The man obeyed. The little crowd had halted. It looked as if the thief, or drunken woman, or what not, had been surrounded and overwhelmed. The end of the street abutted on Pimlico Pier. Two or three knots of people were still standing about, talking and looking up the street at the little crowd of shouting, gesticulating rowdies. A woman with a perambulator, making up her mind at just the wrong moment to cross the road, found herself almost under the feet of the Fox-Moore horses. The coachman pulled up sharply, and before he had driven on, the lady's eyes had fallen on an inscription in white chalk on the flagstone—
'VOTES FOR WOMEN.
'Meeting here to-night at a quarter to six.'
The occupant of the carriage turned her head sharply in the direction of the 'disturbance,' and then—
'After all, I must go up that street. Drive fast till you get near those people. Quick!'
'Up there, miss?'
'Yes, yes. Make haste!' For the crowd was moving on, and still no sign of a policeman.
By the time the brougham caught up with them, the little huddle of folk had nearly reached the top of the street. In the middle of the mêlée a familiar face. Ernestine Blunt!
'Oh, Henderson!'—Miss Levering put her head out of the window—'that girl! the young one! She's being mobbed.'
'Yes, miss.'
'But something must be done! Hail a policeman.'