He recalled Mrs. Frostwinch as he had seen her, gracious, high-bred, apparently brilliantly well; and it appeared monstrously impossible that death should be near her. She had seemed a woman who would defy death, and live on simply by her own splendid will. "So it is said," the Father assured him. "Do you know how important it is to us to have her influence in the election?" "I know that there are certain votes that she may influence, and that she is in"--he almost said "your," but he caught himself in time--"our interests." "There are three and perhaps four votes which depend upon her. Three are sure to go over to the other side if she is not able to stand behind them. They are all dependent upon her for support in one way or another." "But surely," Maurice suggested, "they would not vote unconscientiously? They wouldn't sell their convictions for her support?" "They would not vote unconscientiously," was the dry response, "but they believe that the support which she gives to them and to their missions is of more importance than that the man they really prefer should be chosen." "But what can be done?" Father Frontford sat leaning back in his chair, his face in shadow, and the tips of his thin fingers pressed together in his habitual gesture. "Perhaps nothing," he answered. His voice had dropped into a soft, silky half-tone, insinuating and persuasive. Maurice began to have an uneasy feeling as if he were being hypnotized; yet the words of the other came to him with a quality strangely soothing and attractive. "Perhaps," the priest went on after a pause of a second, "perhaps everything that is necessary." It seemed to Maurice that there was something significant in the tone which the words did not reveal. He looked keenly at the shadowed face, but without being able clearly to make out its expression. He could see little but the bright eyes holding and dominating his own. "It is for you to do this work," Father Frontford continued; "and it is wonderful how Providence brings good out of all things. Here is an opportunity for you not only to expiate your fault, but to serve the cause of the church." Without understanding, Maurice began to tremble with inner dread lest the name of Berenice should again be brought up between himself and this pitiless priest. "I do not see that there is anything that I can do," he said coldly. "On the contrary. Do you chance to know anything about the Canton estate? I suppose you are not likely to." "Nothing whatever. What is the Canton estate?" "Mrs. Frostwinch was a Canton. Her father was a brother of old Mrs. Morison." Maurice could not see how all this involved him, but he became more and more uneasy. "The estate of old Mr. Canton," the Father went on in the same smooth voice, "was, as I have just learned from Mrs. Wilson, left to his daughter for life and to her children after her. If she died childless it was to go to Miss Morison." "And she is childless?"