fell to my side; but, as I staggered back, the brute in the hansom plunged yet more violently than before. There was an alarmed cry, a swaying motion, and the cab turned over slowly, like a foundering ship. I could not control myself. I sprang forward, and lifting the woman from the cab placed her on the pavement. There was a bit of a cheer, and before I knew it she thrust her purse into my hand. "Take this, man, and----" I waited to hear no more; a sudden frightened look came into her eyes, and I turned and fled up Piccadilly. Some fool cried "Stop thief!" Some other one took up the cry. In a moment every one was running. I ran with the crowd, my hand still clenched tightly on the purse, which seemed to burn into it. It was too well dressed a crowd to run far. Opposite Hatchett's it tired, and public attention was engaged by an altercation, which ended in a fight, between a bicyclist and a policeman. I had sense enough left to pull up and slacken my pace to a fast walk. I went straight on. It did not matter to me where I went. If I had the pluck I should have killed myself long ago. It takes a lot of pluck to kill one's self. Five years had gone since Mary passed out of my life. Five years! It was six years ago that I, Richard Manning of the Bengal Cavalry, had cut for hearts, and turned up--the deuce! What right had I to blame her? Whose fault was it? I asked this question aloud to myself, and a wretch selling matches answered: "Most your hown, guv'nor: buy a box o' matches to warm yer bones with a smoke--honly a penny!" I looked up with a start. I was opposite the Naval and Military. Once I belonged there. The very thought made me mad again, and I cursed aloud in the bitterness of my heart. "Drunk as a fly," remarked the match-seller to the public at large, indicating me with a handful of matchboxes. Opposite Apsley House I was alone. All the big crowd on the pavement had died away, only the street seemed full of flashing lights.