At that moment another sound than laughter cut the air—­a terrible sound—­the shriek of a tortured child.  It rang out three times in quick succession, and Kate’s blood curdled.

“Oh, oh,” she gasped; “she’s being beaten!  Come, Ray.”

“Mix up in some family mess and get slugged for my pains?  Not I!  But I’ll call a policeman if you say.”

“Oh, it might be too late!  I’m a policeman, you know.  Get the patrol wagon if you like.  But I can’t stand that—­”

Once more that agonized scream!  Kate flashed from him into the mesh of mean homes, standing three deep in each yard, flanking each other with only a narrow passage between, and was lost to him.  He couldn’t see where she had gone, but he knew that he must follow.  He fell down a short flight of steps that led from the street to the lower level of the yard, and groped forward.  He could hear people running, and when a large woman, draping her wrapper about her, floundered out of a basement door near him, he followed her.  She seemed to know where to go.  The squalid drama with the same actors evidently had been played before.

Mid-length of the building the woman turned up some stairs and came to a long hall which divided the front and rear stairs.  At the end of it a light was burning, and Kate’s voice was ringing out like that of an officer excoriating his delinquent troops.

“I’m glad you can’t speak English,” he heard her say, “for if you could I’d say things I’d be sorry for.  I’d shrivel you up, you great brute.  If you’ve got the devil in you, can’t you take it out on some one else beside a little child?  You’re her father, are you?  She has no mother, I suppose.  Well, you ’re under arrest, do you understand?  Tell him, some of you who can talk English.  He’s to sit in that chair and never move from it till the patrol wagon comes.  I shall care for the child myself, and she’ll be placed where he can’t treat her like that again.  Poor little thing!  Thank you, that’s a good woman.  Just hold her awhile and comfort her.  I can see you’ve children of your own.”

Ray found the courage at length to peer above the heads of the others in that miserable, crowded room.  The dark faces of weary men and women, heavy with Old-World, inherited woe, showed in the gloom.  The short, shaking man on the chair, dully contrite for his spasm of rage, was cringing before Kate, who stood there, amazingly tall among these low-statured beings.  Never had she looked to Ray so like an eagle, so keen, so fierce, so fit for braving either sun or tenebrous cavern.  She dominated them all; had them, who only partly understood what she said, at her command.  She had thrown back her cloak, and the star of the Juvenile Court officer which she wore carried meaning to them.  Though perhaps it had not needed that.  Ray tried to think her theatrical, to be angry at her, but the chagrin of knowing that she had forgotten him, and was not caring about his opinion, scourged his criticisms back.