eality and pierced through the pretence, the grand pretence, which
everybody, herself included, had been weaving. An impulse of fear laid
hold of her; involuntarily she put out her hand towards Foster who had
just finished his speech and was sitting down. She meant to tell him to
stop the meeting, to send the people home, to help her to persuade
Quisante to go back to the hotel and not to speak. Foster looked round to
see what she wanted, but at the moment Quisante was already on his feet.
"It's nothing," May whispered, withdrawing her hand. It was too late now,
the thing must go forward now, whatever the end of it might be, whatever
the friendly pity of those eyes might seem to say. To-morrow quiet would
begin; but she had a new, strange, intense terror of to-night. This
feeling lasted through the early part of Quisante's speech, when he was
still in a quiet vein and showed some signs of physical weakness. But as
he went on it vanished and in its place came the old faith and the old
illusion. For he gathered force, he put out his strength, he exhaled
vitality. Again she sought her friends' faces and marked with joy and
triumph that their eyes were now set on the speaker and their attention
held firmly, as the fine resonant voice filled the building and seemed to
resent the confinement of its walls, or even more when a whisper, heard
only by a miracle as she thought, thrilled even the most distant
listener. The speech was being all that it had been going to be, his
confidence and hers were to be justified. The pronouncement that the
country waited for was coming, the fighting men were to get the lead they
wanted, the attack was sounded, the battle was being opened to the sound
of a trumpet-call. May leant forward, listening. A period reached its
close, and applause delayed the beginning of the next. Quisante glanced
round and saw his wife; their eyes met; a slow smile came on his lips, a
smile of great delight. Once more her heart beat and her eyes gleamed for
him, once more she would be no man's if she could not be his. His air was
gay and his face joyful as, the next minute, he threw himself into a
flood of eloquence where indignation mingled with ridicule; he made men
doubt whether they must laugh or fight. Now he had all that he desired,
men hung on his words, and she sat by, and saw, and felt, and shared.

At the next pause, when the cheering again imposed a momentary silence,
the Dean turned to Marchmont, raising hi