So the inner ring of local politicians.  An election audience, however, brings its own enthusiasms, and it must be a very dull dog indeed who damps their ardour.  They cheered prodigiously when Paul sat down, and a crowd of zealots waiting outside the building cheered him again as he drove off.  But Paul knew that he had been a failure.  He had delivered another man’s speech.  To-morrow and the day after and the day after that, and ever afterwards, if he held to the political game, he would have to speak in his own new person.  What kind of a person would the new Paul be?

He drove back almost in silence with the Colonel and Miss Winwood, vainly seeking to solve the problem.  The foundations of his life had been swept away.  His foot rested on nothing solid save his own manhood.  That no shock should break down.  He would fight.  He would win the election.  He set his lips in grim determination.  If life held no higher meaning, it at least offered this immediate object for existence.  Besides he owed the most strenuous effort of his soul to the devoted and loyal woman whose face he saw dimly opposite.  Afterwards come what might.  The Truth at any rate.  Magna est veritas et praevalebit.

These were “prave ’orts” and valorous protestations.

But when their light supper was over and Colonel Winwood had retired, Ursula Winwood lingered in the dining room, her heart aching for the boy who looked so stern and haggard.  She came behind him and touched his hair.

“Poor boy,” she murmured.

Then Paul—­he was very young, barely thirty—­broke down, as perhaps she meant that he should, and, elbows sprawling amid the disarray of the meal, poured out all the desolation of his soul, and for the first time cried out in anguish for the woman he had lost.  So, as love lay a-bleeding mortally pierced, Ursula Win wood wept unaccustomed tears and with tender fingers strove to staunch the wound.

CHAPTER XIX

Days of strain followed:  days of a thousand engagements, a thousand interviews, a thousand journeyings, a thousand speeches; days in which he was reduced to an unresisting automaton, mechanically uttering the same formulas; days in which the irresistible force of the campaign swept him along without volition.  And day followed day and not a sign came from the Princess Zobraska either of condonation or resentment.  It was as though she had gathered her skirts around her and gone disdainfully out of his life for ever.  If speaking were to be done, it was for her to speak.  Paul could not plead.  It was he who, in a way, had cast her off.  In effect he had issued the challenge:  “I am a child of the gutter, an adventurer masquerading under an historical name, and you are a royal princess.  Will you marry me now?” She had given her answer, by walking out of the room, her proud head in the air.  It was final, as far as he was concerned.  He could do nothing—­not even beg his dearest lady to plead for him.  Besides, rumour had it that the Princess had cancelled her town engagements and gone to Morebury.  So he walked in cold and darkness, uninspired, and though he worked with feverish energy, the heart and purpose of his life were gone.