Heseltine. "If it amuses
strangers to see our leading celebrities mixed up in a murder and other
distressing affairs, it's the least we can do to see that they get it."

The Captain's facetiousness fell on unappreciative ears. Most of Mr.
Duncombe's audience were too alive to the serious side of the matter to
enjoy it. To them it was another and a very striking scene in the fight
which had long gone on between Medland and Kilshaw, and had taken a
fresh and fiercer impetus from the well-remembered day when Medland had
spoken his words about Kilshaw and his race-horses. Nobody doubted that
Kilshaw had kept this man Benyon, or Benham, as a secret weapon, and
that the murder had only made the disclosure come earlier. Kilshaw's
reputation suffered somewhat in the minds of the scrupulous, but his
partisans would hear of no condemnation. They said, as he had said, that
in dealing with a man like Medland it would have been folly not to use
the weapons fate, or the foe himself by his own misdeeds, offered. As
for the disapprobation of the Kirton mob, they held that in high scorn.

"They'd cheer burglary, if Medland did it," said one.

"Well, he wants to, pretty nearly," added a capitalist.

"But the country will take a very different view. Puttock'll rub it into
all his people: _they_'ll not vote for him. What do you say, Coxon?"

"I think we shall beat him badly," said that gentleman, as he rose and
went out.

Captain Heseltine soon followed, and was surprised to see Coxon's figure
just ahead of him as he entered the gates of Government House.

"Hang the fellow! What does he want here?" asked the Captain.

Mr. Coxon asked for Lady Eynesford. When he entered, she rose with a
newspaper in her hand.

"What a shocking, shameful thing this is!" she said. "What a blessing it
is that the Government was beaten!"

Coxon acquiesced in both these opinions.

"I never thought well of him," continued the lady. "Now everybody sees
him in his true colours. And it's you we have chiefly to thank for our
deliverance."

Coxon murmured a modest depreciation of his services, and said,

"I hope Miss Derosne is well?"

Something in his tones brought to his hostess one of those swift fits of
repentance that were apt to wait for her whenever she allowed herself to
treat this visitor with friendliness. He was so very prompt in
responding!

"She is not very well," she answered, rather coldly.

"I--I hope I shall have the pleasure of see