Nixon?" asked Marsham of his
servant.
"Her ladyship, sir, told me to tell the stables four-twenty at
Dunscombe."
"Let me hear directly the carriage arrives. And, Richard, go and see if
the Dunscombe paper is come, and bring it up."
The footman disappeared. As soon as the door was shut Marsham sank back
into his cushions with a stifled groan. He was lying on a sofa in his
own sitting-room. A fire burned in the grate, and Marsham's limbs were
covered with a rug. Yet it was only the first week of September, and the
afternoon was warm and sunny. The neuralgic pain, however, from which he
had suffered day and night since the attack upon him made him
susceptible to the slightest breath of chill.
The footman returned with the newspaper.
"Is her ladyship at home?"
"I think not, sir. I saw her ladyship go out a little while ago with
Miss Drake. Is there anything else I can get for you?"
"Make up the fire, please. Put the cigarettes here, and don't come till
I ring."
Marsham, left alone, lit a cigarette, and fell hungrily upon the paper,
his forehead and lips still drawn with pain. The paper contained an
account of the stone-throwing at Hartingfield, and of the injury to
himself; a full record of the last five or six days of the election, and
of the proceedings at the declaration of the poll; a report, moreover,
of the "chivalrous and sympathetic references" made by the newly elected
Conservative member to the "dastardly attack" upon his rival, which the
"whole of West Brookshire condemns and deplores.
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