"TO DIE--WILL BE AN _AWFULLY_ BIG ADVENTURE!"

--_Peter Pan_.

Two minutes later we were driving back to the Cathedral Arms. It was snowing heavily, but I never noticed the fact. Neither did I realise that I had abandoned my post at a critical and dangerous moment, and left my friends on the platform to explain to a puzzled and angry audience why the Candidate had run away without answering their questions. But there are deeper things than politics.

Phillis, we learned from Dolly, had been attacked by violent pains early in the evening; and about nine o'clock there had been a sudden rise of temperature, with slight delirium, followed by a complete and alarming collapse. Dr Farquharson had been sent for, hot-foot, from Stridge's platform, and his first proceeding had been to summon me from mine.

He was waiting for us in the hall of the hotel when we arrived, and Kitty and I took him into our sitting-room and, parent-like, begged to be told "the worst."

The doctor--a dour and deliberate Scot--declined to be positive, but "doubted" it might be perityphlitis. "Appendicitis is a more fashionable term," he added. The child had rallied, but was very ill, and nothing more could be done at present except keep her warm and afford relief by means of poultices and fomentations until the malady should take a definite turn for the better or the worse.

"In either case we shall know what to do then," he said; "but for the present the bairn must just fight her own battle. Has she good health, as a rule?"

Yes, thank God! she had. Physically she was frail enough, but she possessed a tough little constitution. After I had taken a peep into the room where the poor child, a vision of tumbled hair and wide bright eyes, lay moaning and tossing, I left Kitty and Dolly and the doctor to do what they could for her, and went downstairs to take counsel with my friends.

Now that the first shock was past, my head was clear again, and my course lay plain before me. Downstairs I found Robin, Champion, and Cash silently taking supper.

"Now, gentlemen," I said, when I had answered Robin's anxious inquiries--I believe he loved the child almost as much as I did--"this misfortune has come at a bad time; but one thing is quite plain, and that is that I must go through with the election. I quite see that I am not my own master at present."

Cash looked immensely relieved. Evidently he had been afraid that I would throw up the sponge. Robin and Champion nodded a grave assent, and the latter said--

"You are right, Adrian. It's the only thing to do."

"That's true," said Cash. "I am sure you have our deepest sympathy, Mr Inglethwaite, but we can't possibly let you off on any account."

It was not a very happy way of putting it, but Cash was an election agent first and a man afterwards.

"It was bad enough your running away from the meeting to-night," he continued, in tones which he tried vainly to keep from sounding reproachful. "They'd have torn the benches up if Mr Fordyce hadn't let 'em have it straight. I'm afraid it will cost us votes to-morrow."

All this grated a good deal. I could hear Robin begin to breathe through his nose, and I knew that sign. I broke in--

"What did you say to them, Robin?"

"Say? I don't really know. I assured them that you must have some good reason for leaving in such a hurry, and persuaded them to keep quiet for a bit in case you came back. We put up a few more speakers, but the people got more and more out of hand; and finally, after about five minutes of Dubberley, they grew so riotous that we ended the meeting."

"They had every excuse," said I. "They considered themselves defrauded."

"So they were," said Cash.

"Of course, if they had _known_," said Champion, "they would have gone home like lambs."

"Somehow," said Robin, "I wish they could have been told, Adrian. I should have liked fine to explain to them that you didn't leave the meeting just because you couldn't answer that last question."

"By gum!" Cash had been striving to deliver himself for some time. "Mr Inglethwaite," he said excitedly, "they must be told at once! We can get more good out of your little girl's illness than fifty meetings would do us. You know what the British public are! I'll circulate the real reason of your departure from the meeting first thing to-morrow morning, and half the wobblers in the place will vote for you out of sheer kind-heartedness. I know 'em!"

The exemplary creature almost smacked his lips.

There was a tense silence all round the table. Then I said, with some heat--

"Mr Cash, I have delivered myself into your hands, body and soul, ever since Nomination Day, and I have obeyed you to the letter all through this campaign. But--I am not going to allow a sick child's sufferings to be employed as a political asset to-morrow."

There was a sympathetic growl from the other two.

"Oh, we shouldn't do it as publicly as all that," said the unabashed Cash. "Trust me! No ostentation; just an explanatory report circulated in a subdued sort of way--and perhaps a strip of tan-bark down on the road outside the hotel--eh? _I_ know how to do it. It'll pay, I tell you. And there'll be no publicity----"

I laid my head upon the table and groaned. For three weeks I had had perhaps four hours' sleep a-night, and I had been worked down to my last reserve of energy, keeping in hand just enough to meet all the probable contingencies of to-morrow's election. Dialectics with Cash as to the market value of a little girl's illness had not been included in the estimate. I groaned.

Champion answered for me.

"Mr Cash, don't you see how painful these proposals are to Mr Inglethwaite? Put such ideas out of your head once and for all. No man worthy of the name would accept votes won in such a way."

There was a confirmatory rumble from Robin.

"We can't have _ad misericordiam_ appeals here, Mr Cash," he said.

Champion continued briskly--

"Now, Mr Cash, we will get Mr Inglethwaite a drink and send him to bed.

He has not had a decent night's rest for a fortnight. We trust to you not to talk of the child's illness to anybody,--that is the _only_ way to avoid making capital of it,--and if you will call here to-morrow after breakfast I will guarantee that your Candidate will be fit and ready to go round the polling-booths with you, and"--he put his hand on my shoulder--"set an example to all of us."

Cash, completely pulverised, departed as bidden, desolated over this renunciation of eleemosynary votes; and Robin, Champion, and I finished our supper in peace,--if one can call it peace when there is no peace.

Champion was leaving by the night mail, for he had promised to address a meeting two hundred miles away next day. His cab was already at the door, and we said good-bye to him on the hotel steps.

He shook hands with me in silence, and turned to Robin.

"Three fingers, and not too much soda, and then put him straight to bed," he commanded.

Then he turned to me again.

"Don't sit up and worry, old man," he said. "Go to bed, anyhow. The doctor and your womenfolk will do all that can be done. Your duties commence to-morrow. Keep your tail up, and face it out. _Noblesse oblige_, you know. Good-night."

He drove away, and Robin and I returned to the sitting-room.

Robin mixed me a stiff whisky-and-soda.

"Champion's prescription," he said. "Down with it!"

I obeyed listlessly.

"Now come along upstairs with me. You are going to bed. I want to turn you out a first-class Candidate in the morning--not a boiled owl."

His cheery masterfulness had its effect, and I suddenly felt a man again.

"Never fear!" I said. "I shall go through with it right enough--the whole business--unless--unless--Robin, old man, supposing--supposing----"

"Blethers!" said Robin hastily. "She'll be much better in the morning.