"Ho, ho! What a pugnacious Lily--a sword-Lily! You ought to have had an heroic name--Deborah, or Joan, or Portia! Your eyes gleam like beacons." "I feel more contented with myself.--Oh, I am told that Mrs. Wade called this afternoon?" "Yes; anxious to see you. Burning with wrath against female Toryism. She was astonished when I told her of your expedition." Lilian laughed merrily. Thereupon dinner was announced, and they left the room hand in hand. That evening it was rumoured throughout the town that Mr. Welwyn-Baker had telegraphed a resolve _not_ to offer himself for re-election. In a committee-room at the Constitutional Literary Society was held an informal meeting of Conservatives, but no one of them had definite intelligence to communicate. Somebody had told somebody else that Hugh Welwyn-Baker held that important telegram from his father; that was all. Mr. Mumbray's hopes rose high. On the morrow, at another meeting rather differently constituted (miserable lack of organization still evident among the Tories), it was made known on incontestable authority that the sitting Member _would_ offer himself for re-election. Mr. Mumbray and his supporters held high language. "It would be party suicide," they went about repeating. With such a man as Denzil Quarrier on the Radical side, they _must_ have a new and a strong candidate! But all was confusion; no one could take the responsibility of acting. Already the affairs of the Liberals were in perfect order, and it took but a day or two to decide even the minutiae of the campaign. To Quarrier's candidature no one within the party offered the least opposition. Mr. Chown, who had for some time reserved his judgment, declared to all and sundry that "all things considered, a better man could scarcely have been chosen." Before thus committing himself he had twice called upon Quarrier, and been closeted with him for a longtime. Now, in these days of arming, he received a card inviting him (and his wife) to dine at the candidate's house on a certain evening a fortnight ahead; it was the second dinner that Denzil had planned, but Mr. Chown was not aware of this, nor that the candidate had remarked of him to Lilian: "We must have that demagogue among his kind, of course." Denzil's agent (Hummerstone by name) instantly secured rooms in admirable situations, and the Public Hall was at the disposal of the party for their first great meeting a few days hence.