ca, accustomed
as she was to discourtesies, broke down altogether. It was so heartless,
so cruelly false, and she was so perfectly defenseless! A wave of
burning color swept over her face. If she could but have gone away
have hidden herself from those cruel eyes. But her knees trembled so
fearfully that, had she tried to move, she must have fallen. Sick and
giddy, the flights of steps looked to her like a precipice. She could
only lean for support against the gray-stone moldings of the door way,
while tears, which for once she could not restrain, rushed to her eyes.
Oh! If Tom or the professor, or some one would but come to her! Such
moments as those are not measured by earthly time; the misery seemed to
her agelong though it was in reality brief enough for Brian, coming into
Westminster Hall, had actually heard Sir Algernon's shameful
slander, and pushing his way through the crowd, was beside her almost
immediately.

The sight of his face checked her tears. It positively frightened her by
its restrained yet intense passion.

"Miss Raeburn," he said, in a clear, distinct voice, plainly heard
by the group below, "this is not a fit place for you. Let me take you
home."

He spoke much more formally than was his wont, yet in his actions he
used a sort of authority, drawing her hand within his arm, leading
her rapidly through the crowd, which opened before them. For that one
bitter-sweet moment she belonged to him. He was her sole, and therefore
her rightful, protector. A minute more, and they stood in Palace Yard.
He hastily called a hansom.

In the pause she looked up at him, and would have spoken her thanks, but
something in his manner checked her. He had treated her so exactly as
if she belonged to him, that, to thank him seemed almost as absurd as
it would have done to thank her father. Then a sudden fear made her say
instead:

"Are you coming home?"

"I will come to see that you are safely back presently," he said, in a
voice unlike his own. "But I must see that man first."

"No, no," she said, beginning to tremble again. "Don't go back. Please,
please don't go!"

"I must," he said, putting her into the hansom. Then, speaking very
gently. "Don't be afraid; I will be with you almost directly."

He closed the doors, gave the address to the driver, and turned away.

Erica was conscious of a vague relief as the fresh winter wind blew
upon her. She shut her eyes, that she might not see the passers-by, only
lon