ave to get back to Manchester
to-night, we must say what we have to say to him at once. Good
afternoon, Mr. Stepaside. I have no doubt we shall meet often during
the next few weeks."

"Of course, I can't wish you luck, Stepaside," said Mr. Bolitho
cordially. "You see, you're on the other side. All the same, as far
as you and I are concerned, we have decided to let bygones be bygones,
haven't we?"

But Paul did not speak. He would have given anything to have spoken to
Mr. Bolitho in the same spirit in which he had spoken, but for the life
of him he could not. A weight seemed to be upon his tongue.

"Perhaps we shall also meet again," he said, turning to Mary Bolitho.
"Do you know, I sometimes think you do not understand me! And I should
like to have half an hour's chat with you. It might alter your views
concerning me and the class I represent." He spoke almost humbly, and
even her father did not resent his words. Ordinarily he would probably
have been angry that a man of Paul's status should have dared to have
spoken to his daughter in such a fashion--now there seemed nothing
wrong in it.

"I should love to," laughed the girl. "Perhaps you do not understand
my father either. I am sure I could convince you that he's right!"
And with a pleasant smile she left him alone on the platform.

Only a few words had passed between them, and if an outsider had been
listening to them, he would have regarded them as of no import
whatever, but Paul felt that they had changed everything. In a way he
could not understand, the old antagonism had gone, and, stranger to her
as he still was, it seemed to him that a bond of sympathy had been
formed. On previous occasions when he had met her it had seemed to him
as though he were meeting an enemy, even although she had filled the
whole of his horizon. But now the very atmosphere was changed, and he
was sure that when they met again he could make her understand him, and
that they would be able to speak on equal terms.

When he returned home that night his mother wondered why his eyes were
so bright and his voice so cheerful.

"Have you heard good news, my boy?" she asked.

"I feel that I'm going to win, mother," was his reply, and his words
meant a great deal more to him than to her.

CHAPTER X

THE NEW MEMBER FOR BRUNFORD

The day following the meeting at the railway station Paul saw Miss
Bolitho in the streets of Brunford and to his delight she greeted him