At the same instant a thick-lipped man with cruel eyes crushed through the people to where the girl stood, and, taking her roughly by the shoulder, pushed her away.
“Hand thy gab,” he said, between clinched teeth; “what's thy business singing hymns in t'streets? Get along home to bed; that's more in thy style, I reckon.”
The girl was stealing away covered with shame, when Ralph parted the people that divided him from the man, and, coming in front of him, laid one hand on his throat. Gasping for breath, the fellow would have struggled to free himself, but Ralph held him like a vise.
“This is not the first time we have met; take care it shall be the last.”
So saying, Ralph flung the man from him, and he fell like an infant at his feet.
Gathering himself up with a look compounded equally of surprise and hatred, the man said, “Nay, nay; do you think it'll be the last? don't you fear it!”
Then he slunk out of the crowd, and it was observed that when he had gained the opposite side of the street, the little, pale-faced elderly person who had been known as Ralph's Shadow, had joined him.
“Is it our man?”
“The same, for sure.”