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Updated: June 3, 2025
I am worn out, utterly exhausted, and can scarcely hold the pen. Perhaps a few days at the sea-side would do me good, but what right have I to idle? If you would like me to come, please wire to Alverholme Rectory. Possibly you would rather I didn't bring my gloom, now you have Len with you and are enjoying yourself. Above all, be quite frank.
As he waited for his breakfast, never served to time, Mr. Lashmar drummed upon the window-pane, and seemed to watch a blackbird lunching with much gusto about the moist lawn of Alverholme Vicarage. But his gaze was absent and worried.
After all, remembering their intimacy long ago at Alverholme, he felt a fitness in this fated sequel. It gave him the pleasant sense of honourable conduct. He smiled at the thought that he had fancied himself in love with May Tomalin. The girl was a half-educated simpleton, who would only have made him ridiculous.
Lashmar digest her bitter disappointment, which came so close upon that of Dyce's defeat at Hollingford; but she was a practical woman, and, in the state of things at Alverholme, six hundred a year seemed to her not altogether to be despised. "My fear was," she remarked one day to her husband, "that Dyce would be tempted to marry money.
"Now and then," said Lashmar, his machine wobbling a little, for he had not yet perfect command of it, and fell into some peril if his thoughts strayed. "They want me to run over to Alverholme presently. Perhaps I may go next week." Constance was silent. They wheeled on, without speaking, for some minutes. Then Dyce asked: "How long does Lady Ogram wish me to stay here?" "I don't quite know.
"There's another thing I must make clear to you," Dyce pursued, now swimming delightedly on the flood of his own eloquence. "For a long time I seriously doubted whether I was fit for a political career. My ambition always tended that way, but my conscience went against it. I used to regard politics with a good deal of contempt. You remember our old talks, at Alverholme?" Constance nodded.
"Just caught the last train, and sat up half the night with Breakspeare." "I sent you a telegram the first thing this morning," said Lady Ogram. "Had you left Alverholme before it arrived?" "I was in town," answered Dyce, only now remembering that he had to account for his movements. "A letter called me up yesterday morning." The old autocrat was in no mood for trifling explanations.
"I shall go by the 8.27," said Dyce, abruptly, towards the end of the meal. "Yes, that's your best train. You'll be at Alverholme before ten o'clock." After dinner, they sat together for scarcely a quarter of an hour, Constance talking of politics. Dyce absolutely silent. Then Miss Bride rose, and offered her hand. "So, good-bye!"
May's eyebrows twitched; her look fell. "I went to Alverholme," Dyce continued, "to see my people." May turned her eyes to the window. Uneasiness appeared in her face. "She wants to know" said Dyce to himself "whether I have received that letter." "Do you stay in town?" inquired Mrs. Toplady. "For a week or two, I think."
"It's the first time I have returned to Alverholme," replied the other, in a contrasting tone of calmness. "And what are you doing? Where are you living? Tell me all about yourself. Are you still at the hospital? You did get a place at a hospital, I think? We were told so." Mrs. Lashmar's patronage was a little more patronizing than usual, her condescension one or two degrees more condescending.
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