There was a click of steel and glimmer of blades. An indescribable panic ensued. The people, of late so buoyant, now mad with terror, rushed towards the nearest exit--that is, to some place of safety--with such savage energy and with so formidable an impulse that iron railings were rent before them. Esther felt herself wrenched from Bella so suddenly and with such brutal force that it was a miracle that her arm which encircled Lady Vereker's waist was not left behind her. The human tide hurled her against a house and would have crushed her against the wall had not other human bodies intervened and saved her from the violence of the shock. She found herself at the head of a flight of six stairs without having set foot upon one of them. A large door stood open before her. Twenty persons were projected along with her into the interior in a solid mass, entering the house like an inundation. Esther was saved; the horrible fear which had paralyzed every nerve was relieved, and her heart began to beat again. At the same time, through the open door and high above the desperate cries of those who still struggled in the street, she heard the ringing voice of an officer commanding a halt. The Riot Act was being read, and an occasional fragment of the coldly menacing phrases reached even her ear. The place into which Esther had been cast was a spacious vestibule, into which surged fresh arrivals without ceasing, despite the efforts of the footmen and of a man who fretted and fumed, and gave useless and inexecutable orders. This man, the proprietor of the place, was Mr. Brooks, and the house was the famous club which bore his name. Poor Mr. Brooks endeavored to confine the crowd to the vestibule, which he was forced to yield to it, as one yields to a conflagration; but already under the pressure of the mass Esther had been thrust into a second antechamber. The air was close and stifling; the situation became critical, while the second danger threatened to become worse than the first. Suddenly a little door was thrown open, and some one laid hold upon her. In the next instant the door was closed, and the girl found herself in the depths of an arm-chair, where she swooned. Not entirely, however; she felt in a half-conscious way that some one slapped her hands and blew in her face. A voice murmured, "Some water! Cold water, quick!" Then the person left her, for she felt that she was alone again. Suddenly a great hubbub filled the house. In the street without, now quite deserted, the cavalry swept by like a whirlwind. Then all was silence. With eyes closed, and in a state of semi-consciousness, Esther believed herself alone, when all at once, but a few steps from her, a word was pronounced in an angry tone. "A doublet!"