to good-humour once again.

At this moment, to the astonishment of all, there appeared at the back
of the platform between Jowett and Halliday the lawyer, the man with a
tragic history who had been as one buried for weeks past, who had
vanished from their calculations. It was their old champion, Ingolby.
Slowly a hush came over the vast assembly as, apparently guided by his
friends on the platform, he was given a seat on the right of the
Chairman's table.

A strange sensation, partly pleasure, partly resentment, passed through
the crowd. Why did Ingolby come to remind them of better days gone--of
his own rashness, of what they had lost through that rashness? Why had
he come? They could not say and do all that they wanted with him
present. It was like having a row in the presence of a corpse. He had
been a hero to all in Lebanon, but he was not in the picture now. His
day was done. It was no place for him. Yet it was a pleasant omen that
the sun broke clear and shining over the platform as Ingolby took his
seat. Presently in the silence he half-turned his head, murmured
something to the Chairman, and then got to his feet, stretching out a
hand towards the crowd.

For one moment there was silence, a little awestricken, a little painful,
and then as from one man a great cheer went up. For a moment they had
thought him inconsiderate to come among them in this crisis, for he was
no longer of their scheme of things, and must be counted out, a beaten,
battered, blind bankrupt. Yet the sight of him on his feet was too much
for them. Blind he might be, but there was the personality which had
conquered them in the past brave, adroit, reckless, renowned. None of
them, or very few of them, had seen him since that night at Barbazon's