The Queen was in her own apartment in the House of Lords when the intelligence was brought her by her excited counsel that the bill of Pains and Penalties had been abandoned. She received the intimation in perfect silence, hardly seeming to comprehend the fact, or perhaps scarcely knowing how it should be appreciated. The ministers had carried their bill, but even their withdrawing of it would not prove her guiltless. ‘I shall never forget,’ says one present, ‘what was my emotion when it was announced to me that the bill of Pains and Penalties was to be abandoned. I was walking towards the west end of the long corridor of the House of Lords, wrapt in reverie, when one of the door-keepers touched me on the shoulder and told me the news. I turned instantly to go back into the House, when I met the Queen coming out alone from her waiting-room, preceded by an usher. She had been there unknown to me. I stopped involuntarily. I could not, indeed, proceed, for she had a _dazed_ look, more tragical than consternation: she passed me. The usher pushed open the folding doors of the great staircase; she began to descend, and I followed instinctively two or three steps behind her. She was evidently all shuddering, and she took hold of the bannisters, pausing for a moment. Oh, that sudden clutch with which she caught the railing! Never say again to me that any actor can feel like a principal. It was a visible manifestation of unspeakable grief--an echoing of the voice of the soul. Four or five persons came in from below before she reached the bottom of the stairs. I think Alderman Wood was one of them, but I was in indescribable confusion.... I rushed past, and out into the hastily-assembling crowd.... I knew not where I was; but in a moment a shouting in the balcony above, on which a number of gentlemen from the interior of the House were gathering, roused me. The multitude then began to cheer, but at first there was a kind of stupor. The sympathy, however, soon became general, and, winged by the voice, soon spread up the street. Every one instantly, between Charing Cross and Whitehall, turned and came rushing down, filling Old and New Palace Yards as if a deluge was unsluiced.’[19]