rations. Apart from this denial, men asked themselves how it was
that if Mr. Parnell knew that the cause was already betrayed, he yet for a
year kept the black secret to himself, and blew Mr. Gladstone's praise
with as loud a trumpet as before?(276) As for my own guilty attempt at
corruption in proposing an absorption of the Irish party in English
politics by means of office and emolument, I denied it with reasonable
emphasis at the time, and it does not concern us here, nor in fact
anywhere else.

VI

We now come to what was in its day the famous story of Committee Room
Fifteen, so called from the chamber in which the next act of this dismal
play went on.(277) The proceedings between the leader and his party were
watched with an eagerness that has never been surpassed in this kingdom or
in America. They were protracted, intense, dramatic, and the issue for a
time hung in poignant doubt. The party interest of the scene was supreme,
for if the Irishmen should rally to their chief, then the English alliance
was at an end, Mr. Gladstone would virtually close (M157) his illustrious
career, the rent in the liberal ranks might be repaired, and leading men
and important sections would all group themselves afresh. "Let us all keep
quiet," said one important unionist, "we may now have to revise our
positions." Either way, the serpent of faction would raise its head in
Ireland, and the strong life of organised and concentrated nationalism
would perish in its coils. The personal interest was as vivid as the
political,--the spectacle of a man of infinite boldness, determination,
astuteness, and resource, with the will and pride of Lucifer, at bay with
fortune and challenging a malignant star. Some talked of the famous Ninth
Thermidor, when Robespierre fought inch by inch the fierce struggle that
ended in his ruin. Others talked of the old mad discord of Zealot and
Herodian in face of the Roman before the walls of Jerusalem. The great
veteran of English politics looked on, wrathful and astounded at a
preternatural perversity for which sixty years of public life could
furnish him no parallel. The sage public looked on, some with the same
interest that would in ancient days have made them relish a combat of
gladiators; others with glee at the mortification of political opponents;
others again with honest disgust at what threatened to be the ignoble rout
of a beneficent policy.

It was the fashion for the moment in fastidious r