The colonel strenuously disavowed any faintness of heart. "You must go to a division, Rames, unless you get a satisfactory reply. That's understood. We've got to stick to our guns. I think we all know that. Edgington's example isn't one any of us would care to follow. No. All my idea was that perhaps the government might be willing to take our view, but unable at this moment to say so publicly. However, don't you worry about us. Think of your speech, Rames. We look to you to do something unusual on Thursday." Harry went away to his study and from his documents and blue books labored to hammer out some spark of his own which should set fire to the Thames or to that portion of it at all events which flows under Westminster Bridge. He woke at five o'clock on the Thursday morning, and lying in bed repeated his speech word by word to himself. Then he dismissed it into the chamber of his memory to wait until it was needed. But the knowledge that the day was to be one of supreme importance to his career hung over him all that forenoon. The labor was over and therefore the strain upon him was the heavier. His nerves had free play and he wandered restlessly from room to room, calm outwardly except for some spasmodic movements which people unacquainted with him would never have remarked, but inwardly a creature in torment. He had pitted himself against his own government. The enormity of his presumption grew with every lagging hour. Failure to-day would cover him with ridicule. He saw himself as one of those bubbles ripe for pricking with which the House of Commons is perpetually iridescent. Before twelve o'clock he was already looking at his watch lest he should be too late to fix before prayers the card in the slot at the back of his seat which would reserve his place for him during the day. Cynthia, with a covert fear, watched his fever, but said never a word, either of comfort or inquiry. It was her part to notice nothing of his agitation. She had claimed, when he had asked her to marry him, her share in the troubles and the terrors which went before the public success. But married life had taught her that much of her share must come to her by guesswork, by intuition, by observation, by any means except those of question and answer. So she said little and left Harry Rames mostly to himself, only coming upon him now and again on some indifferent errand, when they would speak for a moment or two, he chiefly at random and upon any chance subject which came uppermost in his mind. Thus once he said abruptly: "There was a stamp struck. Did you ever see it, Cynthia?" "No," she answered; "you must show it to me." "I will; I have a specimen somewhere. I'll look it out." "Do," said Cynthia in a voice which conveyed that it would be a particular joy to her to see that stamp.