"Hev him out, lads! Quick, we have him now." There was a rush, and Hallam was torn from Millicent's grasp--from Christie Bayle's protecting arms, and with a yell the crowd rushed out into the street, lit now by the glow from the smashed hall windows and the fire that burned within. "My husband! Christie--dear friend--help, oh, help!" wailed Millicent, as she tottered out to the front, in time to see Bayle literally leap to Hallam's side and again strike the leader down. It was the last effort of his strength; and now a score of hands were tearing and striking at the wretched victim, when there was the clattering of horses' hoofs and a mounted man rode right into the crowd with half-a-dozen followers at his side. "Stop!" he roared. "I am a magistrate. Constables: your duty." The mob fell back, and as five men, with whom was Thickens, seized upon Hallam, Millicent tottered into the circle and sank at her husband's knees. "Saved!" she sobbed, "saved!" For the first time Hallam found his voice, and cried, as he tried to shake himself free: "This--this is a mistake--constables. Loose me. These men--" "It is no mistake, Mr Hallam, you are arrested for embezzlement," said the mounted man sternly. "Three cheers for Sir Gordon Bourne and Dixons'," shouted one in the crowd. Christie Bayle had just time to catch Millicent Hallam in his arms as her senses left her, and with a piteous moan she sank back utterly stunned. VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER FOURTEEN. WRITHING IN HER AGONY. "Mother!--father! Oh, in heaven's name, speak to me! I cannot bear it. My heart is broken. What shall I do?" "My poor darling!" sobbed Mrs Luttrell, holding her child to her breast and rocking to and fro, while the doctor sat with wrinkled face nursing and caressing Julia, who clung to him in a scared fashion, not having yet got over the terrors of the past night. She had her arms about her grandfather, and nestled in his breast, but every now and then she started up to gaze piteously in his face. "Would my dolls all be burnt, grandpa?" "Oh, I hope not, my pet," he said soothingly; "but never mind if they are: grandpa will buy you some better ones." "But I liked those, grandpa, and--and is my little bed burnt too?" "No, my pet; I think not. I hope not. They put the fire out before it did a great deal of harm." The child laid her head down again for a few moments, and then looked up anxiously. "Thibs says the bad men tore the place all to pieces last night and broke all the furniture and looking-glasses. Oh! grandpa, I--I--I--" Suffering still from the nervous shock of the nocturnal alarm, the poor child's breast heaved, and she burst into a pitiful fit of sobbing, which was some time before it subsided. "Don't think about it all, my pet," said the doctor, tenderly stroking the soft little head. "Never mind about the old house, you shall come and live here with grandpa, and we'll have such games in the old garden again."