Political campaigning amidst all this! Well, in part it was a relief. The speeches and their preparation perforce occupied his mind for the time; on his platforms he forgot. Yet to go away--to leave Nutley for so many hours--seemed to his overwrought fancy a sore danger. What might happen while he was away? To what state of things might he any evening come back? Vivien might have revealed suspicions to Wellgood, or Wellgood might have challenged Isobel and compelled an answer. Once when Andy did not come to the meeting, he made sure that he had stayed behind on purpose to reveal his knowledge to Vivien or her father, and the evening was a long torture which no speeches could deaden, no applause allay. In this fever of conflict and of fear his days passed. At this cost he bought the joy of the stolen interviews--that joy so mixed with doubt, so tainted by pain, so assailed by remorse. Yet for him so tense, so keen, so surcharged with the great primitive struggle. Ten minutes stolen once a day--it seldom came to more than that. Now and then, when he had no political excursion, a second ten, late at night, after his ostensible departure from Nutley. When he had "gone home," when Vivien had been sent to bed, and Wellgood had repaired to his pipe in the study, Isobel would chance to wander down the drive, looking into the waters of the lake, and he, lingering by the gate, see her and come back. Whether she would saunter out or not he never knew. Waiting to see whether she would seemed waiting for the fate of a lifetime. One night--a week after the Fyfold Green meeting, a day after the Nun had taken possession of her quarters at the Lion--Harry had dined at Nutley and--gone home. Isobel stole stealthily out; she had a quarter of an hour before doors would be locked. She strolled down the drive, a long dark cloak hiding the white dress which would have shown too conspicuously. As she went she dropped a letter; coming back she would pick it up. If any one asked why she had come out, the answer was--to find that letter, accidentally dropped. There had never been need of the excuse yet; it was still available. Harry came swiftly, yet warily, back from the gate. For a fleeting instant all his being seemed satisfied. But she stretched out her arms, holding him off. "No, I want to say something, Harry. This--this has gone on long enough. To-morrow I want you to know--only Miss Vintry!" There was the break in her voice; it was too dark to see her eyes. "That's impossible," he answered, very low. "Everything else is impossible, you mean." Her voice faltered again--into a tenderness new to him, filling him with rapture. "You're dying of it, poor boy! End it, Harry! I watched you to-night. Oh, you're tired to death--do you ever sleep? End it, Harry--because I can't."