a head in front of some other, but no one seemed to care.  The race was fouled.  Vivie noted thirty seconds—­approximately—­of amazed, horrified silence.  Then a roar of mingled anger, horror, enquiry went up from the crowd of many thousands.  “It’s the Suffragettes” shouted some one.  And up to then Vivie had not thought of connecting this unprecedented act with the purposed protest of Emily Wilding Davison.  She sprang to her feet, and shouting to all who might have tried to stop her “I’m a friend of the lady.  I am a doctor”—­she didn’t care what lie she told—­she was soon authoritatively pushing through the ring of police constables who like warrior ants had surrounded the victims of the protest—­the shivering, trembling horse, now on its legs, the pitifully crushed, unconscious woman—­her hat hanging to the tresses of her hair by a dislodged hat-pin, her thin face stained with blood from surface punctures.  The jockey was being carried from the course, still unconscious, but not badly hurt.

A great surgeon happening to be at Epsom Race course on a friend’s drag, had hurried to offer his services.  He was examining the unconscious woman and striving very gently to straighten and disentangle her crooked body.  Presently there was a respectful stir in the privileged ring, and Vivie was conscious by the raising of hats that the King stood amongst them looking down on the woman who had offered up her life before his eyes to enforce the Woman’s appeal.  He put his enquiries and offered his suggestions in a low voice, but Vivie withdrew, less with the fear that her right to be there and her connection with the tragedy might be questioned, as from some instinctive modesty.  The occasion was too momentous for the presence of a supernumerary.  Emily Wilding Davison should have her audience of her Sovereign without spectators.

Returning with a blanched face to the seething crowd, and presently to the Grand Stand, Vivie’s mood altered from awe to anger.  The “bookies” were beside themselves with fury.  She noted the more frequent of the nouns and adjectives they applied to the dying woman for having spoilt the Derby of 1913, but although she went to the trouble, in framing her indictment of the Turf, of writing down these phrases, my jury of matrons opposes itself to their appearance here, though I am all for realism and completeness of statement.  After conversing briefly and in a lowered voice with such Suffragettes as gathered round her, so that this one could carry the news to town and that one his to communicate with Miss Davison’s relations, Vivie—­recklessly calling herself to any police questioner, “David Williams” and eliciting “Yes, sir, I have seen you once or twice in the courts,” reached once more the Grand Stand with its knots of shocked, puzzled, indignant, cynical, consternated men and women.  Most of them spoke in low tones; but one—­a blond Jew of middle age—­was raving in uncontrolled anger, careless of what he said or of who heard him.