Already there were hints of a coming election, and whispered reports of a snug borough that would not be too severely contested; but Mr. Trelawny had another aim. The Conservative member for the next borough had given offence to his constituents by bringing in a Bill for the reformation of some dearly-loved abuse. The inhabitants were up in arms; there had been much speechifying and a procession, during which sundry well-meaning flatterers had already whispered that the right man in the right place would be a certain lord of beeves and country squire, to whom the township and people were as dear as though he had first drawn breath in their midst.
Parliament would shortly be dissolved, it was urged, and Mr. Trelawny's chances would be great; already his friends were canvassing on his behalf, and among them Mr. Cathcart, of Broadlands.
The Cathcarts were bankers and the most influential people, and commanded a great number of votes, and it was Edgar Cathcart who had used such strong language against the aforesaid member for meddling with an abuse which had been suffered for at least two hundred years, and was respectable for its very antiquity.
Ethel's refusal of Edgar Cathcart had inflicted a deadly blow to her father's interests, and one that he was never likely to forgive, all the more that he was shrewd enough to suspect that she had not been altogether indifferent to his fascination of manner.
Now above all things he had coveted this man for his son-in-law. Broadlands and its hereditary thousands would have been no mean match for the daughter of a country squire. With Edgar Cathcart to back him he could have snapped his fingers at the few loyal voters who would have still rallied round their erring townsman, and from a hint that had been lately dropped, he knew the banker was ready at any moment to renew his offer; but Ethel had persisted in her refusal, and bitterly and loudly did her father curse the folly of a girl who could renounce such a position for a mere whim or fancy.
'If you do not love him, whom do you love?' he had said to her, and, courageous as she was, she had quailed before the sneer that had accompanied his words.
But she never guessed the thought that rose in his mind as he said them. 'She has some infatuation that makes her proof against other men's addresses,' he argued angrily with himself. 'No girl in her senses could be blind to the attraction of a man like Edgar Cathcart unless she has already given away her heart. I am not satisfied about this fellow Heriot. He comes here far too often, and she encourages him. I always thought he meant to marry Lambert's prim sister; but he is so deep there is no reading him. I shall have to pick a quarrel to get rid of him, for if he once gets an influence over Ethel, all Cathcart's chances are gone.'