He took her by the arm, and a trifle unsteadily, she scrambled to her feet.
"How do you feel?" he asked with some anxiety. "I was horribly afraid he'd hit you on the head."
"So he did," was the answer, "but luckily for me I've got a good deal of protection."
She lifted off the small velvet hat that she was wearing and rather tenderly patted the thick coils of dark red hair which gleamed like copper in the fading November sunlight. "The queer thing is," she added, "that it hasn't even given me a headache."
"I wish I'd known you were all right," said Colin ruefully. "I'd have gone after the brute and wrung his neck."
"You didn't do so badly as it was, mister," observed a voice at his elbow, and, turning round sharply, he found himself face to face with the burly stranger, whom he had last seen scuffling on the pavement. Except for a slight trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth the latter looked none the worse for his adventures.
"I owe something both to you and to this young lady," he continued. "If you hadn't come along just when you did I'd probably have got my head kicked in."
"You needn't thank me," protested Colin. "There's nothing I enjoy better than a good scrap."
He glanced round the late field of battle with a certain amount of amused curiosity. Three fresh and energetic-looking policemen had already appeared. One of them was grasping the arm of the now handcuffed prisoner, a second knelt beside the body of his injured comrade, while the third, with that scant ceremony which distinguishes the Metropolitan force, was thrusting back a rapidly increasing throng of interested spectators.
"What's it all about?" asked Colin.