The Rev. Aloysius fairly recoiled, stunned, to do him justice, as much by the insult conveyed in the description of himself as a Protestant as by the threat of personal violence. It was too bitter; the serpent of schism had raised its baleful crest, and stung him in the very midst of his flock. Fortunately, or unfortunately, no one suspected the true cause of his agitation. Before he could frame a suitable retort an unexpected ally came to his rescue. Hero Vanbrugh had listened impatiently to the curate’s attempted admonition of the hooligan. Her indignation at the brutalities whose effects she had just seen was still hot within her, and the Irishman’s hectoring demeanour made it boil over. She walked up quickly, and confronted him with blazing eyes. “You coward! How dare you stand there and bluster! How dare you come out and show yourself, in the face of all the mean, silly, brutal, wicked things you did last night! Where is the bird you and your friends killed? There is its cage! Look at it, and stay here and brazen it out if you dare! Look at that poor man’s flowers all trodden down and broken! I wonder you can bring yourself to pass them! To rob a poor lame man! a cripple! I suppose you will beat him next, or murder him if you are not afraid of the police. I tell you, you are a coward, nothing but a big hulking coward, who goes about bullying women and children--and cripples! Go! Don’t stay out here! Go and hide yourself, lest a man should come along and see you!” Then a great thing happened. For Mike Finigan, the tyrant of Beers Cooperage and the terror of the police, raised his finger to his forelock, and with a muttered--“Beg pardon, miss,” turned round, and shrank back into his house like a thoroughly ashamed man. The Duchess turned to Hero with a look of grateful admiration. “You did that splendidly, my dear. Thank you.” The women, relieved of the presence of their enemy, would have burst out in a triumphant chorus, but Hero restrained them with a gesture, and the next minute they were surprised to see her turn white and totter against the side of the Duchess, who hastened to draw her away. CHAPTER VI THE WHOLE DUTY OF WOMAN AS the two ladies passed under the archway from Beers Cooperage into the street they were followed by Mr. Grimes, anxious to efface the rather humiliating figure he had cut in his encounter with Mike Finigan. “I wonder if we may have the honour of seeing you at our bazaar this week, Duchess?” he said smirkingly. “What bazaar is that? I don’t think I have heard of it,” the Duchess responded, with indifference. “The Legitimist bazaar--to obtain funds on behalf of the cause,” the curate explained. The Duchess of Trent knitted her brows. “I am afraid I don’t understand. What cause is that, if you please?” The Rev. Aloysius faltered somewhat in his speech as he answered: