She looked puzzled for a minute, and then he saw a flush mount her face.
"I am afraid I do not understand you!"
"The circumstances of my life have not made me an adept in talking with young ladies," said Paul. "Doubtless you think me rude and clownish, and perhaps you are right, but I hope I have nothing but true feelings at heart. You are fighting for your father in this election, Miss Bolitho, and I do not complain in the least. You hope he will win, and you are using every legitimate means to obtain votes for him—that is right, that is fair; but, Miss Bolitho, there is something which I regard very sacred: perhaps the most sacred thing in the world to me is the love of my mother, and the thought of her good name. I will not tell you how she has suffered for me, and how she loves me, but I hope you will believe me when I say that I regard anything which will blacken her name as the greatest insult that can be offered to myself. Have I made myself understood?"
The flush on the girl's face deepened; she knew what he meant.
"I do not mind what people say about me so much," said Paul. "I am able to defend myself, at least when I have fair play. There have been times when I have not been able to do so successfully, still time has been on my side, and justice has been done to me. But can you understand, Miss Bolitho, what a man feels, when, in order to win an election, his opponents have not been ashamed to heap shame upon one of the purest women and the best mothers that ever lived?"
"I am at a loss to know why you say this to me," retorted the girl.
"I do not complain," said Paul, "at least at this juncture, that your father was my enemy years ago. Although he had no foundation for it, he pleaded that I was a dangerous man, an agitator and a leader of a gang of knaves. Through him I spent six months in gaol among felons; I wore prison clothes; I was treated like a dog; I lay there one long, cold winter, night after night, in a damp cellar. This was through your father—not because he believed I was guilty, but because he wanted to make a case against me. I say I have never complained of this, never mentioned it once in this contest. I have tried to fight fairly, on broad general principles, but, Miss Bolitho, my mother's good name is sacred to me. Can you, as a woman, understand this?"
"I do not know why I should answer you," she said, and there was hauteur in her voice. "I cannot help understanding your accusation, and although I am utterly ignorant concerning it, I will say this: never, since I have taken any interest in this contest, have I mentioned your mother's name. Perhaps you do not believe me, and perhaps the reason is that you cannot understand?"
She spoke quietly and naturally, and yet her words stung Paul like whip-cord. Although she did not say so in so many words, he felt that she despised him, and again his anger was aroused.
"You deny, then, that you have——"