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MAKES A RIGHT TURN. CONSERVATIVES JUBILANT.
    I went to his study where he was reading the papers.
    “So, you have done it,” I said.
    “I believe it was right to do it,” he said. He seemed relieved.
    It was a tense and exciting time. We followed the progress of the Bill through the House. It passed in all its stages—though, my father pointed out to me, with minute majorities.
    Then … it was rejected by the Lords.
    The thick black headlines stared at us from all the papers.
    They were all about the Bill and Gladstone’s defeat. In several columns the view was stressed that it was my father’s outspoken opposition to it which had done a great deal to bring it to defeat.
    The tension increased. My father admitted to me that he had lost all chances of Cabinet rank.
    Gladstone was bitter. He wanted to call an election and go to the polls on a slogan: THE COUNTRY VERSUS THE LORDS .
    “The Old Man doesn’t realize that the country is heartily tired of the subject. He thinks everyone is as engrossed in the Irish question as he is.”
    “And how is he feeling about you?” I asked.
    “Oh … he’s bitterly disappointed in me. Hurt, too. I wish I could make him understand. He really is looking very old and tired these days.”
    “What are you going to do?”
    He looked at me and shrugged his shoulders. It was one of the few times I had seen him uncertain.
    Then he said, “For now … carry on. Disagreeing with the PM doesn’t mean I’m not still member for Manorleigh.”
    “Shall you give up politics in time?”
    “Indeed not! Accept defeat? Certainly not, and I shall not hesitate to voice my opinions.”
    “Well, isn’t that what all members should do?”
    “They should, but sometimes one’s views do not always coincide with those of the party. Then one has to make a choice.”
    “As you have done.”
    I felt I wanted to be with him at this time … always ready if he wanted to talk to me; and he did talk to me, more freely than ever at this time. It was not only politics that we were discussing.
    So we came to that particular evening when I was waiting for him to return from the House.
    As usual I had prepared the supper in his study. I had the soup waiting to be heated up on the little stove, some cold chicken and homemade crusty bread.
    The time was getting on. It was almost ten o’clock. I wondered what was happening in the House. I fancied some of his fellow members were not very pleased with him. But he had done right, I assured myself. People must act according to what they believed even if by doing so they go against the policy of the party. Parliament was the place for discussion. That must be understood.
    I tried to settle down to read. I started to think about Joel and wondered what he would be doing at this moment. How long would the mission take? At least six weeks after he arrived. It would be some time before he came home.
    The time passed slowly. It was nearly eleven o’clock. Sometimes the House would go on sitting into the early hours of the morning. If he did not come by eleven thirty I would go to bed. It was the rule. If he were as late as that he would stay at the Greenham’s, according to the custom. But there was still a little time to go.
    I went to the window and looked out. There was a high wind which had taken most of the leaves off the trees; some lay on the pavement on the opposite side of the road. They came from the trees in the garden which was for the use of residents in the square.
    I noticed a man standing by the railings of the gardens. He was dressed in a cape and an opera hat. He took a few paces to the right, then he turned and walked a few more in the opposite direction. Afterward he stopped and stood still, looking along the road.
    I could see him quite clearly for there was a street lamp close by. And as I stood there I heard a cab coming along the road.
    This must be my father, I thought. I looked down, expecting it to slow down and my father alight; but it went