"I must try to tell you consecutively," she went on presently. She stretched her hand out trembling towards the liqueur glass of brandy which Evelyn had poured out for her, and drank it off at a gulp. "I’m unnerved, I suppose. It was one of the most awful things I’ve ever witnessed. The scene in the House the other night was nothing to it; men were beside themselves then with the sudden shock, the very noise and tumult helped to carry one through. But to-night there was a frozen silence, a great icy wall of horror and contempt and deadly purpose, that turned the very blood in one’s veins. When Mr. Farquharson entered, I thought of a time in Egypt when I had seen the people shrink from a man who was stricken with leprosy. One looked to right and left and asked, ’Where are his friends? Where are the people who have canonized him and idolized him, fawned at his feet, and cringed before him?’" There were tears in her eyes; she stopped abruptly. Evelyn, quite tearless, listened. "And then?" she said. "It was as though when he spoke they were stripping him threadbare," said Lady Wereminster, her mouth rigid. "To my mind, he dealt with charge upon charge with absolute sincerity and conviction. His hearers listened with the air of spectators at a play, a play whose chief actor lacked what the French call _vraisemblance_. There’s nothing so impossible to grip as an audience that has wrapped itself in the cloak of indifference. I suppose at heart there isn’t a man in the House but covets Farquharson’s position; not a man but thinks he could fill it as adequately were he called upon to do so. And jealousy, as you know, has been at the root of every betrayal, of every libel, since the world began." "Were there no cheers, no interruptions?" asked Evelyn. Her hands, gripped tightly together, alone betrayed her. "Surely his colleagues cheered him? It was the least they could do." "There’s not a man amongst the lot," said Lady Wereminster. "They were all deadly nervous. Each waited to see what his neighbour was going to do before he dared act on his own initiative. One or two nodded to Farquharson, that was all. There was only one course open to him, and he took it." "He resigned, then?" said Evelyn.