"Your ca.s.sock is all dust!" she cried hysterically. "Oh, come away!"
The absurdity of the words made him burst into nervous laughter; yet he saw that the drunken man was coming, and he instinctively put her behind him and took some sort of a posture of defense.
"Save yourself," he cried hastily. "He"s killed the woman."
All this pa.s.sed with the quickness of thought. There seemed to Philip hardly the time of a breath between the opening of the door and the blow which now fell upon the side of his face. Fortunately he partly evaded it, but he reeled and staggered, feeling the earth shake and the air full of stinging points of fire. He saw the figure of his a.s.sailant towering between him and the light; he had a glimpse of Mrs. Fenton rushing to the window to call again for help; he realized with a horrible shrinking that that hammer-like fist was again striking out for his face; he was conscious of a sickening impulse to run, a humiliating and overwhelming sense of his inability to cope with this brute and of even his ignorance how to try; yet most of all he felt the determination to defend Edith or to die in the attempt. In a wild and futile fashion he dashed against his a.s.sailant, striking blindly and furiously, crying with rage and weakness, but throwing all his force into the fight. He felt crushing blows on his head and chest. Once he was struck on the side of the throat so that he gasped for breath with the sensation that he was drowning. Now and then he felt his own fist strike flesh, and the sensation was to him horrible. He fought blindly, doggedly, inwardly weeping for the shame and the pity of it, wondering if there would never be any end, and what would happen to Mrs. Fenton if he were beaten helpless. Surely if aid were coming it must have arrived long ago. He had been fighting for hours. He kept striking on, but he felt his strength failing, and he could have laughed wildly at the pitiful feebleness of his blows. He was knocked down, and scrambled up again, amazed that he was not killed or disabled. His one hope lay in the fact that the man was evidently much the worse for drink, and often struck as blindly as himself. If he could but occupy the brute"s attention until help came, Mrs. Fenton would be saved.
Suddenly he was aware that the roaring in his ears was not all from the ringing in his head, but that heavy steps were sounding from the stairway. In a moment more screaming women were swarming in, and the din become intolerable as they scuttled about him, calling out to his opponent to stop and not to do murder. Men followed, and a couple of policemen came in their wake. Ashe saw through heavy eyelids the shine of bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, and felt that the wearers of the uniforms to which these belonged had seized upon his a.s.sailant. He staggered against the wall, sick, faint, and dizzy. The two policemen were having a severe struggle to subdue their prisoner, and it seemed to Philip that all the inhabitants of the neighborhood were crowding in at the narrow door.
The wife lay where she had been dashed to the floor, and Mrs. Fenton bent over her.
"Oh, Mr. Ashe," the latter said, coming to him, "you must be terribly hurt! I think Mrs. Murphy"s killed."
He tried to smile, but his face was swollen and unmanageable.
"It"s no matter about me," he managed with difficulty to say, "if you are not hurt."
The realities of life came back. The whirling rush of the swift moments of the fight seemed already far off. The crowd examined him with frank curiosity, commenting on him as "the dude that"s been sc.r.a.ppin" with Mike Murphy." He saw some of the women busy over the prostrate form of Mrs. Murphy, lifting her from the floor to the bed.
"Well, Mike," one of the policemen said, "I guess this job"ll be your last. You"ve done it this time."
The prisoner seemed to have become sober all at once, now that he was in the hands of the law. He went over to the bed, between his captors, and examined the injured woman with the air of one accustomed to such occurrences.
"Oh, the old woman"ll pull round all right," he growled. "She ain"t no flannel-mouth charity chump."
Without a word Ashe put his hand upon the arm of Mrs. Fenton, and led her toward the door. The insult cut him more than all that had gone before. What had pa.s.sed belonged to a drunken and irrational mood. This taunt came evidently from deliberate contempt and ingrat.i.tude. Philip had a bewildered sense of being outside of all conditions which he could understand. This shameless effrontery and brutality seemed to him rather the distorted fantasy of an evil dream than anything which could be real. His one thought now was to get his companion away before she was exposed to fresh insult.
