He thought of his triumphs of last session, those bursts of fervid eloquence which had startled the House into the admission that a new orator had arisen, as when the younger Pitt first demonstrated to the doubtful senate that he was a worthy son of the great Commoner.
He was just at the beginning of a brilliant Parliamentary career, and with him ambition was an all-powerful passion. To let these things go, even for Madge’s sake, would be too great a sacrifice. And his boy, was he to bequeath nothing to that beloved son? Neither fortune nor name?
‘I could more easily surrender Penwyn than my chances of personal distinction,’ he said to himself.
It was nine o’clock in the evening when he arrived at Seacomb. He had telegraphed for his groom to meet him with the dog-cart; and, as the train steamed slowly into the station, he saw the lamps of that well-appointed vehicle shining across the low rail which divided the platform from the road. A dark night for a drive by that wild moorland way.
‘Shall I drive, sir?’ asked the groom.
‘No,’ Churchill answered shortly; and the next minute they were flying through the darkness. The light vehicle swayed from side to side on the stony road.
‘It would be a short cut out of all my difficulties if I were to come to grief somewhere between this and the Manor House,’ thought Churchill. ‘A sudden fall upon a heap of stones, a splintered skull, an inquest, and all over. Poor Madge! It would be bad for her, but a relief perhaps—who can tell? She has owned that her life has been bitterness since that fatal day! Her very love for me is a kind of martyrdom. Poor Madge! If it was not a cowardly thing to give up all at the first alarm, I very believe I could bring myself to turn my back upon Penwyn Manor, take my wife and child out to Sydney, and try my luck as a barrister in a colonial court. For her sake—for her sake! Would not the humblest life be happiness with her?’
Things seemed to take a new shape to him during that swift homeward drive. He passed the shadowy plantations—the trees of his planting—bowled smoothly along the well-made road that crossed his own estate, and thought with a curious wonder, how little actual happiness his possessions had given him—how small a matter it would be, after all, to lose them.
The lighted windows of the north lodge shone out upon him as he mounted the crest of the last hill, and saw Manor House and gardens, pine groves and shrubberies, before him.
‘Rebecca is keeping later hours than usual, isn’t she?’ he asked.