it if any one can."

"I will write to her, and then call to-morrow."

Again Lilian had a night without thorough rest, and for the greater
part of the next day she was obliged to keep her room. There Mrs. Wade
visited her, and they talked for a long time; it was decided that
Lilian should go to Pear-tree Cottage on the following afternoon, and
remain in seclusion until the contest was over.

She came down at five o'clock. Denzil, who had instructed the servants
that she was at home to no one, sat with her in the library, holding
her hand.

"I am quite well," Lilian declared again and again. "I feel quite easy
in mind--indeed I do. As you wish it, I will go to Mrs. Wade's, but"----

"It will be very much better. To tell you the truth, girlie, I shall
feel so much freer--knowing you are out of the row, and in such good
care."

She looked at him.

"How wretched to be so weak, Denzil! I might have spared you more than
half what you have suffered, if I hadn't given way so."

"Nonsense! Most women would have played the coward--and _that_ you
never could! You have stood it bravely, dear. But it's your health I
fear for. Take care of it for my sake."

Most of the evening he was away, and again the whole of next morning.
But when the time came for her to leave, they were sitting once more,
as they had done so often, hand in hand, their love and trust stronger
than ever, too strong to find expression in mere words.

"If I go into Parliament," said Denzil, "it's you I have to thank for
it. You have faced and borne everything rather than disappoint my aims."

He raised her fingers to his lips. Then the arrival of the carriage was
announced, and when the door had closed again, they held each other for
a moment in passionate embrace.

"Good-bye for a night and a day at longest," he whispered by the
carriage door. "I shall come before midnight to-morrow."

She tried to say good-bye, but could not utter a sound. The wheels
grated, and she was driven rapidly away.

CHAPTER XXIV

Arthur James Northway reached London in a mood of imperfect
satisfaction. On the principle that half a cake was better than
nothing, he might congratulate himself that he carried in his
pocket-book banknotes to the value of five hundred pounds; but it was a
bitter necessity that had forbidden his exacting more. The possession
of a sum greater than he had ever yet owned fired his imagination; he
began to reflect that, after all, Quarrier