CHAPTER XXVIII.

STEALING A MARCH.

Alicia Derosne had a fantastic dream that night. She saw Medland again
chasing a butterfly, as she had seen him on the day he came to
Government House to receive his office. The butterfly floated always
just over his head, and he always came near to catching it, yet never
caught it. Then, by one of sleep's strange transformations, she seemed
to be herself in spirit in the butterfly, and she knew that it flew so
near because desire brought it, that it longed to be caught, and yet, at
the last, by some sudden impulse, avoided his net. At last, as if
wearied, he turned from her to another fluttering thing, and that he
caught. And she heard a great murmur of voices applauding him, and he
smiled and was content with his prize. Then she, the first butterfly,
could not be happy unless she were caught also, envying the other, and
she went and fluttered and spread her wings before his eyes, but he
would not heed her, nor stretch the net over her, but smiled in triumph
at the bright colours of his prize and the murmur of applause. And, with
drooping wings, the first butterfly fell to the ground and died.

It needed no Joseph to interpret this dream. When he had called, she
would not come. Now he would forget her and turn to the life of ambition
and power that he loved. He would rule men, and trouble his head or his
heart no more with the vagaries of girls and the strict scruples of
their code. And she--what was there left for her? "The last time," he
had said. There was nothing for her to do but what the neglected
butterfly had done. In a few weeks more the sea would lie between them,
and she would be no more to him, nor he to her, than a memory--a memory
soon to fade in him, whose days and thoughts were so full; in her, it
seemed, always to endure, ousting everything else, reigning in
triumphant sorrow in an empty heart.

The news of the final result of the elections which Eleanor Scaife
brought her in the morning while she was still in bed, presented to her
mind another picture of the man, which appealed to her almost more
strongly.

"It's a knock-down blow for Mr. Medland, isn't it?" asked Eleanor,
sitting on the side of the bed. "As we're alone together, I may dare to
say that I'm rather sorry. I didn't want him to win, but it's very hard
on him to be crushed like this. How he must feel it!"

"He seems to have won in Kirton."

"Oh yes, just the town mob is with him. Fancy