"Of course," he continued, "anything may happen yet. But the way in which she has been cared for by my good friend here----"

"No, no," said Farquharson. "Give the credit to those that deserve it. I just afforded ordinary professional assistance. It was your wife and her sister, Mr Inglethwaite, that pulled the child through. She has had tight hold of a hand of one of them ever since ten o'clock last night."

"Yes," said Sir James; "I think it will be found that their nursing has just made the difference. You had better give him something, Farquharson."

In truth I needed something, though up to this point I had not realised the fact. Farquharson gave me a draught out of a little glass, which sent a steadying glow all through me, and presently I was able to shake hands, dumbly and mechanically, with the great surgeon, who, I found, was bidding me good-bye; for the world is full of sick folk, and their champion may not stay to see the issue of one battle before he must hurry off to fight another.

They left me to myself, while Farquharson went down to the door with Sir James. Presently he returned.

"I must be getting back to the patient shortly," he said. "The next hour or so will be very critical. The nurse is here, and I have sent the ladies to bed. But you may go in for a look, if you like. I am going out for exactly ten minutes."

"I see--a breather. You deserve it."

"Not exactly. I'm going to vote--for Stridge!"

He chuckled in a marvellously cheering way, and left me.

As I approached Phillis's room the door opened, and I was confronted with that most soothing and comforting of sights to a sick man--a nurse's uniform. She was a pleasant-faced girl, I remember, and she was carrying a basin full of sponges and water, cruelly tinged.

"Just a peep!" she said, with that little air of motherly sternness which all women, however young, adopt towards fractious children and helpless males.

She closed the door very softly upon me, and left me alone.

For a moment I stood uncertain in the shadow of the screen that guarded the door. There was a whiff of chloroform in the air, and through the doorway leading to the room where we had sat throughout the previous night I could see the end of a white-covered table. Thank God, that part of the business was over!

A shaded lamp burned at Phillis's bedside. She lay deathly still, an attenuated little derelict amid an ocean of white bed-clothes.

At first I thought I was alone with the child, and was moving softly forward when I became suddenly aware that some one was kneeling at the far side of the bed. It was Kitty. Evidently she had not obeyed the doctor's orders about going to bed.

A single ray from the lamp fell upon her face. Her eyes were wide open, and she seemed to be looking straight at me. Her lips were moving, and I became aware that she was speaking, very earnestly and almost inaudibly.

I stood still to hear her. Then I realised that her words were not addressed to me. Very carefully I stepped back to the door-handle, turned it, and slipped out.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

"QUI PERD, GAGNE."

Once more I was back in the thick of it all, and till the closing of the poll at eight o'clock I strove, in company with Cash, Robin, and others, to direct the inclinations of my constituents into the proper channels.

The tumult increased as the evening advanced. More snow had fallen during the afternoon, and outlying electors were being conveyed to the scene of action with the utmost difficulty. People were voting at seven o'clock who had intended to get it done and be home by six; and as time wore on it was seen that there would be a desperate rush of business right up till closing time.

Every one was in high spirits. That potent factor in British politics, the electioneering egg, had been entirely superseded by the snowball, and the youth of Stoneleigh, massed in the public square outside the Town Hall, were engaged, with a lofty indifference to party distinctions that would have been sublime if it had not been so painful, in an untrammelled bombardment of all who crossed their path.

At length the Cathedral chimed out the hour of eight, and the poll closed. Cash hurried up to me.

"It's going to be a desperately close thing," he said. "The counting will begin at once, in the Mayor's room on the first floor of the Town Hall. The outlying boxes should be in by half-past nine at the latest, and the result should be out by about eleven. You'll come and watch the counting, I suppose."

But there are limits to human endurance.

"Mr Cash," I said, buttoning my overcoat up to my ears as a preliminary to an encounter with the budding statesmen outside, "I think I have got to the end of my day's work. Nothing can affect the result now, and I'm going home--that's flat. Good-night!"

"Surely you're coming to hear the result announced," wailed Cash.

"There's the vote of thanks to the Returning Officer. You'll have to propose that--or second it," he added grimly.

"Well, I'll see. But I think, now that the poll is closed, that my duty lies elsewhere," I said. "If I am really wanted, send word by Mr Fordyce."

Five minutes later, and I was once more at the Cathedral Arms. The ground floor of that hostelry hummed like a hive, and the bar and smoking-room were filled to overflowing with supporters of both sides, who were prudently avoiding all risk of disappointment by celebrating the result of the election in advance.

I pushed my way through a group of enthusiastic patriots--many of them in that condition once described to me by a sporting curate as "holding two or three firkins apiece"--who crowded round me, fired with a desire to drink success to the British Constitution--a rash shibboleth, by the way, for gentlemen in their situation to attempt to enunciate at all--at my expense, and hastened upstairs to our wing.

In the passage I met the nurse. She greeted me with a little smile; but I was mistrustful of professional cheerfulness that night.

"Will you tell Mrs Inglethwaite or Miss Rubislaw that I have come in, please?" I said, and turned into the sitting-room.

The sight of a snug room or a bright fire or a colossal arm-chair is always comforting to a weary man, even though his thoughts admit of little rest. I sank down amid these comforts, and closed my eyes. Now that my long day's play-acting was over, and nothing mattered any more, I began to realise how great the strain had been. I was utterly done. I had no clear recollection of having tasted food since breakfast, but I was not hungry. All I wanted was to be left in peace. Even the sickening anxiety about Phillis had died down to a sort of dull ache. In a few minutes a too-wakeful mind struggled with an exhausted body. I wondered dimly when somebody would come and tell me how Philly was. Perhaps----

I fell asleep.

I was awakened by the consciousness of a second presence in my arm-chair, which was a roomy one of the saddle-bag variety. It was Kitty. Presently I became aware that she was crying, softly, as women usually do,--men gulp noisily, because they have lost control of themselves, and children wail, chiefly to attract attention,--but so softly on this occasion that I knew she was trying to avoid disturbing me.

It had happened, then.

Well, obviously, this was one of the rare occasions upon which a husband can be of some use to his wife. I sat up, and made a clumsy effort at a caress.

"We've still got each other," I said, rather brokenly.

Kitty positively laughed.

"Adrian, you don't understand. Philly roused up for a few minutes about eight o'clock,--very _piano_, poor mite, but almost herself,--and then dropped off into a beautiful sleep, bless her! The doctor has gone home and left the nurse in charge. He says things should be all right now.

Oh, Adrian, Adrian!"

And my wife sobbed afresh.

"Then what the--what on earth are you crying for?" I demanded.

"I don't know, dear," said Kitty, without making any attempt to stop.

"I'm so happy!"

Really, women are the most extraordinary creatures. Here was I, after the labour and anxiety of the last twenty-four hours, ready to shout for joy. I was no longer tired: I felt as if my day's work had never been. I wanted to sing--to dance--to give three cheers in a whisper. And my wife, after giving me a very bad fright, was sitting celebrating our victory by a flood of tears and other phenomena usually attributed by the masculine mind to unfathomable woe. It was all very perplexing, and I felt a trifle ill-used; but I suppose it was one of the things that mark the difference between a man and a woman.

After that we sat long and comfortably. Our conversation need not be set down here, for it has no bearing on this chronicle.

Finally we looked at the clock, and then at each other.

"We must have been sitting here a long time," I said. "I wonder where the others are."