Hullo, Fleming!--do you want me?"

For the Liberal Chief Whip had paused beside them where they stood, in a
corner of the smoking-room, as though wishing to speak to one or other
of them, yet not liking to break up their conversation.

"Don't let me interrupt," he said to Marsham. "But can I have a word
presently?"

"Now, if you like."

"Come to the Terrace," said the other, and they went out into the gray
of a March afternoon. There they walked up and down for some time,
engaged in an extremely confidential conversation. Signs of a general
election were beginning to be strong and numerous. The Tory Government
was weakening visibly, and the Liberals felt themselves in sight of an
autumn, if not a summer, dissolution. But--funds!--there was the rub.
The party coffers were very poorly supplied, and unless they could be
largely replenished, and at once, the prospects of the election were
not rosy.

Marsham had hitherto counted as one of the men on whom the party could
rely. It was known that his own personal resources were not great, but
he commanded his mother's ample purse. Lady Lucy had always shown
herself both loyal and generous, and at her death it was, of course,
assumed that he would be her heir. Lady Lucy's check, in fact, sent,
through her son, to the leading party club, had been of considerable
importance in the election five years before this date, in which Marsham
himself had been returned; the Chief Whip wanted to assure himself that
in case of need it would be repeated.

But for the first time in a conversation of this kind Marsham's reply
was halting and uncertain. He would do his best, but he could not pledge
himself. When the Chief Whip, disappointed and astonished, broke up
their conference, Marsham walked into the House after him, in the morbid
belief that a large part of his influence and prestige with his party
was already gone. Let those fellows, he thought, who imagine that the
popular party can be run without money, inform themselves, and not talk
like asses!

* * * * *

In the afternoon, during an exciting debate on a subject Marsham had
made to some extent his own, and in which he was expected to speak, two
letters were brought to him. One was from Diana. He put it into his
pocket, feeling an instinctive recoil--with his speech in sight--from
the emotion it must needs express and arouse. The other was from the
chairman of a Committee in Dunscombe, the chie