Lord Randolph seems to have gained much credit in Tory circles for the promptness and energy with which he had acted; but it was to be almost his last intervention in the debates of the session. At the end of February he was afflicted with a long and painful illness and lay in bed--at first at Wimborne House and afterwards at a little cottage near Wimbledon--for nearly five months. His absence was a grievous loss to the Opposition during the Irish crisis. The public announcement that the imprisoned members had been released was accompanied by a well-founded rumour of some political bargain between the Government and Mr. Parnell. Mr. Forster’s explanations exposed the fact that the Kilmainham negotiations, whatever their nature, had been conducted independently of the Irish Secretary by Mr. Chamberlain. Upon all this came the terrible news of the murders in the Phœnix Park. The new Minister, ‘an innocent man’ even to the fiercest Fenians, a man honoured and liked by all who knew him, the envoy of peace and reconciliation, was stabbed to death on the very day of his landing. The excitement throughout England was tremendous. After the dead had been buried with every circumstance of national grief and indignation the ‘Kilmainham Treaty’ came under pitiless review. The Fourth Party headed the attack. They pointed out Mr. Chamberlain as the mysterious ‘Number One’ of the Fenian inner circle; and Mr. Balfour, speaking with altogether unexpected power, denounced the ‘Kilmainham Treaty’ as ‘an infamy.’ This was the first speech he ever made that commanded general attention, or gave any promise of his future distinction. So intense was the feeling in the House that it was freely stated, and acknowledged even on the Liberal benches, that had Lord Randolph Churchill been at hand to strike the blow the Government might have fallen.