quished. Bolitho was elected and
Paul Stepaside didn't get in. And that, for the time being, was the
end of it.

Meanwhile, Paul went on with his work silently, doggedly. His affairs
were in a critical condition, and he needed all his energy and all his
wits to put everything right. He no longer fought in the dark,
however. He knew who and what had brought about the crisis which had
faced him, and Paul was a man of many resources. For more than a month
he had only been able to give half his mind to his business, and George
Preston, while a trustworthy and reliable fellow, was not strong enough
to face the problems which lay before them. Freed from the demands of
the political contest, however, he threw his whole energies into the
disentanglement of his affairs, and little by little he succeeded. The
prices for the stuff which he had been manufacturing went up again, and
although they had not reached the figures of a few months before, he
was able to sell enough to help him to meet his most pressing
creditors. In three months, matters had assumed their normal
condition. Evidently Ned Wilson regarded him as no longer dangerous,
and was not prepared to lose more money to bring about his revenge. In
addition to this, Paul had worked in a way whereby Wilson had been
deceived. Mind for mind, Wilson was no match for him. He was not so
far-seeing, neither had he so broad a grasp of affairs. He had been
able to gain an immediate advantage because of his large capital, and
Paul knew that Wilson's father was too fond of money to consent to
heavy and continuous losses. At the end of six months Paul's position
was pretty well assured. In spite of everything he had overcome the
evil circumstances, and, more than that, he had even used what seemed a
disaster to the furtherance of his own ends.

All this time he had not been unmindful of the great quest of his life.
He never forgot, even when the fight was at the highest, the loneliness
of his mother's life and the shadow that rested upon her. Indeed he
had, from the time of his returning from Scotland, made constant and
continuous efforts to discover the man who had blackened her name. All
his efforts, however, were unavailing. Every road seemed to be a
cul-de-sac. Either Douglas Graham had given his mother a false name or
else he had left the country, and thus made it impossible for him to
find him; or he might be dead--it was quite possible. During the lapse
o