Suddenly, from beneath one of the gloom punctuators opposite, a woman's voice cut the air sharply: "_Please_ let me pass!" Morris, alert in a second, had crossed the street and joined the group of four intuitively, before he knew it himself. Three young men, whose evening dress told that they were of society, and whose unsteady hold of their own legs, that they had had just a little too much of it, barred the way of a young girl. Tall, slight, and with a mass of blonde hair escaping from the rough shawl she drew closer about her head as she shrank back, there was something showing through her womanly terror that spoke convincingly the gentlewoman. The trio chuckled inanely, making elaborate bows; and the girl shivered as she shrank further into the shadow, and repeated piteously: "Do, _please_, let me pass! _won't_ you?" "Certainly they will," Van answered, stepping up on the pavement and taking her in at a glance. "Am I not right, gentlemen?" he added urbanely to the unsteady trio. "Not by a damned sight!" "Who the devil are you?" were the prompt and simultaneous rejoinders. "That doesn't matter," Van answered quietly; "but you are obstructing the public streets and frightening this evident stranger." "We don't know any stranger at two o'clock in the morning," was the illogical rejoinder of the third youth, who clung to the lamp-post. "What about it, anyway?" said the stoutest of the three, advancing towards Morris. "Do _you_ know her?" "_You_ evidently do not," Van replied; then he turned to the girl with the deference he would scarce have used to the leader of his set. "If you will take my arm, I will see you safely to the nearest policeman." The girl hesitated and shrunk back a second; then, with that instinctive trust which--fortunately, perhaps--is peculiarly feminine, slipped her red, ungloved little hand into his arm. The leader of the trio staggered a step nearer. "You're a nice masher," he said thickly; "but if it's a row you're looking for, you can find one pretty quick!" Morris glanced at the man with genuine pity. "You look as though you might be a gentlemen when you are sober," he said. "_I_ am not looking for a row; and if you boys make one, you'll only be more ashamed of yourselves on Christmas day than you should be already. And now I wish to pass." "I'll give you a pass," the other answered; and, with a lurch, he fronted Morris and put up his hands in most approved fighting form. At the same moment, the girl--with the inopportune logic of all girls in such cases--clung heavily to Morris's arm and cried piteously: "Oh, no! You mustn't! Not for me!" and, as she did so the man lunged a vicious blow with his right hand, full at Morris's face.