the future of not a few persons. It
developed into a conviction permanently established at the back of his
mind; but since Sabina and others came between, he was content to let
them do so and relied upon his son's intelligence in time to come. For
years he did not again seek the child's acquaintance after a rebuff, and
made no attempt to interfere with the operations of Abel's grandmother
and mother--to keep them wholly apart. Thus, after