“The whole thing was extraordinary—­I can hardly now describe it,” he said, holding his hat in his hands and staring into the fire.  “It began excellently.  There was a very full room.  Bennett was in the chair—­and Edward seemed much as usual.  He had been looking desperately ill, but he declared that he was sleeping better, and that his sister and I coddled him.  Then,—­directly he was well started!—­I felt somehow that the audience was very hostile.  And he evidently felt it more and more.  There was a good deal of interruption and hardly any cheers—­and I saw after a little—­I was sitting not far behind him—­that he was discouraged—­that he had lost touch.  It was presently clear, indeed, that the real interest of the meeting lay not in the least in what he had to say, but in the debate that was to follow.  They meant to let him have his hour—­but not a minute more.  I watched the men about me, and I could see them following the clock—­thirsting for their turn.  Nothing that he said seemed to penetrate them in the smallest degree.  He was there merely as a ninepin to be knocked over.  I never saw a meeting so possessed with a madness of fanatical conviction—­it was amazing!”

He paused, looking sadly before him.  She made a little movement, and he roused himself instantly.

“It was just a few minutes before he was to sit down—­I was thankful!—­when suddenly—­I heard his voice change.  I do not know now what happened—­but I believe he completely lost consciousness of the scene before him—­the sense of strain, of exhaustion, of making no way, must have snapped something.  He began a sort of confession—­a reverie in public—­about himself, his life, his thoughts, his prayers, his hopes—­mostly his religious hopes—­for the working man, for England—­I never heard anything of the kind from him before—­you know his reserve.  It was so intimate—­so painful—­oh! so painful!”—­he drew himself together with an involuntary shudder—­“before this crowd, this eager hostile crowd which was only pining for him to sit down—­to get out of their way.  The men near me began to look at each other and titter.  They wondered what he meant by maundering on like that—­’damned canting stuff’—­I heard one man near me call it.  I tore off a bit of paper, and passed a line to Bennett asking him to get hold of Edward, to stop it.  But I think Bennett had rather lost his presence of mind, and I saw him look back at me and shake his head.  Then time was up, and they began to shout him down.”

Marcella made an exclamation of horror.  He turned to her.

“I think it was the most tragic scene I ever saw,” he said with a feeling as simple as it was intense.  “This crowd so angry and excited—­without a particle of understanding or sympathy—­laughing, and shouting at him—­and he in the midst—­white as death—­talking this strange nonsense—­his voice floating in a high key, quite unlike itself.  At last just as I was getting up to go to him, I saw Bennett rise.  But we were both too late.  He fell at our feet!”