One stormy winter night, as Richard was returning from a house in Park Crescent, to which he had carried home a valuable book restored to strength and some degree of aged beauty, from one of the narrow openings on the east side of Regent Street, came a girl, fighting with the wind and a weak-ribbed umbrella, and ran buffeted against him, notwithstanding his endeavour to leave her room. The collision was very slight, but she looked up and begged his pardon. It was Alice. Before he could speak, she gave a cry, and went from him in blind haste as fast as she could go; but with the fierce wind, her perturbation, and the unruliness of the umbrella, which she was vainly trying to close that she might run the better, she struck full against a lamp-post, and stood like one stunned and on the point of falling. Richard, however, was close behind her, and put an arm round her. She did not resist; she was indeed but half-conscious. The same moment he saw a cab and hailed it. The man heard and came. Richard lifted her into it, and got in after her. But Alice came to herself, got up, and leaning out of the cab on the street side, tried to open the door. Richard caught her, drew her back, and made her sit down again. “Richard! Richard!” she cried, as she yielded to his superior strength, and burst into tears, “where are you taking me?” “Wherever you like, Alice. You shall tell the cabman yourself. What is the matter with you? Don't be angry with me. It is not my fault that I have not been to see you and Arthur. You went away, and nobody could tell me where to find you! Give the cabman your address, Alice.” “I'm not going home,” sobbed Alice. “Where are you going, then? I will go with you. You're not fit to go anywhere alone! I'm afraid you're badly hurt!” “No, no! Do let me out. Indeed, indeed, you must!” “Well, then, I won't! You'll drop down and be left to the police! It's horrible to think of you out in such a night! Come home with me. If you are in any trouble, my mother will help you.” Here Alice, who had yielded to the pressure with which Richard held her, broke from him, and pushed him away. Richard put his other arm across, and laid hold of the door of the cab, telling the man to get up on his box, and have a little patience. He obeyed, and Richard turned again to Alice. “Richard,” she said, “your mother would kill me!” “Nonsense!” he rejoined; “what a fancy! My mother!” “I've seen her since you went. She made me promise--” But there Alice stopped, and Richard could get from her nothing but entreaties to be let out. “If you don't,” she said at last, growing desperate, “I will scream.” “Let me take you at least, then, a little nearer where you want to go,” pleaded Richard. “No! no I set me down.” “Tell me where you live.” “I daren't.”