out--let's see--lively now! I'll feed for the rest of this week--Gawd,
yuss!"

She made no reply, no attempt to obey him, no movement of any sort. Fear
had absolutely stricken every atom of strength from her. She could do
nothing but look at him with big, frightened eyes, and shake.

"Look 'ere, aren't you a-goin' to do it quiet, or are you a-goin' to mike
me tike the blessed thing from you?" he asked.

"I'll do it if you put me to it--my hat! yuss! It aren't my gime--I'm
wot you might call a hammer-chewer at it, but when there's summink
inside you, wot tears and tears and tears, any gime's worth tryin' that
pulls out the claws of it."

She did not move even yet. He flung the spent match from him, and made a
sharp step toward her, and he had just reached out his hand to lay hold
of her, when another hand--strong, sinewy, hard-shutting as an iron
clamp--reached out from the mist, and laid hold of him; plucking him by
the neckband and intruding a bunch of knuckles and shut fingers between
that and his up-slanted chin.

"Now, then, drop that little game at once, you young monkey!" struck in
the sharp staccato of a semi-excited voice. "Interfering with young
ladies, eh? Let's have a look at you. Don't be afraid, Miss
Lorne--nobody's going to hurt you."

Then a pocket torch spat out a sudden ray of light; and by it both the
half-throttled boy and the wholly frightened girl could see the man who
had thus intruded himself upon their notice.