A very few hours after its occurrence, the scene at the flower-show was regretted by all who took part in it. Medland realised the foolishness of his indiscretion and want of temper; Benham was afraid that he might have set inquiring minds on the track of game which he wished to hunt down for himself; Kilshaw was annoyed at having been forced into such an open display of his relations with and his influence over Benham. Even to himself, his dealings with the man were a delicate subject. Almost every one has one or two matters which he would rather not discuss with his own conscience; and his bargain with Benham was one of these tabooed topics to Kilshaw. For, in spite of what he had done in this instance, he belonged to a class which some righteous and superior people will have it does not exist. He was a conscientious politician—a man who, in the main, was honest and straightforward; prone indeed to And now Mr. Kilshaw, impelled less by mere self-interest than by the rankling of a personal feud, had—dipped the end of his fingers in pitch. He had resented fiercely Medland's hardly disguised attack on him, and it had fanned into flame the wrath which the Premier's schemes, threatening the profits of himself and his fellow-capitalists, and the Premier's principles, redolent to his nostrils of the quackery and hypocrisy that he hated, had set alight in his heart. Against such a man and such a policy, was not everything Yet he was ashamed; but, being in secret ashamed, he, as men often do, set his face and went on his way all the more obstinately. He bought Mr. Benham, Mr. Benham and his secret; they were heartily at his disposal, for he could pay a better price than Puttock could; and he laid them by in his arsenal, for use, he carefully added to himself, only in the very last emergency. "Not yet, you fool!" he had whispered to his tool in anger and alarm. The tool did not know how dirty it seemed to the hand that was to use it, and yet shrank from using it until the very last. But if it came to the very last—why, he would use it; and Mr. Kilshaw inspected the pitch on the end of his fingers, and almost convinced himself that it was not pitch at all. Yet was this "very last" very far off? Since the flower-show, the Premier was displaying feverish activity. He was like a man who is stricken by mortal sickness, but has some work that he must finish before the time comes when he can do no more work, and know no more joy in the work he has done. Bill after bill was introduced embodying his schemes, and the popular praise of him and enthusiasm rose higher and higher at the sight of a minister doing, or at least attempting, all and more than he promised. The Ministry was worked to death; the Governor was apprehensive and uneasy; Capital was, as Kilshaw had said, alarmed; "It can't last. His own men won't swallow all this. Medland must be mad to try it." "Perhaps," suggested Sir John, "he doesn't mean business. He may only want a strong platform to dissolve on." "Riding for a fall, eh?" "I shouldn't wonder." "My experience is," observed Captain Heseltine, looking up from the Stud Book, "that chaps who ride for a fall come more unholy crumplers than anybody else." "I hope you're right," said Sir Robert, with a smile. And they discussed the matter with much acumen, and would doubtless have arrived at a true conclusion, had they known anything about the matter. But, as it happened, they were all ignorant of the real reason which dictated Medland's conduct. He had gauged the character of his most uncompromising and powerful enemy to a nicety. He knew that Kilshaw would be loth to make use of Benham, and yet that he would make use of him. He saw that the danger which threatened him had become great and immediate. A stronger hand and a longer purse than Benham's were now against him. The chase had begun. He could not expect much law, and he was riding, not for a fall, but against time. He did not despair of escape, but the chances were Besides its more serious effects, the Premier's absorption in public affairs had the result of blinding him to the change that had gradually been coming over his own house. Norburn had always been in and out every hour; he was in and out still, but now he came straight from the street door to the Premier's room, and went straight back thence to the street door again. The visits to Daisy, which had been wont to precede and follow, perhaps even sometimes to occasion, business conferences, ceased almost entirely; and the young Minister's brow bore a weight of care that the precarious position of the Cabinet was not alone enough to account for. It would seem as if Daisy must have noticed Norburn's altered ways, although her father did not; but she made no reference to them, and appeared to be aware of nothing which called for explanation or remark. Perhaps she missed Norburn's visits less because his place was so often filled by Dick Derosne, who, unable to find, or perhaps scorning, any pretext of business, came with the undisguised object of seeing the Premier's daughter, and not the Premier. Whatever differences Eleanor Scaife and other The circulating eddies of report at last reached Mr. Kilshaw, soon after he had, by his bargain with Benham, been put in possession of the facts that gentleman had to dispose of. Kilshaw knew Dick Derosne very well, and for a time he remained quiet, expecting to see Dick's zeal slacken and his infatuation cease of their own accord. When the opposite happened, Kilshaw's anger was stirred within him; he was ready to find, and in con Mr. Dick Derosne perhaps was not unaware that many people in Kirton frowned on him as an unprincipled deceiver, or, at best, a fickle light-o'-love; he would have been much more surprised, and also more displeased, to know that there was even one who thought of him as a deluded innocent, and had determined to rescue him from the snares which were set for his destruction. He did not feel like a deluded innocent. He was not sure how he did feel. Perhaps he also, as well as the man who was preparing to rescue him, had a subject which did not bear too much or too candid In a matter like this, to determine was to do. He got on his horse and rode through the Park towards Government House. In the Park he met Captain Heseltine, also mounted and looking very hot. The Captain mopped his face, and waved an accusing arm towards an inhospitable eucalyptus. "Call that a tree!" he said. "The beastly thing doesn't give a ha'porth of shade." "It's the best we've got," replied Kilshaw, in ironical apology for his country. "As a rule, you know," the Captain continued, "coming out for a ride here, except at midnight, means standing up under a willow and wondering how the deuce you'll get home." "Well, you're not under a willow now." "No; I was, but I had to quit. Derosne and Miss Medland turned me out." "Ah!" "Yes." "You felt you ought to go?" "My tact told me so. I say, Kilshaw, what do you make of that?" "Nothing in it," answered Kilshaw confidently. Captain Heseltine had but one test of sincerity, and it was a test to which he knew Kilshaw was, as a rule, quite ready to submit. He took out a small note-book from one pocket and a pencil from the other. "What'll you lay that it doesn't come off?" he asked. "I won't bet." "Oh," said the Captain, scornfully implying that he ceased to attach value to Mr. Kilshaw's judgment. "I won't bet, because I know." "The deuce you do!" exclaimed Heseltine, promptly re-pocketing his apparatus. "And, if you want another reason why I won't bet," continued Kilshaw, who did not like the "Oh, of course, if you object!" said the Captain, with undisguised irony. "I hope, though, that you'll let me have a shot, after Dick." "You won't want it, if you're a wise man. You wait a bit, my friend," and with a grim nod of his head, Kilshaw rode on. The Captain looked after him with a meditative stare. Then he glanced at his watch. "That beggar knows something," said he. "I think I'll go and interrupt friend Richard." And he continued, apostrophising the absent Dick—"To stay out, my boy, may not be easy; but to get out when you're once in, is the deuce!" |