“An accident?”

“Yes, no, not exactly.  She has been knocked down and trampled on.”

“Who?  Let me come!  Can’t I help?  Could Rosamond?”

“No, no.  It is a poor woman, brutally treated.  No, I say, I’ll manage.  It is a dreadful scene, don’t.”

But there was something in his tone which impelled Rosamond to open the carriage door and spring out.

“Rose, I say it is no place for a lady.  I can’t answer for it to Julius.”

“I’ll do that.  Take me.”

There was no withstanding her, and, after all, Raymond’s tone betrayed that he was thankful for her help, and knew that there was no danger for her.

He had not many yards to lead her.  The regions of thoughtless gaiety were scarcely separated from the regions of undisguised evil, and Raymond, on his way back from his friend, had fallen on a horrible row, in which a toy-selling woman had been set upon, thrown down and trodden on, and then dragged out by the police, bleeding and senseless.  When he brought Rosamond to the spot, she was lying propped against a bundle, moaning a little, and guarded by a young policeman, who looked perplexed and only equal to keeping back the crowd, who otherwise, with better or worse purposes, would have rushed back in the few minutes during which Mr. Poynsett had been absent.

They fell back, staring and uttering expressions of rough wonder at the advance of the lady in her glistening silk, but as she knelt down by the poor creature, held her on her arm, bathed her face with scent on her own handkerchief, and held to her lips the champagne that Raymond poured out, there was a kind of hoarse cheer.

“I think her arm is put out,” said Rosamond; “she ought to go to the Infirmary.”

“Send for a cab,” said Raymond to the policeman; but at that moment the girl opened her eyes, started at the sight of him and tried to hide her face with her hand.

“It is poor Fanny Reynolds,” said he in a low voice to Rosamond, while the policeman was gruffly telling the woman she was better, and ought to get up and not trouble the lady; but Rosamond waved off his too decided assistance, saying: 

“I know who she is; she comes from my husband’s parish; and I will take her home.  You would like to go home, would you not, poor Fanny?”

The woman shuddered, but clung to her; and in a minute or two an unwilling fly had been pressed into the service, and the girl lifted into it by Raymond and the policeman.

“You are really going with her?” said the former.  “You will judge whether to take her home; but she ought to go to the Infirmary first.”

“Tell Cecil I am sorry to desert her,” said Rosamond, as he wrung her hand, then paid the driver and gave him directions, the policeman going with them to clear the way through the throng to the border of the down.