Didn't we,
Betsy?--didn't we, Doll?"

Aldous ran up.

On the third floor, the door of the front room was open. A woman lay on
the ground, apparently beaten to death.

By her side, torn, dishevelled, and gasping, knelt Marcella Boyce. Two
or three other women were standing by in helpless terror and curiosity.
Marcella was bending over the bleeding victim before her. Her own left
arm hung as though disabled by her side; but with the right hand she was
doing her best to staunch some of the bleeding from the head. Her bag
stood open beside her, and one of the chattering women was handing her
what she asked for. The sight stamped itself in lines of horror on
Raeburn's heart.

In such an exaltation of nerve _she_ could be surprised at nothing.
When she saw Raeburn enter the room, she did not even start.

"I think," she said, as he stooped down to her--speaking with pauses, as
though to get her breath--"he has--killed her. But there--is a chance.
Are the--police there--and a stretcher?"

Two constables entered as she spoke, and the first of them instantly
sent his companion back for a stretcher. Then, noticing Marcella's
nursing dress and cloak, he came up to her respectfully.

"Did you see it, miss?"

"I--I tried to separate them," she replied, still speaking with the same
difficulty, while she silently motioned to Aldous, who was on the other
side of the unconscious and apparently dying woman, to help her with the
bandage she was applying. "But he was--such a great--powerful brute."

Aldous, hating the clumsiness of his man's fingers, knelt down and tried
to help her. Her trembling hand touched, mingled with his.

"I was downstairs," she went on, while the constable took out his
note-book, "attending a child--that's ill--when I heard the screams.
They were on the landing; he had turned her out of the room--then rushed
after her--I _think_--to throw her downstairs--I stopped that. Then he
took up something--oh! there it is!" She shuddered, pointing to a broken
piece of a chair which lay on the floor. "He was quite mad with drink--I
couldn't--do much."

Her voice slipped into a weak, piteous note.

"Isn't your arm hurt?" said Aldous, pointing to it.

"It's not broken--it's wrenched; I can't use it. There--that's all we
can do--till she gets--to hospital."

Then she stood up, pale and staggering, and asked the policeman if he
could put on a bandage. The man had got his ambulance certificate, and
was proud to