d have to accept both, for Medland must offer Coxon a place, and
beyond doubt the offer would be accepted. The Governor was alarmed for
the fate of New Lindsey under such ruling, and awaited with
apprehension his next interview with his wife.

Dick Derosne had fulfilled his mission, and his tidings had spread
dismay on the lawn. Lady Eynesford reiterated her edict of exclusion
against the new Premier; Eleanor Scaife smiled and told her she would be
forced to receive him. Alicia in vain sought particulars of Mr.
Medland's misdeeds, and the _aides-de-camp_ speculated curiously on the
composition of the Cabinet, Captain Heseltine betting Mr. Flemyng five
to two that it would include Mr. Giles, the leading tailor of Kirton, to
whose services the captain had once been driven to resort with immense
trepidation and disastrous results. As a fact, the captain lost his bet;
the Cabinet did not include Mr. Giles, because that gentleman, albeit an
able speaker, and a man of much greater intellect than most of his
customers, was suspected of paying low wages to his employes, though,
according to the captain, it was impossible that he should pay them as
little as their skill deserved.

"I don't think I ever saw Mr. Medland," said Alicia, who had come out
from England only a few months before.

"I have seen him," said Eleanor Scaife. "In fact, I had a little talk
with him at the Jubilee Banquet."

"Was he sober?" Lady Eynesford, in her bitterness of spirit, allowed
herself to ask.

"Mary! Of course he was. He was also rather interesting. He was then in
mourning for Mrs. Medland, and he told me he only came because his
absence would have been put down to disloyalty."

The mention of Mrs. Medland increased the downward curve of Lady
Eynesford's mouth, and she was about to speak, when Dick Derosne
exclaimed,

"Well, you can see him now, Al. He's walking up the drive."

The party and their tea-table were screened by trees, and they were
able, themselves unseen, to watch Mr. Medland, as, in obedience to the
Governor's summons, he walked slowly up to Government House. A girl of
about seventeen or eighteen accompanied him to the gate, and left him
there with a merry wave of her hand, and he strode on alone, his hands
in his trousers pockets and a soft felt hat on the back of his head.

James--or, as his followers called him, "Jimmy"--Medland was forty-one
years of age, once an engineer, now a politician, by profession, a tall,
loo