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's defiance was most likely nothing but a ruse; that by showing himself resolved, he might have secured at least the thousand pounds. Then he cursed the man Marks, whose political schemes would betray the valuable secret, and make it certain that none of that more substantial assistance promised by Quarrier would ever be given. And yet, it was not disagreeable to picture Quarrier's rage when he found that the bribe had been expended to no purpose. If he had felt animosity against the wealthy man before meeting him face to face, he now regarded him with a fiercer malevolence. It was hard to relinquish Lilian, and harder still to have no means of revenging himself upon her and her pretended husband. Humiliated by consciousness of the base part he had played, he wished it in his power to inflict upon them some signal calamity. On the next day, when he was newly arrayed from head to foot, and jingled loose sovereigns in his pocket, this tumult of feelings possessed him even more strongly. Added to his other provocations was the uncertainty whether Marks had yet taken action. Save by returning to Polterham, he knew not how to learn what was happening there. To-morrow a Polterham newspaper would be published; he must wait for that source of intelligence. Going to a news-agent's, he discovered the name of the journal, and at once posted an order for a copy to be sent to him.