“And left his fair daughter to be a spectacle to men and angels?” said Sir Algernon.
Then followed words so monstrous, so intolerable, that Erica, 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.”