"If you want to break windows," she went on, "break them here. They can be replaced afterward, and there is no one here to interfere with you. If you would like to vent your anger upon a woman, vent it upon _me_. _I_ am not afraid of you. Look at me!" She took half a step forward and presented herself to them--motionless. Not a fellow among them but felt that she would not have stirred if they had rushed upon her bodily. The effect of her supreme beauty and the cold defiance which had in it a touch of delicate insolence, was indescribable. This was not in accordance with their ideas of women of her class; they were used to seeing them discreetly keeping themselves in the shade in time of disorder. Here was one--"one of the nobs," as they said--who flung their threats to the wind and scorned them. What they would have done when they recovered themselves is uncertain. The scale might have turned either way; but, just in the intervening moment which would have decided it, there arose a tumult in their midst. A man pushed his way with mad haste through the crowd and sprang upon the terrace at her side, amid yells and hoots from those who had guessed who he was. An instant later they all knew him, though his dress was disordered, his head was bare, and his whole face and figure seemed altered by his excitement. "Dom him!" they yelled. "Theer he is, by----!" "I towd thee he'd coom," shouted the cynic. "He did na get th' tellygraph, tha sees." He turned on them, panting and white with rage. "You devils!" he cried. "You are here too! Haven't you done enough? Isn't bullying and frightening two women enough for you, that you must come here?" "That's reet," commented the cynic. "Stond up fur th' young woman, Murdoch. I'd do it mysen i' I wur o' that soide. Allus stond up fur th' sect!" Murdoch spoke to Rachel Ffrench. "You must go in," he said. "There is no knowing what they will do." "I shall stay here," she answered. She made an impatient gesture. She was shuddering from head to foot. "Don't look at or speak to me," she said. "You--you make me a coward." "They will stand at nothing," he protested. "I will not turn my back upon them," she said. "Let them do their worst." He turned to the crowd again. Her life itself was in danger, and he knew he could not move her. He was shuddering himself. "Who is your leader?" he said to the men. "I suppose you have one." The man known as Foxy Gibbs responded to their cries of his name by pushing his way to the front. He was a big, resolute, hulking scamp who had never been known to do an honest day's work, and was yet always in funds and at liberty to make incendiary speeches where beer and tobacco were plentiful. "What do you want of me?" demanded Murdoch. "Speak out." The fellow was ready enough with his words, and forcible too.