His face had that rapt look of reverie which it wears on all these solemn and great occasions, and there was a slightly deadlier pallor on the cheek.

Mr.Balfour persisted with his speech to the bitter end, and now and then Mr.Gladstone gave an impatient and anxious look at the clock.

The hands pointed to ten minutes to midnight before this man of eighty-three was on his legs to address a crowded, hot, jaded assembly in a speech that would wind up one of the great stages in the greatest controversy of his life.
[Sidenote: The opening.] We who love and follow him hold our breaths, and our nervous anxiety rises almost to terror.

Can he stand the strain ?--will he break down from sheer physical fatigue and the exhaustion of long waiting?
The first few notes of the deep voice are reassuring.

The opening sentences also have that full roll which nearly always is inevitable proof that the great swelling opening will carry him on to the end; and yet there is anxiety.