‘Come, Mr Lessingham, neither you nor I will do himself any good by permitting his reflections to flow in a morbid channel. Let us talk of something else. By the way, weren’t you due to speak in the House to-night?’
‘Due!—Yes, I was due,—but what does it matter?’
‘But have you acquainted no one with the cause of your non-attendance?’
‘Acquaint!—whom should I acquaint?’
‘My good sir! Listen to me, Mr Lessingham. Let me entreat you very earnestly, to follow my advice. Call another cab,—or take this! and go at once to the House. It is not too late. Play the man, deliver the speech you have undertaken to deliver, perform your political duties. By coming with me you will be a hindrance rather than a help, and you may do your reputation an injury from which it never may recover. Do as I counsel you, and I will undertake to do my very utmost to let you have good news by the time your speech is finished.’
He turned on me with a bitterness for which I was unprepared.
‘If I were to go down to the House, and try to speak in the state in which I am now, they would laugh at me, I should be ruined.’
‘Do you not run an equally great risk of being ruined by staying away?’
He gripped me by the arm.
‘Mr Champnell, do you know that I am on the verge of madness? Do you know that as I am sitting here by your side I am living in a dual world? I am going on and on to catch that—that fiend, and I am back again in that Egyptian den, upon that couch of rugs, with the Woman of the Songs beside me, and Marjorie is being torn and tortured, and burnt before my eyes! God help me! Her shrieks are ringing in my ears!’