eral nor Tory."

"Exactly.--Well, now, may I depend upon you?"

"I'll come when you send for me."

"Very well. I have your address."

He stood up, hesitated a moment, and offered his hand, which Northway
took without raising his eyes.

"I shall walk on into Clifton; so here we say good-bye for the
present.--A week or ten days."

"I suppose you won't alter your mind, Mr.--Mr. Marks?"

"Not the least fear of that. I have a public duty to discharge."

So speaking, and with a peculiar smile on his lips, Glazzard walked
away. Northway watched him and seemed tempted to follow, but at length
went down the hill.

CHAPTER XVIII

Disappointed in his matrimonial project, the Rev. Scatchard Vialls
devoted himself with acrid zeal to the interests of the Conservative
party. He was not the most influential of the Polterham clerics, for
women in general rather feared than liked him; a sincere ascetic, he
moved but awkwardly in the regions of tea and tattle, and had an
uncivil habit of speaking what he thought the truth without regard to
time, place, or person. Some of his sermons had given offence, with the
result that several ladies betook themselves to gentler preachers. But
the awe inspired by his religious enthusiasm was practically useful now
that he stood forward as an assailant of the political principles held
in dislike by most Polterham church-goers. There was a little band of
district-visitors who stood by him the more resolutely for the coldness
with which worldly women regarded him; and these persons, with their
opportunities of making interest in poor households, constituted a
party agency not to be despised. They worked among high and low with an
unscrupulous energy to which it is not easy to do justice. Wheedling or
menacing--doing everything indeed but argue--they blended the cause of
Mr. Welwyn-Baker and that of the Christian religion so inextricably
that the wives of humble electors came to regard the Tory candidate as
Christ's vicegerent upon earth, and were convinced that their husbands'
salvation depended upon a Tory vote.

One Sunday, Mr. Vialls took for his text, "But rather seek ye the
kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you." He began
by pointing out how very improper it would be for a clergyman to make
the pulpit an ally of the hustings; far indeed be it from him to
discourse in that place of party questions--to speak one word which
should have for its motive the adva