"Miss Wesden, only allow me to explain, and I will go my way and never see you more. I will vanish away in the darkness, and let all the bright hopes I have fostered float away on the current which bears you away from me."
"Go, pray do go, if you are a gentleman. I must appeal to some one for protection, if you——"
"Miss Wesden, you must hear me—you shall hear me. I am not a child; I am——"
"A scoundrel, evidently," said a harsh voice in his ears, and the instant afterwards Sidney Hinchford, with two fiery eyes behind his spectacles, stood between him and the girl he was persecuting. Harriet, with a little cry of joy, clung to the arm of her deliverer; the prowler looked perplexed, then put the best face upon the matter that he could extemporize for the occasion.
"Who are you, sir?" was the truly English expletive.
"My name is Hinchford—my address is at your service, if you wish it. Now, sir, your name—and business?"
"I decline to give it."
"You have insulted this lady, a friend of mine. Apologize," cried young Hinchford, in much such a tone as an irritable officer summons his company to shoulder arms.
"Sir, your tone is not calculated to induce me to oblige you. If Miss Wesden thinks that I——"
"Apologize!" shouted Hinchford, a second time. He had forgotten the respect due to his charge, and shaken her hand from his arm; he was making a little scene in the street, and convulsing Harriet with fright; he was face to face with the prowler, his tall, well-knit form, evidently a match for his antagonist; he was chivalrous, and scarcely twenty years of age; above all, he was in a towering passion, and verged a little on the burlesque, as passionate people generally do.