"Pity?" She sprang to her feet with fire and fury in her cheeks and eyes. It is, happily, the rarest thing in the world to see a woman--I mean a woman of culture--overmastered by passion. Yet it lies there; it is always possible. In the heart of the meekest maiden, the most self-governed and most highly bred woman, there lies hidden the tigress, the fish-wife, the scold, the shrew. Formerly, whenever women were gathered together, they quarrelled; whenever they quarrelled, they fought--sometimes with fists, cudgels, brooms, chairs, sometimes with tongues. Men were so horribly frightened by the scolding wife, that they ducked her, put her in a cage, carried her round in a cart. The little word "pity" was the last drop in the cup. Lady Woodroffe raged and stormed at the unfortunate Richard. For the time her mind was beyond control; afterwards, he remembered that such a fit of passion showed the tension of her mind. He made no reply. When her torrent of words and threats was exhausted, she threw herself into her chair, and buried her face in her hands. Then Richard quietly withdrew. CHAPTER XXIV. A HORRID NIGHT. Richard Woodroffe walked away with hanging head. A second time he had learned that his proofs might not be so convincing, after all. The defence set up by a woman of the highest social position, character, and personal influence, that she had never been in Birmingham in her life, that on the day of the alleged death of her child she was in Scotland, that she knew nothing of the person who was said to have assumed her name, could only be met by evidence concerning that person by an identification of that person with Lady Woodroffe by an old man, speaking of an event of four and twenty years ago, and by an alleged resemblance; as to the packet of clothes, that would certainly be no evidence at all. He himself was perfectly certain of the fact; there was no doubt left in his own mind. But would his proofs be accepted in a court of justice? As he walked along with these heavy reflections, he was startled by a hand upon his shoulder--a thing which, in former times, caused the sufferer to swoon with terror, because it was the familiar greeting of the sheriff's officer, the man with a writ. That part of the officer's duty is now, however, gone. It was, in fact, the hand of Sir Robert Steele, who, his day's work finished, was taking the air. "Dick," he cried, "I haven't seen you since--since--when?" "Since the day when you made a study of heredity." "Oh, you mean when you dined with me? Yes, Dick, my boy, I have heard things about you--the Strange Adventures of a Singer." "Of course you have. Lady Woodroffe has told you." "How you are fishing in troubled waters, and catching nothing. Yes, I have seen Mrs. Haveril--a most interesting woman; but she ought to go home and keep quiet. Keep her quiet, Dick. Put down your fishing-rod, and make that good lady sit down, and keep that good lady quiet."