Then it had been time for Naseby and the police to clear the platform and open a passage for the Maxwell party. Unfortunately, there was no outlet to the back, no chance of escaping the shouting crowd in Manx Road. Tressady, joining his friends at last by dint of his height and a free play of elbows, found himself suddenly alone with Lady Maxwell, Naseby and Lady Madeleine borne along far behind, and no chance but to follow the current, with such occasional help as the police stationed along the banks of it might be able to give. Outside, Tressady strained his eyes for a cab. "Here, sir!" cried the sergeant in front, carving a passage by dint of using his own stalwart frame as a ram. They hurried on, for some rough lads on the edges of the crowd had already begun stone-throwing. The faces about them seemed to be partly indifferent, partly hostile. "Look at the bloomin bloats!" cried a wild factory-girl with a touzled head as Lady Maxwell passed. "Let 'em stop at 'ome and mind their own 'usbands--yah!" "Garn! who paid for your bonnet?" shouted another, until a third girl pulled her back, panting, "If you say that any more I'll scrag yer!" For this third girl had spent a fortnight in the Mile End Road house, getting fed and strengthened before an operation. But here was the cab! Lady Maxwell's foot was already on the step, when Tressady felt something fly past him. There was a slight cry. The form in front of him seemed to waver a moment. Then Tressady himself mounted, caught her, and in another moment, after a few plunges from the excited horse, they were off down Manx Road, followed by a shouting crowd that gradually thinned. "You are hurt!" he said. "Yes," she said faintly, "but not much. Will you tell him to drive first to Mile End Road?" "I have told him. Can I do anything to stop the bleeding?" He looked at her in despair. The handkerchief, and the delicate hand itself that she was holding to her brow, were dabbled in blood. "Have you a silk handkerchief to spare?" she asked him, smiling slightly and suddenly through her pallor, as though at their common predicament. By good fortune he had one. She took off her hat, and gave him a few business-like directions. His fingers trembled as he tried to obey her; but he had the practical sense that the small vicissitudes and hardships of travel often develop in a man, and between them they adjusted a rough but tolerable bandage. Then she leant against the side of the cab, and he thought she would have swooned. There was a pause, during which he watched the quivering lines of the lips and nostrils and the pallor of the cheeks with a feeling of dismay. But she did not mean to faint, and little by little her will answered to her call upon it. Presently she said, with eyes shut and brow contracted: "I _trust_ the others are safe. Oh! what a failure--what a failure! I am afraid I have done Aldous harm!"