of his adviser. He looked hard in Radclyffe's face, and, after a pause of
some moments, replied slowly, "I believe you are right after all; and I
have learned in a few short sentences the secret of a discontented life."

Godolphin would have sought other opportunities of conversing with
Radclyffe, but events soon parted them. Parliament was dissolved! What
an historical event is recorded in those words! The moment the king
consented to that measure, the whole series of subsequent events became,
to an ordinary prescience, clear as in a mirror. Parliament dissolved in
the heat of the popular enthusiasm, a majority, a great majority of
Reformers was sure to be returned.

Constance perceived at a glance the whole train of consequences issuing
from that one event; perceived and exulted. A glory had gone for ever
from the party she abhorred. Her father was already avenged. She heard
his scornful laugh ring forth from the depths of his forgotten grave.

London emptied itself at once. England was one election. Godolphin
remained almost alone. For the first time a sense of littleness crept
over him; a feeling of insignificance, which wounded and galled his vain
nature. In these beat struggles he was nothing. The admired--the
cultivated--spirituel--the splendid Godolphin, sank below the commonest
adventurer, the coarsest brawler--yea, the humblest freeman, who felt his
stake in the state, joined the canvass, swelled the cry, and helped in the
mighty battle between old things and new, which was so resolutely begun.
This feeling gave an impetus to the growth of the new aspirations he had
already suffered his mind to generate; and Constance marked, with vivid
delight, that he now listened to her plans with interest, and examined the
political field with a curious and searching gaze.