e her voice was
very unsteady, and she looked down.

"Yes, I know. I perfectly understand what you mean. Mr. Brierly is
nothing--simply nothing. He is a moth singed, that is all--the trifler
with women thought he was a wasp. I have no pity for him, not the least.
You may tell him not to make a fool of himself, and to keep away. I say
this on your account, not his. You are not like him. It is enough for
me that you want it so. Mr. Sterling," she continued, looking up; and
there were tears in her eyes that contradicted the hardness of her
language, "you might not pity him if you knew my history; perhaps you
would not wonder at some things you hear. No; it is useless to ask me
why it must be so. You can't make a life over--society wouldn't let you
if you would--and mine must be lived as it is. There, sir, I'm not
offended; but it is useless for you to say anything more."

Philip went away with his heart lightened about Harry, but profoundly
saddened by the glimpse of what this woman might have been. He told
Harry all that was necessary of the conversation--she was bent on going
her own way, he had not the ghost of a chance--he was a fool, she had
said, for thinking he had.

And Harry accepted it meekly, and made up his own mind that Philip didn't
know much about women.

CHAPTER XLV.

The galleries of the House were packed, on the momentous day, not because
the reporting of an important bill back by a committee was a thing to be
excited about, if the bill were going to take the ordinary course
afterward; it would be like getting excited over the empaneling of a
coroner's jury in a murder case, instead of saving up one's emotions for
the grander occasion of the hanging of the accused, two years later,
after all the tedious forms of law had been gone through with.

But suppose you understand that this coroner's jury is going to turn out
to be a vigilance committee in disguise, who will hear testimony for an
hour and then hang the murderer on the spot? That puts a different
aspect upon the matter. Now it was whispered that the legitimate forms
of procedure usual in the House, and which keep a bill hanging along for
days and even weeks, before it is finally passed upon, were going to be
overruled, in this case, and short work made of the, measure; and so,
what was beginning as a mere inquest might, torn out to be something very
different.

In the course of the day's business the Order of "Reports of