ence in the division. The self-made, shrewd little man
had been Oliver's political slave and henchman through two Parliaments;
and he had no doubt reflected that neither the Tallyn estates, nor the
Marsham wealth had been wiped out by the hostile majority of last
Saturday. At the same time, the state of feeling in the division was too
strong; the paper which depended entirely on local support could not
risk its very existence by countering it.

Marsham's keen brain spared him nothing. His analysis of his own
situation, made at leisure during the week which had elapsed since the
election, had been as pitiless and as acute as that of any opponent
could have been. He knew exactly what he had lost, and why.

A majority of twelve hundred against him, in a constituency where, up to
the dissolution, he had commanded a majority--for him--of fifteen
hundred. And that at a general election, when his party was sweeping
the country!

He had, of course, resigned his office, and had received a few civil and
sympathetic words from the Premier--words which but for his physical
injury, so the recipient of them suspected, might have been a good deal
less civil and less sympathetic. No effort had been made to delay the
decision. For a Cabinet Minister, defeated at a bye-election, a seat
must be found. For a Junior Lord and a Second Whip nobody will put
themselves out.

He was, therefore, out of Parliament and out of office; estranged from
multitudes of old friends; his name besmirched by some of the most
damaging accusations that can be brought against a man's heart
and honor.

He moved irritably among his cushions, trying to arrange them more
comfortably. This _infernal_ pain! It was to be hoped Nixon would be
able to do more for it than that ass, the Dunscombe doctor. Marsham
thought, with resentment, of all his futile drugs and expedients.
According to the Dunscombe man, the stone had done no vital injury, but
had badly bruised one of the lower vertebrae, and jarred the nerves of
the spine generally. Local rest, various applications, and
nerve--soothing drugs--all these had been freely used, and with no
result. The pain had been steadily growing worse, and in the last
twenty-four hours certain symptoms had appeared, which, when he first
noticed them, had roused in Marsham a gust of secret terror; and Nixon,
a famous specialist in nerve and spinal disease, had been summoned
forthwith.

To distract his thoughts, Marsham took up t