an inner existence, from which he could spring in a moment to full
mundane life--arguing passionately for some Socialist proposal, scathing
an opponent, or laughing and "ragging" with a group of friends, like a
school-boy on an _exeat_. But whatever he did, an atmosphere went with
him that made him beloved. He was extremely poor, and wrote for his
living. His opinions won the scorn of moderate men; and every year his
influence in Parliament--on both sides of the House and with the Labor
party--increased. On his rare appearance in such houses as Tallyn Hall
every servant in the house marked and befriended him. The tall footman,
for instance, who had just been endeavoring to make the threadbare cuffs
of Lankester's dress coat present a more decent appearance, had done it
in no spirit of patronage, but simply in order that a gentleman who
spoke to him as a man and a brother should not go at a disadvantage
among "toffs" who did nothing of the kind.

But again--why had he come down?

During the last months of Parliament, Lankester had seen a good deal of
Oliver. The story of Diana, and of Marsham's interrupted wooing was by
that time public property, probably owing to the indignation of certain
persons in Brookshire. As we have seen, it had injured the prestige of
the man concerned in and out of Parliament. But Lankester, who looked at
life intimately and intensely, with the eye of a confessor, had been
roused by it to a curiosity about Oliver Marsham--whom at the time he
was meeting habitually on political affairs--which he had never felt
before. He, with his brooding second sight based on a spiritual estimate
of the world--he and Lady Lucy--alone saw that Marsham was unhappy. His
irritable moodiness might, of course, have nothing to do with his
failure to play the man in the case of Miss Mallory. Lankester was
inclined to think it had--Alicia Drake or no Alicia Drake. And the grace
of repentance is so rare in mankind that the mystic--his own secret life
wavering perpetually between repentance and ecstasy--is drawn to the
merest shadow of it.

These hidden thoughts on Lankester's side had been met by a new and
tacit friendliness on Marsham's. He had shown an increasing liking for
Lankester's company, and had finally asked him to come down and help him
in his constituency.

By George, if he married that girl, he would pay his penalty to the
utmost!

Lankester leaned out of window again, his eyes sweeping the dreary par