"Come Miss!—" said the tall constable behind Winnington—"no use talking! There's a lot of fellows here that mean mischief. You go with this gentleman. He'll look after you."
"Not without my friend!" cried Delia, both hands behind her on the edge of the waggon—erect and defiant. "Gertrude!—" she raised her voice—"What do you wish to do?"
But amid the din, her appeal was not heard.
Gertrude Marvell however could be clearly seen on the other side of the waggon, with Paul Lathrop beside her, listening to the remonstrances and entreaties of Andrews, with a smile as cool, as though she were in the drawing-room of Maumsey Abbey, and the Captain were inviting her to trifle with a cup of tea.
"Take her along, Sir!" said the policeman, with a nod to Winnington.
"It's getting ugly." And as he spoke, a man jumped upon the waggon, a
Latchford doctor, an acquaintance of Winnington's, who said something
in his ear.
The next moment, a fragment of a bottle, flung from a distance, struck Winnington on the wrist. The blood rushed out, and Delia, suddenly white, looked from it to Winnington's face. The only notice he took of the incident was expressed in the instinctive action of rolling his handkerchief round it. But it stirred him to lay a grasp upon Delia's arm, which she could hardly have resisted. She did not, however, resist. She felt herself lifted down from the waggon, and hurried along, the police keeping back the crowd, into the open door of the hotel. Shouts of a populace half enraged, half amused, pursued her.
"Brutes—Cowards!" she gasped, between her teeth—then to
Winnington—"Where are you taking me? I have the car!"
"There's a motor belonging to a doctor ready at once in the yard of the hotel. Better let me take you home in it. Andrews, I assure you, will look after Miss Marvell!"
They passed through the brilliantly-lighted inn, where landlady, chambermaids, and waiters stood grinning in rows to see, and Winnington hurried his charge into the closed motor standing at the inn's back door.
"Take the street behind the hotel, and get out by the back of the town.
Be quick!" said Winnington to the chauffeur.