The engine was throbbing. She looked back. George was supporting himself by clinging to one of the awning rods. His legs seemed to be crumbling beneath his weight. Her heart smote her. He had no overcoat. It was a bare hand that gripped the iron rod and a bare hand that was held out toward her. Thank heaven, he had stopped there! He was not coming on.
"Lutie! Oh, Lutie!" came almost in a wail from his lips. Then he began to cry out something incoherent, maudlin, unintelligible.
"Never mind him," said the driver reassuringly. "Just a souse. Wants to make a touch, madam. Streets are full of 'em these cold nights. He won't bone you while I'm here. Where to?" He was holding the door open.
Lutie hesitated. Long afterwards she recalled the strange impulse that came so near to sending her back to the side of the man who cried out to her from the depths of a bottomless pit. Something whispered from her heart that now was her time,—now! And then came the loud cry from her brain, drowning the timid voice of the merciful: "Wait! Wait! Not now! To-morrow!"
And while she stood there, uncertain, held inactive by the two warring emotions, George turned and staggered away, reeling, and crying out in a queer, raucous voice.
"They'll get him," said the driver.
"Who will get him?" cried Lutie, shrilly.
"The police. He—"
"No! No! It must not be that. That's not what I want,—do you hear, driver? Not that. He must not be locked up—Oh!" George had collapsed. His knees went from under him and he was half-prostrate on the curb. "Oh! He has fallen! He has hurt himself! Go and see, driver. Go at once." She forgot the sleet and the wind, and stood there wide-eyed and terrified while the man shuffled forward to investigate. She hated him for stirring the fallen man with his foot, and she hated him when he shook him violently with his hands.
"I better call a cop," said the man. "He's pretty full. He'll freeze if—I know how it is, ma'am. I used to hit it up a bit myself. I—"