tenderness of look and voice, "rely on you! But that is all I ask.
Only"

"Only, you would say, I am going out of power, and you don't see the
chance of my return?"

"I did not mean that."

"Permit me to suppose that you did: very true; but the party I belong to
is as sure of return as the pendulum of that clock is sure to obey the
mechanism that moves it from left to right. Our successors profess to
come in upon a popular question. All administrations who do that are
necessarily short-lived. Either they do not go far enough to please
present supporters, or they go so far as to arm new enemies in the rivals
who outbid them with the people. 'T is the historymof all revolutions,
and of all reforms. Our own administration in reality is destroyed for
having passed what was called a popular measure a year ago, which lost us
half our friends, and refusing to propose another popular measure this
year, in the which we are outstripped by the men who hallooed us on to
the last. Therefore, whatever our successors do, we shall by the law of
reaction, have another experiment of power afforded to ourselves. It is
but a question of time; you can wait for it,--whether I can is uncertain.
But if I die before that day arrives, I have influence enough still left
with those who will come in, to obtain a promise of a better provision
for you than that which you have lost. The promises of public men are
proverbially uncertain; but I shall entrust your cause to a man who never
failed a friend, and whose rank will enable him to see that justice is
done to you,--I speak of Lord L'Estrange."

"Oh, not he; he is unjust to me; he dislikes me; he--"