This also turned out to be unnecessary, for the Old Man was able to read his notes without the smallest difficulty; and the speech had come to a conclusion long before the hour when the deepening shadows make it hard to read by the light from the glass roof of the House.
[Sidenote: The peroration.] At last, the latest details had been given; the Old Man approached his peroration.

By this time the voice had sunk in parts to a low whisper, and the deathly hue of the beautiful face had grown deeper.

There was something that almost inspired awe as one looked at that strange, curious, solitary figure in the growing darkness.

The intense strain on the House had finally exhausted it, and there had come a silence that had in it the solemnity, the strange stillness, the rapt emotion of some sublime service in a great cathedral rather than the beginning of one of the fiercest and most rancorous party conflicts of our time.

To this mood Mr.Gladstone attuned the closing words of his speech.