Aldwyth Westwood, gazing upward from the lower steps, saw in the face thus lighted from the west a look that awed her--a look she never could forget. Well might the witnesses of St Stephen’s death have seen the face as of an angel when the Eastern mob ran with one accord upon the proto-martyr and took the life he valued but as dross. And, in some sort, the same passions that animated the people of two thousand years ago found expression in the London mob to-day. Raggett had not spoken in vain. Scowling men and unsexed women had been steadily forcing their way towards the church while Father Francis was speaking. Some of them threw stones and bits of mortar at the priest, and opprobrious cries came from every side. The crowd surged and swayed in fierce excitement. But Father Francis, his eyes still fixed upon the western light, seemed quite unconscious of attack or danger. Joe steadied Billy as the pressure increased around them, and both looked round indignantly when the man and woman with the bottle came pushing and lurching through the crowd behind them. Once more Father Francis was speaking. “The promise,” he cried, “is to you and to your children, and to all that are afar off.” “’Ere, Bob, you have a shy,” said the reeling woman to her companion. She handed him the now empty bottle, and the man, grasping it by the neck, in a half drunken frenzy whirled it round his head. Women began to shriek and men to swear. “It is written here--in this Book,” cried the priest in thrilling tones, as he held a Bible high above his head; “_and this is the Word of God_!” Then the huge navvy, urged by the woman, “had a shy”; the bottle flew from his hand with deadly force; the Bible fell, and the face of Father Francis, ghastly and bleeding, sank back amongst those who stood around him on the steps. Billy saw it all, and, in an access of fury, balancing himself unaided for an instant, raised his crutch and struck the shoulder of the ruffian with all his force. With a savage oath the man half turned, and grasping the boy’s neck, hurled him forward with terrific violence upon the steps. In haste to escape, the people close at hand made a sudden rush. Some fell, their dead weight crushing the unhappy child against the granite edge. Joe, with a tiger’s swiftness and a loud cry of wrath, had sprung upon the boy’s assailant. They wrestled, swayed, and fell, the woman clawing at the stableman, the crowd parting right and left in terror at the fury of the struggle. But Billy of Mayfair lay very still at Aldwyth Westwood’s feet. Some one raised the boy a little, and they laid him gently on the stones. His face was pale with a pallor that Aldwyth had never seen before; his eyelids fluttered very faintly. “My Gawd!” said a woman, peering forward, “the boy’s done for. Where’s a doctor? Ain’t there no doctor here?” “Stand back, can’t you,” cried another. “Give ’im some air.”