Truth to tell, the whole adventure had a savour of Miss Bohanna’s circulating library about it, and she felt herself elevated into a heroine by the occurrence. But her appearance before Madame Broadbent in the morning would be very real and unromantic, that lady resenting nothing so much as disrespect. “You see, Jabez, I did not even make a curtsey to her as we came away. I am afraid she will be displeased.” “If you think so, Miss Ashton,” he replied, respectfully, “I will hasten back as soon as I have seen you safely home, and bear your apologies to Madame Broadbent. She may not have left the theatre. Besides, I feel that I also owe an apology for leaving a lady of her age unprotected in the midst of such a scene. It was very remiss on my part,” he added; “but, indeed, at the time I thought only of placing you beyond reach of further insult;” and Augusta could hear him mutter between his teeth, “The impertinent puppy!” The distance even from Fountain Street was very inconsiderable, and they had reached the broad steps of the door in Mosley Street, and his hand was on the lion-headed knocker when this ejaculation escaped him. Service from Jabez was so much a matter of course that Augusta regarded his care for herself, and his proffer to run back at her bidding, only in the light of apprentice-duty; but that muttered exclamation spoke of smothered passion; and before James was roused from his doze in front of the far-away kitchen fire by that peal on the knocker, and sleepily opened the door, she had added a caution as an addendum to her message to Madame Broadbent. “I hope, Jabez, you are not going back to—to interfere or quarrel with Mr. Walmsley and the other officer. If they are not quite sober, you must remember _they are gentlemen_.” “I will forget nothing I should remember, Miss Ashton,” said he, as James unclosed the door for her entrance, and he darted off, the emphasis she had laid on her closing words having stung him keenly with a sense of his social inferiority in her sight. “She evidently thinks the apprentice College-boy has no right to raise his hand against gentility in uniform, however drunk or disorderly it may be,” he thought, as he ran along, spurred by a manly desire to show that it was not cowardice which had caused him to leave his prostrate enemy in the hands of a deputy. He was not three minutes more in reaching the box-entrance in Back Mosley Street; but for all that, the short walk home, and the brief delay caused by sleepy-headed James, had given ample time to empty and close the theatre, from which more than half the audience had dispersed before they left. Even the oil lamps over the doors were extinguished; and though a few stragglers loitered about—the natural hangers-on to histrionic skirts—and there were brawlers in the neighbourhood, he saw none of those he went to seek.