It was so like the Whigs, he told himself. Here on the floor of the House who so loud as they in defence of the purity of elections, of the people’s right to be represented, of the unbiassed vote of the electors? But behind the scenes they were as keenly bent on jobbing a seat here, or neutralising a seat there, and as careless of the people’s rights as they had ever been! It was atrocious, it was shameful! If this were political life, if this were political honesty, he had had enough of it! But alas, though he said it in his anger, there was the rub! He had not had, and now he was not likely to have, enough of it. The hostility to himself, of which he had come slowly to be conscious, as a man grows slowly to perceive a frostiness in the air, had insensibly sapped his self-confidence and lowered his claims. He no longer dreamt of rising and outshining the chiefs of his party. But he still believed that he had it in him to succeed—were time given him. And all through the long hours of the three nights’ debates his thoughts were as often on his wrongs as on the momentous struggle which was passing before his eyes, and for the issue of which the clubs of London were keeping vigil. But enthusiasm is infectious. And when the tellers for the last time walked up to the table, at five o’clock on the morning of the 22nd of September, with the grey light of daybreak stealing in to shame the candles and betray the jaded faces—when he and all men knew that for them the end of the great struggle was come—Vaughan waited breathless with the rest and strained his ears to catch the result. And when, a moment later, peal upon peal of fierce cheering shook the old panels in their frames, and being taken up by waiting crowds without, carried the news through the dawn to the very skirts of London—the news that Reform had passed the People’s House, and that only the peers now stood between the country and its desire—he shared the triumph and shouted with the rest, shook hands with exultant neighbours, and waved his hat, perspiring. But in his case the feeling of exultation was short-lived; perhaps in the case of many another, who roared himself hoarse and showed a gleeful face to the daylight. Certainly it was something to have taken part in such a scene, the memory of which must survive for generations. It was something to have voted in such a division. He might talk of it in days to come to his grandchildren. But for him personally it meant that all was over; that here, if the Lords passed the Bill, was the end. A Dissolution must follow, and when the House met again, his place would know him no more. He would be gone, and no man would feel the blank.