"It's a queer piece of irony," he said to himself, "that the very thing which I would give my soul to do, she was urging me to do two years ago; and now I must keep my longing hidden. Our positions are quite reversed." But he would keep to his bargain. Perhaps after all Hemming would succeed; and sooner or later no doubt the reverberation of the seas would die away in the porches of his ears. He went out into the hall, carrying the key in his hand, and let himself out at the front-door. He walked quickly up South Audley Street, turned to the left, and crossed Park Lane into Hyde Park. He walked to the stone bridge which crosses the Serpentine. The night was quiet and dark about him, and from afar off the never ceasing roar of the London traffic came to him like the roar of distant seas. He leaned over the parapet and stretching out his hand opened it. He heard a tiny splash in the water beneath the bridge. He walked back more slowly than he had come to where the glare of the sky indicated the houses and the streets. As he crossed Park Lane again two men arm-in-arm passed him and one of them stopped. "Is that you, Rames?" asked a friendly and solicitous voice. Rames recognized it at once as the voice of Hamlin the chief Whip. "You had paired for to-night," Hamlin continued, "hadn't you? You didn't miss much. But I want to be able to rely on you for Thursday. We know, of course, that you are against us over Devenish's land bill. That's all right. But you are with us on the rest of our policy and we want your help." "I shall be there on Thursday," answered Harry Rames. "It's quite true that I have not been so much in the House this session as I used to be. But you will see me in my old place to-morrow. Good-night." He walked on and Hamlin rejoined his companion. "It was Rames," he said. "We're not going to lose him. I am glad. He's marked out for a great position if he doesn't throw it away." But Rames through the roar of the traffic, carriages rolling home, wagons lumbering in to Covent Garden, heard louder than ever the boom of Southern seas and the wind whistling between the halyards of a ship. CHAPTER XXXIII A LETTER FROM ABROAD The session passed, and Devenish's land bill, as Rames had foretold, was postponed. It figured again in the Address at the beginning of the following year, but as late as March no definite date had been assigned for its introduction. On a Saturday morning of this month Cynthia and her husband were breakfasting in the dining-room of the white house, when the morning's letters were brought in by the butler. Harry Rames tossed one or two aside.