he reply to that was a laugh and a concerted 'rush' that all but
carried the girl and her companions off their feet. To Henderson's
petrifaction, the door of the brougham was hastily opened and then
slammed to, leaving Miss Levering in the road, saying to him over her
shoulder--

'Wait just round the corner, unless I call.'

With which she hurried across the street, her eyes on the little face
that, in spite of its fresh colouring, looked so pathetically tired.
Making her way round the outer fringe of the crowd, Vida saw on the
other side--near where Ernestine and her sore-beset companions stood
with their backs to the wall--an opening in the dingy ranks. Fleet of
foot, she gained it, thrust an arm between the huddled women, and,
taking the foolhardy girl by the sleeve, said, _sotto voce_--

'Come! Come with me!'

Ernestine raised her eyes, fixed them for one calm instant on Vida
Levering's face, and then, turning round, said--

'Where's Mrs. Brown?'

'Never mind Mrs. Brown!' whispered the strange lady, drawing off as the
rowdy young men came surging round that side.

There was another rush and a yell, and Vida fled. When next she turned
to look, it was to see two women making a sudden dash for liberty. They
had escaped through the rowdy ranks, and they tore across the street,
running for their lives and calling for help as they ran.

Vida, a shade or two paler, stood transfixed. What was going to happen?
But there was the imperturbable Ernestine holding the forsaken position,
still the centre of the pushing, shouting little mob who had jeered
frantically as the other women fled.

It was too much. Not Ernestine's isolation alone, the something childish
in the brilliant face would have enlisted a less sympathetic observer. A
single moment's wavering and the lady made for the place where the
besiegers massed less thick. She was near enough now to call out over
the rowdies' heads--

'Come. Why do you stay there?'

Faces turned to look at her; while Ernestine shouted back the cryptic
sentence--

'It wasn't my bus!'

_Bus?_ Had danger robbed her of her reason? The boys were cheering now
and looking past Miss Levering: she turned, bewildered, to see 'Mrs.
Brown' and a sister reformer mounting the top of a sober London Road
car. They had been running for that, then--and not for life! Miss
Levering raised her hand and her voice as she looked back at Ernestine--

'I've got a trap. Come!'

'Where?'

Ernestin