Then followed the usual struggle between the division that all men wanted and the speakers that no man could endure. But at last the bell was rung, the House cleared. As Tressady turned against the stream of his party, Fontenoy, with a sarcastic smile, stood elaborately aside to let him pass. "We shall soon know what you have cost us," he said hoarsely in Tressady's ear; then, advancing a little towards the centre of the floor, he looked up markedly and deliberately at the Ladies' Gallery. Tressady made no reply. He held his fair head higher than usual as he passed on his unaccustomed way to the Aye Lobby. Many an eager eye strained back to see how many recruits would join him as he reached the Front Opposition Bench; many a Parliamentary Nestor watched the young man's progress with a keenness born of memory--memory that burnt anew with the battles of the past. "Do you remember Chandos," said one old man to another--"young Chandos, that went for Peel in '46 against his party? It was my first year in Parliament. I can see him now. He was something like this young fellow." "But _his_ ratting changed nothing," said his companion, with an uneasy laugh; and they both struggled forward among the Noes. Twenty minutes later the tellers were at the table, and the moment that was to make or mar a great Ministry had come. "Ayes, 306; Noes, 280. The Ayes have it!" "By Jove, he's done it!--the Judas!" cried a young fellow, crimson with excitement, who was standing beside Fontenoy! "Yes--he's done it!" said Fontenoy, with grim composure, though the hand that held his hat shook. "The curtain may now fall." "Where is he?" shouted the hot bloods around him, hooting and groaning, as their eyes searched the House for the man who had thus, in an afternoon, pulled down and defeated all their hopes. But Tressady was nowhere to be seen. He had left the House just as the great news, surging like a wave through Lobby and corridor, reached a group of people waiting in a Minister's private room--and Marcella Maxwell knew that all was won. CHAPTER XVIII "I Shall go straight to Brook Street, and see if I can be a comfort to Letty," said Mrs. Watton, with a tone and air, however, that seemed to class her rather with the Sons of Thunder than the Sons of Consolation. She was standing on the steps of the Ladies' Gallery entrance to the House of Commons, and Harding, who had just called a cab for her, was beside her. "Could you see from the Gallery whether George had left?" "He was still there when I came down," said Mrs. Watton, ungraciously, as though she grudged to talk of such a monster. "I saw him near the door while they hooted him. But, anyway, I should go to Letty--I don't forget that I am her only relative in town." As a matter of fact, her eyes had played her false. But the wrath with which her large face and bonnet were shaking was cause enough for hallucinations.