Mrs. Fenton shuddered.

"Oh, I don't think I know very clearly. That great drunken man came in,
and asked me for money. Of course I didn't give it to him; and his wife
tried to get him to let me go. Then he struck her on the mouth!"

"The brute!" Ashe involuntarily cried, clenching his bruised fists.

"Then he caught me by the waist, and I screamed; and in another minute
I heard you at the door."

"But it was the woman that called the police."

"Yes; and when she did that I was fearfully frightened. I knew that if
she called the police against her own husband she must think that he'd
really hurt me."

Philip leaned back in the carriage, dizzy with the overwhelming sense
of the peril that had beset her,--her! Then, mastered by an
overpowering impulse, he threw himself forward and caught her hands,
covering them with kisses.

"Oh, my darling!" he gasped. "Oh, thank God you are safe!"

She dragged her hands away from him, and shrank back.

"Mr. Ashe!" she cried. "What is the matter with you? What are you
doing?"