She never fully remembered afterwards how she came to realise that Nick—Nick himself—was there before her in the flesh, fighting like a demon, fighting as she had seen him fight once long ago when every nerve in her body had been strung to agonised repulsion.
She felt no repulsion now—no shrinking of any sort, only a wild anguish of fear for his sake that drove her like a mad creature down the intervening steps, that sent her flashing between him and his adversary, that inspired her to wrench away the smoking revolver from the murderous hand that gripped it.
She went through those awful moments as a woman possessed, blindly obeying the compelling force, goaded by sheer, primaeval instinct to protect her own. It was but a conflict of seconds, but while it lasted she was untrammelled by any doubts or hesitations. She was sublimely sure of herself. She was superbly unafraid.
When it was over, when men crowded round and dragged her enemy back, when the pressing need was past, her courage fell from her like a mantle. She sank down upon the steps, a trembling, hysterical woman, and began to cry.
Some one bent over her, some one whispered soothing words, some one drew the revolver out of her weak grasp. Looking up, she saw the old native beggar upon whom she had thought to bestow her charity.
"Oh, Nick!" she gasped. "Nick!" And there stopped in sudden misgiving. Was this grotesque figure indeed Nick? Could it be—this man who had sat at the Residency gates for weeks, this man to whom she had so often tossed an alms?
Her brain had begun to reel, but she clung to the central idea, as one in deep waters clinging to a spar.
"Speak to me!" she entreated. "Only speak to me!"
But before he could answer, Bobby Fraser pushed suddenly forward, bent over, lifted her. "You are not hurt, Miss Roscoe?" he questioned anxiously, deep concern on his kindly face. "The damned swine didn't touch you? There! Come back into the palace. You're the bravest girl I ever met."
He began to help her up the steps, but though she was spent and near to fainting she resisted him.