They were detained a little by the police; but after giving their addresses were allowed to go. Ashe felt shaky and exhausted, but the hand of Mrs. Fenton was on his arm, and the need of sustaining her gave him strength. They got with some difficulty through the crowd and out of the court, and after walking a block or two were fortunate enough to find a carriage.
"Mr. Ashe," Mrs. Fenton said, as they drove up Hanover Street, "I'm afraid you're terribly hurt; and it is all my fault."
"No, no," he replied with swollen lips. "The fault was mine. I shouldn't have let you go into that place."
"But you did try to stop me; only I was obstinate. Oh, I don't know how to thank you for coming as you did."
"Oh, I don't think I know very clearly. That great drunken man came in, and asked me for money. Of course I didn't give it to him; and his wife tried to get him to let me go. Then he struck her on the mouth!"
"The brute!" Ashe involuntarily cried, clenching his bruised fists.
"Then he caught me by the waist, and I screamed; and in another minute I heard you at the door."
"But it was the woman that called the police."
"Yes; and when she did that I was fearfully frightened. I knew that if she called the police against her own husband she must think that he'd really hurt me."
Philip leaned back in the carriage, dizzy with the overwhelming sense of the peril that had beset her,--her! Then, mastered by an overpowering impulse, he threw himself forward and caught her hands, covering them with kisses.
"Oh, my darling!" he gasped. "Oh, thank God you are safe!"
She dragged her hands away from him, and shrank back.
"Mr. Ashe!" she cried. "What is the matter with you? What are you doing?"
He did not attempt to retain his hold, but drew himself back into the darkness of his corner of the carriage. A strange calmness followed his outbreak; a sort of joyous uplifting which made him master of himself completely.
"I am sinning," he answered with a riotous sense of delight. "I am laying up remorse for all my future. I am telling you I love you; that I love you: I love you! I love you and I have saved you; and I shall brood over that, and do penance, and brood over it again, and do penance again, all my life long!"