I loved him so much, and I did so long to take him away from all the ingratitude and trouble--to some sunny land where we could forget the world and be forgotten. But then I knew that he would not forget; that he would come at my bidding, but that his desertion of Ireland would lie at his heart; that if he was to be happy he must fight to the end. I knew him too well to dare to take him away from the cause he had made his life-work; that even if it killed him I must let him fight--fight to the end--it was himself--the great self that I loved, and that I would not spoil even through my love, though it might bring the end in death. I looked up feeling that he was watching me, and met the burning fire-flame of his eyes steadily, through my tears, as he said, closing his hand over mine, "I am feeling very ill, Queenie, but I think I shall win through. I shall never give in unless you make me, and I want you to promise me that you will never make me less than the man you have known." I promised it. He was feeling very ill. November was always a bad month for his health, and the cold and damp gave him rheumatism. His left arm pained him almost continuously all this winter. I used to rub it and his shoulder with firwood oil, in which he had great belief, and pack his arm in wool, which seemed to be some relief. {286} On Saturday morning, November 29th, his manifesto appeared in all the papers.[2] War was now declared, and the first battle was fought in Committee Room 15, where all the miserable treachery of Parnell's followers--and others--was exposed. The Grand Old Man had spoken, and his mandate must be obeyed. Ever swift to take advantage of a political opportunity, he struck at the right moment, remorselessly, for he knew that without giving away the whole of his policy Parnell could not point to the hypocrisy of a religious scruple so suddenly afflicting a great statesman at the eleventh hour. For ten years Gladstone had known of the relations between Parnell and myself, and had taken full advantage of the facility this intimacy offered him in keeping in touch with the Irish leader. For ten years. But that was a private knowledge. Now it was a public knowledge, and an English statesman must always appear on the side of the angels. So Mr. Gladstone found his religion could at last be useful to his country. Parnell felt no resentment towards Gladstone. He merely said to me, with his grave smile: "That old Spider has nearly all my flies in his web," and, to my indignation against Gladstone he replied: "You don't make allowances for statecraft. He has the Non-conformist conscience to consider, and you know as well {287} as I do that he always loathed me. But these fools, who throw me over at his bidding, make me a little sad." And I thought of that old eagle face, with the cruel eyes that always belied the smile he gave me, and wondered no longer at the premonition of disaster that I had so often felt in his presence.