empty when she entered it; a _Graphic_
twelve days old, a yet older copy of _Punch_, and one or two local papers
lay upon the central table; the other tables were stacked for the most
part with chess and draughts-boards, and wooden boxes of chessmen and
dominoes. Listlessly she picked up one of the papers, the _Sentinel_,
and glanced at its contents. Suddenly she started, and began to read
with breathless attention a prominently printed article, headed "A Little
Limelight on Sir John Chobham." The colour ebbed away from her face, a
look of frightened despair crept into her eyes. Never, in any novel that
she had read, had a defenceless young woman been confronted with a
situation like this. Sir John, the Hugo of her imagination, was, if
anything, rather more depraved and despicable than Robert Bludward. He
was mean, evasive, callously indifferent to his country's interests, a
cheat, a man who habitually broke his word, and who was responsible, with
his associates, for most of the poverty, misery, crime, and national
degradation with which the country was afflicted. He was also a
candidate for Parliament, it seemed, and as there was only one seat in
this particular locality, it was obvious that the success of either
Robert or Sir John would mean a check to the ambitions of the other,
hence, no doubt, the rivalry and enmity between these otherwise kindred
souls. One was seeking to have his enemy done to death, the other was
apparently trying to stir up his supporters to an act of "Lynch law". All
this in order that there might be an unopposed election, that one or
other of the candidates might go into Parliament with honeyed eloquence
on his lips and blood on his heart. Were men really so vile?

"I must go back to Webblehinton at once," Alethia informed her astonished
hostess at lunch time; "I have had a telegram. A friend is very
seriously ill and I have been sent for."

It was dreadful to have to concoct lies, but it would be more dreadful to
have to spend another night under that roof.

Alethia reads novels now with even greater appreciation than before. She
has been herself in the world outside Webblehinton, the world where the
great dramas of sin and villainy are played unceasingly. She had come
unscathed through it, but what might have happened if she had gone
unsuspectingly to visit Sir John Chobham and warn him of his danger? What
indeed! She had been saved by the fearless outspokenness of the loca