'I said you'd have a helmet on,' she said, with a hysterical little laugh.
His hand went back to his wife's.
'Is there no way of getting out of this rabble?' she said.
'You might be crushed to death. There's nothing for it now, but to sit still till it is over.'
'Why—why weren't you on the wharf?'
'I was—of course I was—I saw you both plainly just as they put the gangway down. But there was an accident: a little child near me was knocked down by a luggage truck, badly hurt, at the moment: there seemed no one else to give the mother a hand. By the time I'd got him up and into a cab and found a fellow willing to go with her to a doctor's, you had gone. They told me the carriage had come up Bridge Street. I have been fighting my way and looking for you ever since.'
'The children?' said the mother.
'All well, quite well; I couldn't bring them.'
'No. Oh, to get out of this hateful crowd!'
'Here they come,' Challis said; 'no, they are only policemen.'