“Get a cab at once, will you!” he said peremptorily to Peabody; then going up to the inspector he drew him forward.  They exchanged a few words, the inspector lifted his cap, and Aldous went back to Marcella.

“There is a cab here,” he said to her.  “Come, please, directly.  They will not trouble you any more for the present.”

He led her out through the still lingering crowd and put her into the cab.  As they drove along, he felt every jolt and roughness of the street as though he were himself in anguish.  She was some time before she recovered the jar of pain caused her by the act of getting into the cab.  Her breath came fast, and he could see that she was trying hard to control herself and not to faint.

He, too, restrained himself so far as not to talk to her.  But the exasperation, the revolt within, was in truth growing unmanageably.  Was this what her new career—­her enthusiasms—­meant, or might mean!  Twenty-three!—­in the prime of youth, of charm!  Horrible, unpardonable waste!  He could not bear it, could not submit himself to it.

Oh! let her marry Wharton, or any one else, so long as it were made impossible for her to bruise and exhaust her young bloom amid such scenes—­such gross physical abominations.  Amazing!—­how meanly, passionately timorous the man of Raeburn’s type can be for the woman!  He himself may be morally “ever a fighter,” and feel the glow, the stern joy of the fight.  But she!—­let her leave the human brute and his unsavoury struggle alone!  It cannot be borne—­it was never meant—­that she should dip her delicate wings, of her own free will at least, in such a mire of blood and tears.  It was the feeling that had possessed him when Mrs. Boyce told him of the visit to the prison, the night in the cottage.

In her whirl of feverish thought, she divined him very closely.  Presently, as he watched her—­hating the man for driving and the cab for shaking—­he saw her white lips suddenly smile.

“I know,” she said, rousing herself to look at him; “you think nursing is all like that!”

“I hope not!” he said, with effort, trying to smile too.

“I never saw a fight before,” she said, shutting her eyes again.  “Nobody is ever rude to us—­I often pine for experiences!”

How like her old, wild tone!  His rigid look softened involuntarily.

“Well, you have got one now,” he said, bending over to her.  “Does your arm hurt you much?”

“Yes,—­but I can bear it.  What vexes me is that I shall have to give up work for a bit.—­Mr. Raeburn!”

“Yes.”  His heart beat.

“We may meet often—­mayn’t we?—­at Lady Winterbourne’s—­or in the country?  Couldn’t we be friends?  You don’t know how often—­” She turned away her weary head a moment—­gathered strength to begin again—­“—­how often I have regretted—­last year.  I see now—­that I behaved—­more unkindly”—­her voice was almost a whisper—­“than I thought then.  But it is all done with—­couldn’t we just be good friends—­understand each other, perhaps, better than we ever did?”