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practical effect of our new Tariff Bill. Mills in Yorkshire and
Lancashire are being opened that have been shut down for years; in
Medchester, Northampton, and the boot-centres the unemployed are being
swept into the factories. Manufacturers who have been struggling to
keep their places open at all are planning extensions already. The
wages bill throughout the country will be the largest next week that has
been paid for years. Travellers are off to the Colonies with cases of
samples--every manufacturing centre is suddenly alive once more. The
terrible struggle for existence is lightened. Next week," Brooks
continued, with an almost boyish twinkle in his eyes, "I shall go down
to Medchester and walk through the streets where it used to make our
hearts ache to see the unemployed waiting about like dumb suffering
cattle. It will be a holiday--a glorious holiday."

"And yet behind it all," she remarked, watching him closely, "there is
something on your mind. What is it?"

He looked at her quickly.

"What an observation."

"Won't you tell me?"

He shook his head.

"It is only one of the smallest cupboards," he said. "The ghost will
very soon be stifled."

She sighed.

"Did you see Lord Arranmore this evening?"

"Yes. He was talking to the duke just now. What of him?"

"I have been watching him. Did you ever see a man look so ill?",

"He is bored," Brooks answered, coldly. "This sort of thing does not
amuse him."

She shook her head.

"He is always the same. He has always that weary look. He is living
with absolute recklessness. It cannot possibly last long."

"He knows the price," Brooks answered. "He lives as he chooses."

"I wonder," she murmured. "Sometimes I wonder whether we do not
misjudge him--you and I, Kingston. For you know we have been his
judges. You must not shake your head. It is true. You have judged him
to be unworthy of a son, and I--I have judged him to be unworthy of a
wife. You don't think--that we could possibly have made a mistake--that
underneath there is a little heart left--eaten up with pride and
loneliness?"

"I have never seen," Brooks answered, "the slightest trace of it."

"Nor I," she answered. "Yet I knew him when he was young. He was so
different, and annihilation is very hard, isn't it? Supposing he were
to die, and we were to find out afterwards?"

"You," he said, slowly, "must be the judge of your own actions. For my
part I see in him only the man who abandoned m