sight of the little stream of blood which trickled from her temple turned him sick with rage.
"You devils!" he raved, "do you see what you have done?"
But the play was over. Before he had finished his outcry there was a shout of "th' coppers! th' coppers!" and a rush and skurry and tumble of undignified retreat. The police force with a band of anti-strikers behind them had appeared upon the scene in the full glory of the uniform of the corporation, and such was the result of habit and the majesty of the law that those who were not taken into custody incontinently took to their heels and scattered in every direction, uttering curses loud and deep, since they were not yet prepared to resist an attack more formally.
In half an hour the trampled grass and flower-beds and broken shrubs were the only signs of the tumult. Mr. Ffrench was walking up and down the dreary room in as nervous a condition as ever.
"Good heavens, Rachel! " he said. "You must have been mad—mad."
She had persistently refused to lie down and sat in an easy-chair, looking rather colorless and languid. When they were left alone, Murdoch came and stood near her. He was paler than she, and haggard and worn. Before she knew what he was about to do he fell upon his knees, and covered her hands with kisses.
"If any harm had come to you," he cried—"if any harm had come to you"
She tried to drag her hands away with an angry face, but he clung to them. And then quite suddenly all her resistance ceased and her eyes fixed themselves upon him as if with a kind of dread.
