He left the House alone, carefully avoiding all speech with any one.  As he came out he had seen Laurence Fitzgibbon in the lobby, but he had gone on without pausing a moment, so that he might avoid his friend.  And when he was out in Palace Yard, where was he to go next?  He looked at his watch, and found that it was just ten.  He did not dare to go to his club, and it was impossible for him to go home and to bed.  He was very miserable, and nothing would comfort him but sympathy.  Was there any one who would listen to his abuse of himself, and would then answer him with kindly apologies for his own weakness?  Mrs. Bunce would do it if she knew how, but sympathy from Mrs. Bunce would hardly avail.  There was but one person in the world to whom he could tell his own humiliation with any hope of comfort, and that person was Lady Laura Kennedy.  Sympathy from any man would have been distasteful to him.  He had thought for a moment of flinging himself at Mr. Monk’s feet and telling all his weakness;—­but he could not have endured pity even from Mr. Monk.  It was not to be endured from any man.

He thought that Lady Laura Kennedy would be at home, and probably alone.  He knew, at any rate, that he might be allowed to knock at her door, even at that hour.  He had left Mr. Kennedy in the House, and there he would probably remain for the next hour.  There was no man more constant than Mr. Kennedy in seeing the work of the day,—­or of the night,—­to its end.  So Phineas walked up Victoria Street, and from thence into Grosvenor Place, and knocked at Lady Laura’s door.  “Yes; Lady Laura was at home; and alone.”  He was shown up into the drawing-room, and there he found Lady Laura waiting for her husband.

“So the great debate is over,” she said, with as much of irony as she knew how to throw into the epithet.

“Yes; it is over.”

“And what have they done,—­those leviathans of the people?”

Then Phineas told her what was the majority.

“Is there anything the matter with you, Mr. Finn?” she said, looking at him suddenly.  “Are you not well?”

“Yes; I am very well.”

“Will you not sit down?  There is something wrong, I know.  What is it?”

“I have simply been the greatest idiot, the greatest coward, the most awkward ass that ever lived!”

“What do you mean?”

“I do not know why I should come to tell you of it at this hour at night, but I have come that I might tell you.  Probably because there is no one else in the whole world who would not laugh at me.”

“At any rate, I shall not laugh at you,” said Lady Laura.

“But you will despise me.”

“That I am sure I shall not do.”