"Give her time, my dear, and don't talk nonsense!"
"It isn't nonsense! I tell you I felt just as I did when I went to see Mary Theed, years ago--you remember that pretty cousin of mine who became a Carmelite nun?--for the first time after she had taken the veil. She spoke to one from another world--it gave one the shivers!--and was just as smiling and cheerful over it as Diana--and it was just as ghastly and unbearable and abominable--as this is."
"Well, then," said the doctor, after a pause, "I suppose she'll take to good works. I hope you can provide her with a lot of hopeless cases in the village. Did she mention Marsham at all?"
"Not exactly. But she asked about the election--"
"The writs are out," interrupted the doctor. "I see the first borough elections are fixed for three weeks hence; ours will be one of the last of the counties; six weeks to-day."
"I told her you thought he would get in."
"Yes--by the skin of his teeth. All his real popularity has vanished like smoke. But there's the big estate--and his mother's money--and the collieries."
"The Vicar tells me the colliers are discontented--all through the district--and there may be a big strike--"
"Yes, perhaps in the autumn, when the three years' agreement comes to an end--not yet. Marsham's vote will run down heavily in the mining villages, but it'll serve--this time. They won't put the other man in."
Mrs. Roughsedge rose to take off her things, remarking, as she moved away, that Marsham was said to be holding meetings nightly already, and that Lady Lucy and Miss Drake were both hard at work.