lipped, cold-eyed, and obviously devoted to her worthless son. From her
no help was to be expected. Alethia locked her door that night, and
placed such ramparts of furniture against it that the maid had great
difficulty in breaking in with the early tea in the morning.

After breakfast Alethia, on the pretext of going to look at an outlying
rose-garden, slipped away to the village through which they had passed on
the previous evening. She remembered that Robert had pointed out to her
a public reading-room, and here she considered it possible that she might
meet Sir John Chobham, or some one who knew him well and would carry a
message to him. The room was empty when she entered it; a _Graphic_
twelve days old, a yet older copy of _Punch_, and one or two local papers
lay upon the central table; the other tables were stacked for the most
part with chess and draughts-boards, and wooden boxes of chessmen and
dominoes. Listlessly she picked up one of the papers, the _Sentinel_,
and glanced at its contents. Suddenly she started, and began to read
with breathless attention a prominently printed article, headed "A Little
Limelight on Sir John Chobham." The colour ebbed away from her face, a
look of frightened despair crept into her eyes. Never, in any novel that
she had read, had a defenceless young woman been confronted with a
situation like this. Sir John, the Hugo of her imagination, was, if
anything, rather more depraved and despicable than Robert Bludward. He
was mean, evasive, callously indifferent to his country's interests, a
cheat, a man who habitually broke his word, and who was responsible, with
his associates, for most of the poverty, misery, crime, and national
degradation with which the country was afflicted. He was also a
candidate for Parliament, it seemed, and as there was only one seat in
this particular locality, it was obvious that the success of either
Robert or Sir John would mean a check to the ambitions of the other,
hence, no doubt, the rivalry and enmity between these otherwise kindred