"Poor Hemming," said Rames. "That's bad luck. The disappointment must have hit him hard."

"You can understand that," said Cynthia steadily.

"Yes. He would have written, you see, if he had taken it more lightly.

He has nothing to say. That is what his blank sheet of paper means.

That is what it must mean. Well, I must go and write to the Chamber of Commerce, Cynthia;" and gathering up his letters he went out of the room.

As for Cynthia, she remembered that the North Warwickshire met that morning at eleven o'clock four miles from the house. She rode to the meet and followed the hounds over a good gra.s.s country flying her hedges on a big horse which old Mr. Daventry had given to her on the very first day when she had hunted over six years ago. It had always been her experience that when troubles and fears overburdened her, a hard day's hunting was her best medicine. It smoothed out the creases of her mind, whipped up the blood in her veins, set her pulses dancing with the joy of living and unrolled her courage like a banner. The sunlight, the swift rush through the air, the rhythm of movement, the keenness of the animal beneath her, the flight over hedge and ditch, had never failed her up till now. It always seemed to her that by some process, of which she was quite unconscious, the direct and simple thing to do emerged from the confusion of her thoughts and shone out unmistakably. And it shone out to-day. But she could not bring herself to accept it. As she rode homeward through the lanes she was at her arguments again.

"No! With time contentment will come to him. He will be subdued to the matter he works in. And I cannot let him go."

Mr. Benoliel's warning obstinately confronted her.

"One party doesn't keep the bargain or keeps it half-heartedly as an irksome thing and day by day the separation grows more complete until you are living with your enemy or living quite alone."

But she would not be convinced; she battled against it. "There was a saving clause. 'Unless on both sides there is love.' In that case a way could be found. And on both sides there may be love."

She had treasured up little acts of thoughtfulness on Harry Rames's part, the merest small things which women are quick to notice and to build upon; such as having a cloak ready for her shoulders almost before she was aware that she was cold. She ran these trifles over in her mind, clutching at them for proof that the longed for change was coming--nay, perhaps had come. There had been a constant watchfulness, a constant care for her shown by her husband during this last year. It might be of course that a certain remorse was stirring in him--remorse that he was only keeping his side of the bargain in the letter and not the spirit.

"But I cannot let him go," she insisted. The perils, the hardships, the dangers of snow-storms and cold and shipwreck and famine which had all seemed so trivial to her in her days of romance now loomed up before her terrible and dark. It was no use to argue that other men had gone that road and had come back. This one might not. She reached her home with her distress as heavy upon her as when she had set out; and was told that Mr. Benoliel was waiting to see her.

She went at once into the drawing-room and gave Mr. Benoliel some tea.

"Will you tell Mr. Rames," she said to her butler, "that Mr. Benoliel is here."

"He's not in the house," said Benoliel. "He's in Ludsey. I asked for him when I heard that you were out. I am glad. For I should like to tell you my news first."

The butler left the room and Mr. Benoliel became at once mysterious and omniscient.

"Sir George Carberley is going to resign," he said.

Cynthia looked at him in surprise.

"The member for our division?"

The white house was not within the borough limits of Ludsey. It stood in the Hickleton Division of the county of Warwickshire and Sir George Carberley, an important unit of the opposition, was Harry Rames's representative in the House of Commons.

"Yes," said Mr. Benoliel. "He has sat for the division for forty years now and he is tired. He intends to resign when this session is over."

"Are you sure?" asked Cynthia. "How do you know this?"

"Ah!" said Benoliel with a smile. "You mustn't ask me that, Cynthia.

Indeed I am not quite sure that I ought to have told you the news at all. But I thought that it was so important for you to know it at once that I stretched a point of confidence."

"Thank you," said Cynthia. "But what I don't understand is why it is so important for us to have the news before the others?"

"Captain Rames is on the executive of your a.s.sociation, isn't he?"

"Yes."

"Then he will have a voice in the selection of the candidate who will fight the seat from your political point of view."

"Of course."

"Very well," said Mr. Benoliel. "If he has a candidate ready when the news of the approaching resignation is published, and if that man is willing to follow not simply the Government's policy, but also your husband's policy as regards Devenish's land bill, don't you see what a chance he gets? If Rames can secure the selection of his man as candidate and then can win over the seat, he strengthens his position with the Government enormously. He has put his views about Devenish's bill to the test of an election, and he has won."

"Yes, I see that," said Cynthia doubtfully. She was considering the prospect Mr. Benoliel held out to her from a quite different point of view. If Harry succeeded in this plan, his victory would be one more link in the chain of obligation which bound him to his present life.

If he failed, his failure would be another disappointment weakening it.

"But can we win?" she cried. "The seat's supposed to be impregnable."

"That's one of your advantages. More seats are lost by over-confidence than by bad candidates. Besides, the mere fact that one man has held a seat for forty years is against the probability of another man of the same color succeeding. There are lots of people who will be ready to say 'It's time we gave the other fellows a look-in.' Your husband has only got to throw himself heart and soul into the fight and he will stand a very good chance. No doubt of that."

Cynthia reflected. "Why did you wish to tell me this news before you told it to Harry?" she asked, bending her brows upon Mr. Benoliel in a steady frown which had before now warned him to walk with circ.u.mspection.

"I wasn't quite sure," he explained, "that you would wish him now to undertake a further obligation of political service."

"Indeed!" said Cynthia icily. "And why shouldn't I wish it now, Mr.

Benoliel?"

Mr. Benoliel had no intention to allow himself to be browbeaten by a slip of a girl for whose happiness he was in a measure responsible.

"Because, my dear Cynthia," he answered, "it has seemed to me on the last few occasions when I have met your husband that he was feeling the strain of a Parliamentary life. He has looked worn and tired. I could almost fancy that he was disheartened."

Cynthia's thoughts did Mr. Benoliel some injustice at this moment.

Certainly he was suggesting to her that his neglected warning had been justified, that Harry's Parliamentary ambition had been a mere phase in his life, which was now pa.s.sing or had already pa.s.sed. But she went further and a.s.sumed in him a kind of triumph at the accuracy of his diagnosis. Right underneath his sympathetic words she seemed to hear the whisper of a question:

"Am I not a clever man?"

The whirr of a motor-car grew loud and ceased. Harry had returned from Ludsey. Mr. Benoliel sat patiently in front of her, awaiting her decision. Was he to break his news to Harry Rames or was he not?

Cynthia felt that Harry's destiny and hers were in her hands. She must make her choice and by that choice it seemed to her they would be both inextricably bound, their happiness or their misery allotted to them for the whole span of their lives.

She sat with her chin propped in the palm of her hand and her eyes brooding darkly on Mr. Benoliel. A door was shut somewhere in the house. She rose and pressed the bell.

"Howard," she said to her butler, "was that Mr. Rames?"

"Yes ma'am."

"He is in his study I think?"

"Yes."

"Will you show Mr. Benoliel in to him?" And as Benoliel rose, she said to him, "Will you come back after you have told your news? You will have an opportunity of reconsidering your judgment. I should like to hear whether you still think him disheartened."

Cynthia was in her most aggrieved and stately mood. She usually was when she knew herself to be in the wrong. She would not admit Mr.

Benoliel's sympathy or affection for her. She had an epithet for him very near to the tip of her tongue at this moment. Mr. Benoliel was officious. With a distant bow she dismissed him.

She had the satisfaction half an hour later of hearing Mr. Benoliel's complete recantation.