“Perhaps we can get out home some way,” he answered, with the instinct of the man who considers two hours in his own bed worth ten in any other. Mrs. Gibbons cast the reserve of decency to the winds. They had made her miss this train! Her husband waiting for her—the sleeping Harold uncovered—the milk tickets to be put in the pail to-morrow—“I don’t care what _you_ do; _I_ can’t stay in town to-night. I _won’t_ stay in town, Mr. Worthington! I’ll have to get home to-night if I _swim_ for it!” “No need to do that,” said a man rapidly coming out with a pipe-smoking group from the ferry-house. “We’re going out on the twelve-forty-five boat on the other road, a couple blocks below here, and take the trolley out. It’s Mrs. Gibbons, isn’t it? I don’t believe you recognize me. I saw your husband an hour or so ago at Weber and Fields.” “Oh, _thank_ you!” said Mrs. Gibbons. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!” She stumbled after the group over the cobblestones outside of the long wharves, still insanely warbling her gratitude, her protectors sullenly stalking after her. They crushed and wedged themselves into the midst of an unsavoury and strenuous populace on the boat that pushed out slowly into the fog of the river, but that did not matter—they were saved, they were off! They were surely bound for that other side on which lay all that made life worth living. Then there was another mad rush for the trolley car that went their way. Fighting, struggling, pressing, the three snot into seats, exhausted, and whizzed off into the dark night. Mr. Worthington, after a few minutes, went sound asleep, lurching as the car lurched, his wife, poor woman, pale enough as she sat with face averted from Mrs. Gibbons, her lips pressed tightly together, one hand holding mechanically to her raiment, and the other within her husband’s arm. Men sat with their heads on their sweet-hearts’ shoulders, in true early morning trolley-car fashion, and every inch of standing room was packed too thick for the eye to penetrate with a singing, drunken, cat-calling, indecent crowd, the last scum of a great city. It was an offense to delicacy to be there. The lights flared wildly up and then went out at intervals. When they went out, Mrs. Gibbons felt a cold terror. She had always been afraid of drunken men, and she was so used to the protection of love! How sorry Arnold would be when she told him about it all, how tender he would be of her!