Mr. Egerton rang the bell; the attendant appeared.
"Show Mr. Mayor the way out," said the Minister.
The Mayor turned round sharply, and his face was purple. He walked straight to the door; but, suffering the attendant to precede him along the corridor, he came back with rapid stride, and clinching his hands, and with a voice thick with passion, cried, "Some day or other I will make you smart for this, as sure as my name's Dick Avenel!"
"Avenel!" repeated Egerton, recoiling, "Avenel!"
But the Mayor was gone.
Audley fell into a deep and musing reverie which seemed gloomy, and lasted till the attendant announced that the horses were at the door.
He then looked up, still abstractedly, and saw his letter to Harley L'Estrange open on the table. He drew it toward him, and wrote, "A man has just left me, who calls himself Aven—" in the middle of the name his pen stopped. "No, no," muttered the writer, "what folly to reopen the old wounds there," and he carefully erased the words.
Audley Egerton did not ride in the park that day, as was his wont, but dismissed his groom; and, turning his horse's head toward Westminster Bridge, took his solitary way into the country. He rode at first slowly, as if in thought; then fast, as if trying to escape from thought. He was later than usual at the House that evening, and he looked pale and fatigued. But he had to speak, and he spoke well.
TO BE CONTINUED.