Suddenly a noise arose on the floor above him. A man's voice, thick with anger or drink, was pouring out a stream of words, half oaths; a woman was shrilly entreating. Ashe sprang quickly upstairs, and as he did so he heard Mrs. Fenton scream. The sound was behind a door, and without stopping to deliberate he tried to open it. The latch yielded, but he could not open.
"Let me in!" he cried fiercely. "What is the matter?"
The voice of a man who was evidently against the door answered him with blasphemies. A woman within cried to the man to stop, while Mrs. Fenton called to Ashe for help. Philip set his shoulder against the door and strained with all his might to force it. He remembered then what Mrs. Fenton had said about the strength of the husband of her pensioner.
"Go to the window, and call the police," he shouted.
"He's holding me!" Mrs. Fenton cried back pantingly.
Philip strained more desperately, and as he did so he heard the window within flung open, and the voice of a woman yelling for the police. The man inside sprang forward with an oath, the door yielded, and Philip plunged headlong into the room.
As Philip fell upon his knees, he saw a man seize the woman who from the window was calling for help, and fling her to the floor. The sound of her fall, with her wild shriek beaten into a choking gasp by the force with which she struck, turned his heart sick; but his fear for Mrs. Fenton kept him up. He scrambled to his feet, and as he did so she ran toward him.
"Your cassock is all dust!" she cried hysterically. "Oh, come away!"
The absurdity of the words made him burst into nervous laughter; yet he saw that the drunken man was coming, and he instinctively put her behind him and took some sort of a posture of defense.
"Save yourself," he cried hastily. "He's killed the woman."