here, on the table beside him, was Ferrier's reply:

"My Dear Oliver,--I don't think a letter would do you much
good, and for a speech, I am too tired--and I am afraid at
the present moment too thin-skinned. Pray excuse me. We shall
meet when this hubbub is over. All success to you.

"Yours ever, J.F."

Was there ever a more ungracious, a more uncalled-for, letter? Well, at
any rate, he was free henceforward to think and act for himself, and on
public grounds only; though of course he would do nothing unworthy of an
old friendship, or calculated to hurt his mother's feelings. Ferrier, by
this letter, and by the strong negative influence he must have exerted
in West Brookshire during the election, had himself loosened the old
bond; and Marsham would henceforth stand on his own feet.

As to Ferrier's reasons for a course of action so wholly unlike any he
had ever yet taken in the case of Lucy Marsham's son, Oliver's thoughts
found themselves engaged in a sore and perpetual wrangle. Ferrier, he
supposed, suspected him of a lack of "straightness"; and did not care to
maintain an intimate relation, which had been already, and might be
again, used against him. Marsham, on his side, recalled with discomfort
various small incidents in the House of Commons which might have
seemed--to an enemy--to illustrate or confirm such an explanation of the
state of things.

Absurd, of course! He _was_ an old friend of Ferrier's, whose relation
to his mother necessarily involved close and frequent contact with her
son. And at the same time--although in the past Ferrier had no doubt
laid him under great personal and political obligations--he had by now,
in the natural course of things, developed strong opinions of his own,
especially as to the conduct of party affairs in the House of Commons;
opinions which were not Ferrier's--which were, indeed, vehemently
opposed to Ferrier's. In his, Oliver's, opinion, Ferrier's lead in the
House--on certain questions--was a lead of weakness, making for
disaster. Was he not even to hold, much less to express such a view,
because of the quasi-parental relation in which Ferrier had once stood
to him? The whole thing was an odious confusion--most unfair to him
individually--between personal and Parliamentary duty.

Frankness?--loyalty? It would, no doubt, be said that Ferrier had always
behaved with singular generosity both toward opponents and toward
dissidents in his own party