There was another rush and a yell, and Vida fled. When next she turned to look, it was to see two women making a sudden dash for liberty. They had escaped through the rowdy ranks, and they tore across the street, running for their lives and calling for help as they ran. Vida, a shade or two paler, stood transfixed. What was going to happen? But there was the imperturbable Ernestine holding the forsaken position, still the centre of the pushing, shouting little mob who had jeered frantically as the other women fled. It was too much. Not Ernestine's isolation alone, the something childish in the brilliant face would have enlisted a less sympathetic observer. A single moment's wavering and the lady made for the place where the besiegers massed less thick. She was near enough now to call out over the rowdies' heads-- 'Come. Why do you stay there?' Faces turned to look at her; while Ernestine shouted back the cryptic sentence-- 'It wasn't my bus!' _Bus?_ Had danger robbed her of her reason? The boys were cheering now and looking past Miss Levering: she turned, bewildered, to see 'Mrs. Brown' and a sister reformer mounting the top of a sober London Road car. They had been running for that, then--and not for life! Miss Levering raised her hand and her voice as she looked back at Ernestine-- 'I've got a trap. Come!' 'Where?' Ernestine stepped out from the vociferating, jostling crowd and followed the new face as simply as though she had been waiting for just that summons. The awful moment was when, with a shout, the tail of rowdies followed after. Miss Levering had not bargained for that. Her agitated glance left the unsavoury horde at her heels and went nervously up and down the street. It was plainly not only, nor even chiefly, the hooligans she feared, but the amazed eye of some acquaintance. Bad enough to meet Henderson's! 'Jump in!' she said hastily to the girl, and then, 'Go on!' she called out desperately, flying in after Ernestine and slamming the door. 'Drive _fast_!' She thrust her head through the window to add, '_Anywhere!_' And she sank back. 'How dreadful that was!' 'What was?' said the rescued one, glancing out of the carriage with an air of suddenly renewed interest. 'Why, the attack of those hooligans on a handful of defenceless women.' 'Oh, they weren't attacking us.' 'What were they doing?' 'Oh, just running after us and screaming a little.' 'But I _saw_ them--pushing and jostling and----' 'Oh, it was all quite good-natured.' 'You mean you weren't frightened?' 'There's nothing to be frightened at.' She was actually saying it in a soothing, 'motherly' sort of way, calculated to steady the lady's nerves--reassuring the rescuer. Vida's eye fell on the festoon of braid falling from the dark cloth skirt. 'Well, the polite attentions of your friends seem to have rather damaged your gown.' Over a big leather portfolio that she held clasped in her arms, Ernestine, too, looked down at the torn frock.