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The contest was keen and doubtful. Neither Adrian nor myself would have
been so anxious, if our own success had depended on our exertions; but we
had egged our friend on to the enterprise, and it became us to ensure his
triumph. Idris, who entertained the highest opinion of his abilities, was
warmly interested in the event: and my poor sister, who dared not hope, and
to whom fear was misery, was plunged into a fever of disquietude.
Day after day passed while we discussed our projects for the evening, and
each night was occupied by debates which offered no conclusion. At last the
crisis came: the night when parliament, which had so long delayed its
choice, must decide: as the hour of twelve passed, and the new day began,
it was by virtue of the constitution dissolved, its power extinct.
We assembled at Raymond's house, we and our partizans. At half past five
o'clock we proceeded to the House. Idris endeavoured to calm Perdita; but
the poor girl's agitation deprived her of all power of self-command. She
walked up and down the room,--gazed wildly when any one entered, fancying
that they might be the announcers of her doom. I must do justice to my
sweet sister: it was not for herself that she was thus agonized. She alone
knew the weight which Raymond attached to his success. Even to us he
assumed gaiety and hope, and assumed them so well, that we did not divine
the secret workings of his mind. Sometimes a nervous trembling, a sharp
dissonance of voice, and momentary fits of absence revealed to Perdita the
violence he did himself; but we, intent on our plans, observed only his
ready laugh, his joke intruded on all occasions, the flow of his spirits
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