Sir Reginald Desmond is seated at his writing table. His left hand is beneath his chest, his head is resting on the table above it, his right is outstretched and hanging over the side. Just below it on the floor lies a revolver, and drip, drip, drip, dripping on to the chair on which he sits, is a stream of running blood. Who shall judge him as he lays there silent, and fast stiffening? for— “He is dead, and blame and praise fall on his ear alike, now hushed in death.” Those may do so who can. I cannot. [Illustration] CHAPTER VII. “Were you in the Commons last night? Did you go to hear Hector D’Estrange?” “Rather; I think all the world was there, or trying to be there. I don’t think I have ever seen such a crowd before.” “What a wonderful speaker he is, to be sure!” “Yes. With the exception of Gladstone, I don’t suppose there ever was one like him, or ever will be again. Talk of orators of bygone days! Pooh! they never came up to him.” “Well, the women have got the Suffrage in full at last, thanks to him. The next thing is to see what use they’ll make of it.” “Better, perhaps, than we men have.” The speakers are two men, the Honourable Tredegar Molyneux, M.P., and Colonel des Vœux of the Blues. Nearly four years have passed since the events related in the last chapter. The world has been slowly marching forward, and many things have happened between that time and this. In the political world, and in Parliament, like everywhere else, Hector D’Estrange has made a stir. His eloquence and debating power are the wonder of all who hear him, and his practical, sympathetic knowledge of the social questions of the day has made him the idol of the masses. He has just succeeded in carrying his Woman’s Suffrage Bill by a large majority, thereby conferring on women, married or unmarried, in this respect, identical rights with men. And now to-day in the monster Hall of Liberty, which he has founded, and which has been erected by the lavish subscriptions of the women of Great Britain, Ireland, and the world at large, he is to preside at the ceremony of its opening. It _is_ a monster building. Talk of Olympia, of the Albert Hall—why, they are dwarfs beside it! In shape it is circular, and towers aloft towards heaven, its great dome pinnacle crowned by a cap of glass, which report declares to consist of a million panes. Around this glass a gilded crown is twined, and holding it there—one in a kneeling attitude, the other upright, with one hand high upraised towards heaven—are two gilded women’s forms. They are the Statues of Liberty.