installed in her place. Her friend had bowed and
vanished, and she was left to all purposes alone, for she never
heeded those about her, though some of them looked at her hard enough,
wondering at her form and beauty, and who she might be.

She cast her eye down over the crowded House, and saw a vision of hats,
collars, and legs, and heard a tumult of sounds: the sharp voice of
a speaker who was rapidly losing his temper, the plaudits of the
Government benches, the interruptions from the Opposition--yes, even
yells, and hoots, and noises, that reminded her remotely of the crowing
of cocks. Possibly had she thought of it, Beatrice would not have been
greatly impressed with the dignity of an assembly, at the doors of
which so many of its members seemed to leave their manners, with their
overcoats and sticks; it might even have suggested the idea of a bear
garden to her mind. But she simply did not think about it. She searched
the House keenly enough, but it was to find one face, and one only--Ah!
there he was.

And now the House of Commons might vanish into the bottomless abyss,
and take with it the House of Lords, and what remained of the British
Constitution, and she would never miss them. For, at the best of times,
Beatrice--in common with most of her sex--in all gratitude be it said,
was _not_ an ardent politician.

There Geoffrey sat, his arms folded--the hat pushed slightly from his
forehead, so that she could see his face. There was her own beloved,
whom she had come so far to see, and whom to-morrow she would dare
so much to save. How sad he looked--he did not seem to be paying
much attention to what was going on. She knew well enough that he was
thinking of her; she could feel it in her head as she had often felt it
before. But she dared not let her mind go out to him in answer, for, if
once she did so, she knew also that he would discover her. So she sat,
and fed her eyes upon his face, taking her farewell of it, while round
her, and beneath her, the hum of the House went on, as ever present and
as unnoticed as the hum of bees upon a summer noon.

Presently the gentleman who had been so kind to her, sat down in
the next seat to Geoffrey, and began to whisper to him, as he did so
glancing once or twice towards the grating behind which she was.
She guessed that he was telling him the story of the lady who was so
unaccountably anxious to hear the debate, and how pretty she was. But it
did not seem to interest G