f town of his division.
The town was, so far, without any proper hall for public meetings. It
was proposed to build a new Liberal Club with a hall attached. The
leading local supporter of the scheme wrote--with apologies--to ask
Marsham what he was prepared to subscribe. It was early days to make the
inquiry, but--in confidence--he might state that he was afraid local
support for the scheme would mean more talk than money. Marsham pondered
the letter gloomily. A week earlier he would have gone to his mother for
a thousand pounds without any doubt of her reply.

It was just toward the close of the dinner-hour that Marsham caught the
Speaker's eye. Perhaps the special effort that had been necessary to
recall his thoughts to the point had given his nerves a stimulus. At any
rate, he spoke unusually well, and sat down amid the cheers of his
party, conscious that he had advanced his Parliamentary career. A good
many congratulations reached him during the evening; he "drank delight
of battle with his peers," for the division went well, and when he left
the House at one o'clock in the morning it was in a mood of tingling
exhilaration, and with a sense of heightened powers.

It was not till he reached his own room, in his mother's hushed and
darkened house, that he opened Diana's letter.

The mere sight of it, as he drew it out of his pocket, jarred upon him
strangely. It recalled to him the fears and discomforts, the sense of
sudden misfortune and of ugly associations, which had been, for a time,
obliterated in the stress and interest of politics. He opened it almost
reluctantly, wondering at himself.

"MY DEAR OLIVER,--This letter from your mother reached me
last night. I don't know what to say, though I have thought
for many hours. I ought not to do you this great injury; that
seems plain to me. Yet, then, I think of all you said to me,
and I feel you must decide. You must do what is best for
your future and your career; and I shall never blame you,
_whatever_ you think right. I wish I had known, or realized,
the whole truth about your mother when you were still here.
It was my stupidity.

"I have no claim--none--against what is best for you. Just
two words, Oliver!--and I think they _ought_ to be
'Good-bye.'

"Sir James Chide came after you left, and was most dear and
kind. To-day I have my father's letter--and one from my
mother--that she wr