an otherwise the task of endeavouring to assist in the
salvation of Ruby. Mrs Hurtle begged that Mrs Pipkin would go to bed.
She would not be in the least annoyed by the knocking. Another
half-hour had thus been passed by the two ladies in the parlour after
Crumb's departure. Then Mrs Hurtle took her candle and had ascended
the stairs half way to her own sitting-room, when a loud double knock
was heard. She immediately joined Mrs Pipkin in the passage. The door
was opened, and there stood Ruby Ruggles, John Crumb, and two
policemen! Ruby rushed in, and casting herself on to one of the stairs
began to throw her hands about, and to howl piteously. 'Laws a mercy;
what is it?' asked Mrs Pipkin.

'He's been and murdered him!' screamed Ruby. 'He has! He's been and
murdered him!'

'This young woman is living here;--is she?' asked one of the
policemen.

'She is living here,' said Mrs Hurtle. But now we must go back to the
adventures of John Crumb after he had left the house.

He had taken a bedroom at a small inn close to the Eastern Counties
Railway Station which he was accustomed to frequent when business
brought him up to London, and thither he proposed to himself to
return. At one time there had come upon him an idea that he would
endeavour to seek Ruby and his enemy among the dancing saloons of the
metropolis; and he had asked a question with that view. But no answer
had been given which seemed to aid him in his project, and his purpose
had been abandoned as being too complex and requiring more
intelligence than he gave himself credit for possessing. So he had
turned down a street with which he was so far acquainted as to know
that it would take him to the Islington Angel,--where various roads
meet, and whence he would know his way eastwards. He had just passed
the Angel, and the end of Goswell Road, and was standing with his
mouth open, looking about, trying to make certain of himself that he
would not go wrong, thinking that he would ask a policeman whom he
saw, and hesitating because he feared that the man would want to know
his business. Then, of a sudden, he heard a woman scream, and knew
that it was Ruby's voice. The sound was very near him, but in the
glimmer of the gaslight he could not quite see whence it came. He
stood still, putting his hand up to scratch his head under his hat,--
trying to think what, in such an emergency, it would be well that he
should do. Then he heard the voice distinctly, 'I won't;--I