"The consultation broke up in peals of laughter," said one of the less important of the evening papers of the time. This was quite true, but it had no bearing on the case at all, for the laughter was caused by the extremely funny stories told us, in his own inimitable way, by Sir Frank Lockwood. The two or three times I saw him stand out in my memory as hours of brilliant wit and nonsense, that cheered and invigorated us far more than the advice we did not ask for could have done. Parnell would not fight the case, and I could not fight it without him. The last time I saw Sir Frank Lockwood, the day before the case came on, he begged me to get Parnell to let him fight it. I was suffering acutely from neuralgic headache at the {281} time, but I did my best to get Parnell to defend the case, though to no purpose. We left Sir Frank Lockwood with a promise to telegraph to him by eight o'clock the next morning if we would go up and appear in Court at all, as he had to be there by ten o'clock. We had to return to Brighton in the Pullman car, as we could not get a carriage to ourselves. It was crowded, and Parnell was known; it was therefore very difficult to talk without being overheard. Parnell appeared absolutely unconscious of the eyes furtively watching him from behind every newspaper, or, indeed, openly in the carriage, and he had the power of putting himself absolutely beyond and above self-consciousness. This is what rendered him so completely impervious to criticism. But to me, with a splitting headache, the gleam of so many eyes, seen through a mist of pain, had the most uncanny effect. They seemed like animals watching from their lair. Parnell gave me a cheerful little smile now and then, and directly we got home he insisted upon my going to bed. There he fed me himself with the tiny amount I forced myself to take to please him, and held the glass to my lips while I sipped the sparkling Moselle I had been ordered to take for the bad attacks of neuralgia. After he had had his own dinner he came up and smoked by my bedside. I tried to persuade him to go up with me in the morning to the Court and make some fight in the case, but he said: "No, Queenie. What's the use? We want the divorce, and, divorce or not, I shall always come where you are. I shall always come to my home every night whatever happens. Now I'm going to read you to sleep."