They were detained a little by the police; but after giving their addresses were allowed to go. Ashe felt shaky and exhausted, but the hand of Mrs. Fenton was on his arm, and the need of sustaining her gave him strength. They got with some difficulty through the crowd and out of the court, and after walking a block or two were fortunate enough to find a carriage.
"Mr. Ashe," Mrs. Fenton said, as they drove up Hanover Street, "I"m afraid you"re terribly hurt; and it is all my fault."
"No, no," he replied with swollen lips. "The fault was mine. I shouldn"t have let you go into that place."
"But you did try to stop me; only I was obstinate. Oh, I don"t know how to thank you for coming as you did."
"But what happened before I came?"
Mrs. Fenton shuddered.
"Oh, I don"t think I know very clearly. That great drunken man came in, and asked me for money. Of course I didn"t give it to him; and his wife tried to get him to let me go. Then he struck her on the mouth!"
"The brute!" Ashe involuntarily cried, clenching his bruised fists.
"Then he caught me by the waist, and I screamed; and in another minute I heard you at the door."
"But it was the woman that called the police."
"Yes; and when she did that I was fearfully frightened. I knew that if she called the police against her own husband she must think that he"d really hurt me."
Philip leaned back in the carriage, dizzy with the overwhelming sense of the peril that had beset her,--her! Then, mastered by an overpowering impulse, he threw himself forward and caught her hands, covering them with kisses.
"Oh, my darling!" he gasped. "Oh, thank G.o.d you are safe!"
She dragged her hands away from him, and shrank back.
"Mr. Ashe!" she cried. "What is the matter with you? What are you doing?"
He did not attempt to retain his hold, but drew himself back into the darkness of his corner of the carriage. A strange calmness followed his outbreak; a sort of joyous uplifting which made him master of himself completely.
"I am sinning," he answered with a riotous sense of delight. "I am laying up remorse for all my future. I am telling you I love you; that I love you: I love you! I love you and I have saved you; and I shall brood over that, and do penance, and brood over it again, and do penance again, all my life long!"
"Oh, you are confused, excited, hurt," she cried. "You don"t know what you are saying!"
"I know only too well what I am saying. I am saying that I"--
"Oh, for pity"s sake, don"t!" she moaned, putting out her hand.
He caught her wrist, and again kissed her hand pa.s.sionately.
"Yes, I know that I ought not to say this now when you have had to bear so much already; that I ought never to say it; but it is said! It is said! You"ll forget it, but I shall remember it all my life. I shall remember that you heard me say that I love you!"
He threw himself back into his corner, and she shrank into hers, while the carriage went rattling over the pavement. Aching and sore, Philip yet knew a wild exhilaration, a certain divine madness which was so intense a delight that it almost made him weep. It was like a religious ecstasy, recalling to his mind moments in which he had seemed to be lifted almost to trance-like communion with holy spirits.
"I ought to ask you to forgive me, Mrs. Fenton," he said as they drew near her house, "but I cannot. I did not mean to do this; but I can"t regret it. I am sorry for you; I am sorry--I shall be sorry, that is--for the sin of it; but the sin is sweet."
He wondered at his own voice, so even yet so high in pitch.
"Oh, what shall I do?" Mrs. Fenton cried sobbingly. "Is it my fault that this happened?"
"Oh, nothing can be your fault. It is all mine! But you must love me, I love you so!"
"No, no," she exclaimed vehemently. "I don"t love you! I cannot love you! For pity"s sake don"t say such things!"
She buried her face in her hands and burst into sobs. Philip set his lips together, smiling bitterly at the pain it gave him. He controlled his voice as well as he was able.
"I beg you will forgive me," said he. "I have been out of my head.
Forget my impertinence, and"--
He could not finish, but the stopping of the carriage at her door saved him the need of farther effort.
He a.s.sisted her to alight, rang the bell, and said goodnight in a voice which he was sure did not betray him to the coachman.
XIX
"TWAS WONDROUS PITIFUL Oth.e.l.lo, i. 3.