"Tell me," she said quickly, as she moved eagerly forward--"tell me! is it about what you expected?" They turned towards the river. George Tressady hung over the wall beside her. "Yes. I thought it might be anything from eight to twenty." "I suppose Lord Fontenoy now thinks the end quite certain." "He may. But the end is not certain!" "But what can prevent it! The despairing thing for us is, that if the country had been roused earlier, everything might have been different. But now the House--" "Has got out of hand? It may be; but I find a great many people affected by Lord Maxwell's speeches in the North, and his reception there. To-day's result was inevitable, but, if I'm not mistaken, we shall now see a number of new combinations." The sensitive face became in a moment all intelligence. She played the politician, and cross-examined him. He hesitated. What he was doing was already a treachery. But he only hesitated to give way. They lingered by the wall together, discussing possibilities and persons; and when Maxwell at last turned from his own conversations to suggest to his wife that it was time to go home, she came forward with a mien of animation that surprised him. He greeted Tressady with friendliness, and then, as though a thought had struck him, suddenly drew the young man aside. "Ancoats, of course," said George to himself; and Ancoats it was. Maxwell, without preliminaries, and taking his companion's knowledge of the story for granted--no doubt on Fontenoy's information--said a few words about the renewal of the difficulty. Did he not think it had all begun again? Yes, George had some reason to think so. "If you can do anything for us--" "Of course! but what can I do? As we all know, Ancoats does not sit still to be scolded." Their colloquy lasted only a minute or two; yet when it was over, and the Maxwells had gone, George was left with a vivid impression of the great man's quiet strength and magnanimity. No one could have guessed from his anxious and well-considered talk on this private matter that he was in the very heat of a political struggle that must affect all his own fortunes. Tressady had been accustomed to spend his wit on the heavier sides of Maxwell's character. To-night, he said to himself, half in a passion, grudging the confession, that it was not wonderful she loved him!