"Come, come, this kind of thing won't do! You are overtaxing yourself.

You are getting morbidly excited." It was true enough, and Lilian was herself conscious of it, but she obeyed an impulse from which there seemed no way of escape.

Her conscience and her fears would not leave her at peace; every now and then she found herself starting at unusual sounds, trembling in mental agitation if any one approached her with an unwonted look, dreading the arrival of the post, the sight of a newspaper, faces in the street.
Then she hastened to the excitement of canvassing, as another might have turned to more vulgar stimulants.

Certainly her health had suffered.

She could not engage in quiet study, still less could rest her mind in solitary musing, as in the old days.
Denzil seated himself by her on the sofa.
"If you are to suffer in this way, little girl, I shall repent sorely that ever I went in for politics." "How absurd of me! I can't think why I behave so ridiculously!" But still she sobbed, resting her head against him.
"I have an idea," he said at length, rendered clairvoyant by his affection, "that after next week you will feel much easier in your mind." "After next week ?" "Yes; when Glazzard is married and gone away." She would not confess that he was right, but her denials strengthened his surmise.
"I can perfectly understand it, Lily.