By the electric light Arthur saw the pale terror of her face, as she tried to wrest her fingers from the ruffianly grasp. Without a second’s hesitation the husband leaped out through the other door, passed behind the carriage, lifted the man, taller and heavier than himself, by the nape of the neck, and laid him in the gutter.
“The fellow is drunk!” he remarked contemptuously to the policeman who hastened up, imagining that the gentleman had tripped and fallen. “It is lucky you are here to look after him.”
He handed his trembling wife into the carriage, swung himself in after her, and bade the coachman drive home.
Then—for as I have expressly affirmed, this man was heroic in naught save his love for wife and children—he put strong tender arms about the sinking woman, who clung to his neck, convulsed by sobs, as one snatched from destruction might hang upon the saving hand.
“There, my darling! It is all over! I ought to have taken better care of you. The old account is closed. We’ll begin another upon a clean page.”
He was only a bank cashier, you see, and familiar with no figures except such as he used every day.
THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION.
Before and since the day when a certain man—idling while Israel and Syria warred—drew a bow at a venture (the margin has it, “in his simplicity,”) that let a king’s life out, the air has vibrated to the twang of other bowstrings, and millions of barbs, as idly sent, have been dyed with life-blood.