"My dear Mabel!" he protested. "You are not going to back out, are
you?"

"No," she replied, "I do not think that I shall back out. There is
nothing in the whole world I want so much as to have you a Cabinet
Minister. If there had been any other way--"

"But there is no other way," her husband interrupted. "So long as
Julien Portel lives, I should never get my chance. He holds the post I
want. Every one knows that he is clever. He has the ear of the Prime
Minister and he hates me. My only chance is his retirement."

Mrs. Carraby looked at the letter.

"Well," she said, "I have played your game for you. I have gone even to
the extent of being talked about with Julien Portel."

Her husband moved uneasily in his chair.

"That will all blow over directly," he declared. "Besides, if--if
things go our way, we shan't see much more of Portel. Give me the
letter."

Still she hesitated. It was curious that throughout the slow evolution
of this scheme to break a man's life, for which she was mainly
responsible, she had never hesitated until this moment. Always it had
been fixed in her mind that Algernon was to be a Cabinet Minister; she
was to be the wife of a Cabinet Minister. That there were any other
things greater in life than the gratification of so reasonable an
ambition had never seemed possible. Now she hesitated. She looked at