It was really but a second before he knew that his wife's fingers, strong and unflinching, were choking the beast from him. He heard him panting, then he heard the gurgle in the dog's throat; the teeth had to let go.
The terrier dropped to the ground, and was caught up by some masculine grasp and flung somewhere.
Lawrence blindly opened his arms and gathered his wife unto them. She lay trembling on his breast.
Some irrepressible in the crowd uttered a cheer for Mrs. Lawrence; the cheer was taken up, and every man there, save two, roared lustily in another "cheer for Mrs. Lawrence."
In the midst of it all, Lawrence, holding Prudence, heard her whisper, with her lips on his face:
"My dearest!"
In that instant his heart gave a glorious bound of ecstatic happiness.
Immediately she withdrew from his arms; somebody went off for a physician, for Lawrence's throat was torn and bleeding; somebody else offered an arm to him to assist him back to the hotel. There was a babel of talk and exclamation, and in the midst of it Meramble, still almost purple in the face, and still smiling, walked away.
When he was well clear of the crowd this gentleman paused and looked about him. Then he whistled a long-drawn-out note. A moment after this note had died on the air a black and white bull-terrier with red eyes, and with some drops of blood on his muzzle and chest, came at a slow sling trot from some place unseen and ranged at his master's heels. Then dog and man walked out of sight, and I think out of the pages of this chronicle.
Lawrence's lacerated throat kept him in his room for some days. He lay on a lounge and tried to listen to Prudence as she read or talked to him. She was very sweet and very lovely. Lawrence felt the old charm of her presence, her smile, and her voice; he thrilled as he recalled over and over again her voice, and her words, and her act when the dog was at his throat.