“He’s mad,” she heard a voice say.

“No; only drunk.”

“He’ll kill the other fellow if he gets at him.”

“The coppers will be on him in a minute.”

Cuckoo was panting with her effort, but she passed the voices and came upon the core of the crowd, the man who had yelled—­Julian.  She saw in a moment that he was mad with drink.  His hat was off; his coat was torn; his evening clothes were covered with mud.  Apparently he had fallen while getting out of a cab.  Two men—­strangers of the street—­were holding him forcibly back while he struggled furiously to attack another man, who faced him calmly on the pavement with a smile of keen contempt.  This man was Valentine.  Julian was screaming incoherent curses at him and wild threats of murder.  The crowd listened and jeered.

Cuckoo caught Julian by the arm.  He turned on her to strike her.  Then his arm fell by his side.  It seemed as if he recognized her even through the veil of his excess.  The drunken man looked on the starving woman, and the curses died upon his lips.  He began to shiver and to tremble from head to foot.  Valentine made a step towards him, but some in the crowd interposed.

“Let him alone,” they said.  “You’ll only make him worse.  Leave him to her.”

The cab from which Julian had apparently just alighted was drawn up by the kerbstone.  Cuckoo, who had not uttered a word as yet, drew Julian towards it.  He staggered after her in silence, stumbled into the cab and collapsed in a heap in the corner, half on the floor, half on the seat.  She got in after him, watched by the crowd, who seemed awed by the abrupt silence of this yelling madman at the touch of this spectral girl in black.  Cuckoo gave her address to the cabman.  Just as he was whipping up his horse to drive away, she leaned forward out of the cab as if to the crowd—­really to one man in it.

“He’s my man!” she said, drawing her thick eyebrows together, and with a nod of her head.  “He’s my man.  I’ll see to him.”

The cab drove off into the darkness.

CHAPTER VIII

AN AWAKENING

That drive in the night was taken in silence.  Julian, a crumpled heap of degraded humanity, slept.  Cuckoo watched over him, half supporting him with one thin arm.  Exultation shone in her eyes and beat in her heart.  The glory of being alone with this drunken creature, his protector, his guide, lay round the girl like a glory of heaven.  As she looked at his white face, and pressed her handkerchief against the blood that trickled from his forehead, wild tears of triumph, passionate tears of joy and determination, swam to her eyes.  She felt at last the pride and the self-respect of one who possesses a will, and who has exercised it.  That was a justification of life to her mind.  Something had given even to her the power to snatch this man to herself from the jaws of dark London, to carry him off, a succoured prey, from the world laughing at his degradation.  She bent over him in the rattling cab and touched his face with her lips.  Was that a kiss?  She, who had known so many kisses, wondered.  It was the going forth of her soul to purify with flame the thing it loved.