 activity. He did not meet Hubert Eldon, all business being
transacted through Mr. Yottle. When he heard from the latter that it was Eldon's
intention to make a clean sweep of mines, works, and settlements, though for a
moment chagrined, he speedily saw that such action, by giving dramatic
completeness to his career at Wanley and investing its close with something of
tragic pathos, was in truth what he should most have desired. It enabled him to
take his departure with an air of profounder sadness; henceforth no gross facts
would stand in the way of his rhetoric when he should enlarge on the
possibilities thus nipped in the bud. He was more than ever a victim of cruel
circumstances; he could speak with noble bitterness of his life work having been
swept into oblivion.
    He was supported by a considerable amount of epistolary sympathy. The local
papers made an interesting story of what had happened in the old church at
Wanley, and a few of the London journals reported the circumstances; in this way
Mutimer became known to a wider public than had hitherto observed him. Not only
did his fellow-Unionists write to encourage and moralise, but a number of those
people who are ever ready to indite letters to people of any prominence, the
honestly admiring and the windily egoistic, addressed communications either to
Wanley Manor or to the editor of the Fiery Gross. Mutimer read eagerly every
word of each most insignificant scribbler; his eyes gleamed and his cheeks grew
warm. All such letters he brought to Adela, and made her read them aloud; he
stood with his hands behind his back, his face slightly elevated and at a
listening angle. At the end he regarded her, and his look said: »Behold the man
who is your husband!«
    But at length there came one letter distinct from all the rest; it had the
seal of a Government office. With eyes which scarcely credited what they saw
Mutimer read some twenty or thirty words from a Minister of the Crown, a
gentleman of vigorously Radical opinions, who had »heard with much regret that
the undertaking conceived and pursued with such single-hearted zeal« had come to
an untimely end. Mutimer rushed to Adela like a schoolboy who has a holiday to
announce.
    »Read that now! What do you think of that? Now there's some hope of a
statesman like that!«
    Adela gave forth the letter in a voice which was all too steady. But she
said:
    »I am very glad. It must gratify you. He writes very kindly.«
    »You'll have to help me to
