Wearily, at last, his problem unsolved, he got up and turned out the lights. As he was locking the door his attention was arrested by two figures standing between himself and the street light at the end of the alley. It was a man and a woman, and the woman seemed to be clinging to the man and pleading with him.
Such sights were not uncommon in the alley; some poor woman often thus appealed to all that used to be good in the man she married, to make him stay away from the saloon, or to give her a little of his money to buy food for the children.
More than once in such instances Michael had been able successfully to add his influence to the wife’s and get the man to go quietly home.
He put the key hastily in his pocket and hurried toward the two.
“You shan’t! You shan’t! You shan’t never go back to her!” he heard the woman cry fiercely. “You promised me—”
“Shut up, will you? I don’t care what I promised—” said the man in a guarded voice that Michael felt sure he had heard before.
“I shan’t shut up! I’ll holler ef you go, so the police’ll come. You’ve got a right to stay with me. You shan’t do me no wrong ner you shan’t go back to that stuck-up piece. You’re mine, I say, and you promised—!”
With a curse the man struck her a cruel blow across the mouth, and tried to tear her clinging hands away from his coat, but they only clung the more fiercely.
Michael sprang to the woman’s side like a panther.
“Look out!” he said in clear tones. “You can’t strike a woman!” His voice was low and calm, and sounded as it used to sound on the ball field when he was giving directions to his team at some crisis in the game.