He grasped Elsie firmly by the arm and dragged her after him. Onoria saw the action, and said “Elsie!” out loud in the Cathedral over the six girls’ heads. Several people turned round. Elsie stiffened into instant obedience, but Peter’s clutch of manly terror was greater than Elsie’s power of womanly resistance. He had her out of the Cathedral and half way to the Railway Station before she could turn round. Onoria could not run after them. She had her dignity to preserve, and the six girls to return intact. Peter and Elsie had nothing to think of but their personal safety. They preserved this by the skin of their teeth, and by getting, without tickets, into a train destined for London. They sat gasping and staring wild-eyed at each other, incapable of further speech even if they had dared to give utterance to what was in their hearts, in the presence of a clergyman, a market gardener, and two elderly ladies who looked at them as if they thought that people in such a hurry must have done something wrong. When Elsie had got her breath again, she began to cry in gulps, as if she were swallowing tabloids without water. Peter stared desperately out of the window. He was trying to make up his mind to the idea of never going back to his home, and he was remembering Samson and the sweet peas. Oh, how wise cats were! Samson was never involved in any social contacts beyond the point of a torn ear! How gladly Mr. Gubbins would have let his ear be torn (in moderation) to escape from the weeping heap of femininity opposite to him! What nonsense it was for a man to be expected to defend women, when they were always either the danger itself—like Onoria—or could melt out of it into a mist of tears—like Elsie? Every one in the railway carriage was sorry for Elsie. No one was sorry for Mr. Gubbins. Indeed, the clergyman was beginning to be highly suspicious of him. He was not at all sure that he was not, for the first time in his well-chosen career, confronted by a Social Evil. Several of our most prominent daily newspapers, during the early autumn before the opening of Parliament, had taken up the subject of the White Slave Traffic. Mr. Gubbins looked ferocious, Elsie sobbed on. The clergyman leaned forward and said tentatively, as it was surely his duty to do, “I am afraid this young lady is somewhat distressed?” Peter Gubbins rose to the occasion; a flash of inspiration shot through him. “She’s just had a tooth out,” he explained with unswerving duplicity. Elsie stopped crying. She could not believe that Peter Gubbins had told a lie like that at a moment’s notice. With the natural depravity of women, she had never admired him so much before. She gave a watery smile of affirmation. The market gardener said sympathetically: “Shock to the nerves, that’s what it is! I had an aunt once that had a tooth out, she never got over it. Had hysterics she had, one after the other, and died that day fortnight.”