“What’s this?” he cried.  “Why is all this trash lying around?  Why, damme, you’re packing your trunks!”

She had passed the mood for dissembling.  “Well,” she retorted, “I may pack my trunks if I please.  They’re my trunks, and my things in ’em.”

“What!  You thankless hussy, were you going to run away?”

“’Tis no concern of yours, what I was going to do!”

“Oh, isn’t it?  We’ll see about that!  Begad, ’tis lucky I came back!  So you were going to desert me, eh?  Well, I’m damned if there was ever such ingratitude!  After all I’ve done and suffered!”

[Illustration:  “HE FINALLY DREW BACK TO GIVE HER A MORE EFFECTUAL BLOW.”]

She gave a derisive laugh, and defiantly resumed her packing.

“What! you’re rebellious, are you?” quoth he.  “But you’ll not get away from me so easy, my lady.  Not with those clothes, at least; for yourself, it doesn’t much matter.  I’ll just put those things back into the press, and after this I’ll carry the key.  But your rings and necklace—­I’ll take charge of them first.”

He stepped forward to lay hands upon the ornaments, which, for their greater security from him, she now wore upon her person at all times.  She sprang away, ready to defend them by every possible means, and warning him not to touch her.  Her flashing eyes and fiery mien checked him for a moment; then, with a curse, he seized her by the neck and essayed to undo the necklace.  Thereupon she screamed loudly for help.  To intimidate her into silence, he struck her in the face.  At that she began to struggle and hit, so that he was hard put to it to retain hold of her and to save his face from her hands.  Enraged by her efforts, he finally drew back to give her a more effectual blow; which he succeeded in doing, but at the cost of relaxing his grasp, so that she slipped from him and escaped by the door.  She hastened down the stairs and into the street, he in wrathful pursuit.  She fled toward the Strand.

At the corner of that thoroughfare, she ran into a trio of gentlemen who just at the moment reached the junction of the two streets.

“The deuce!” cried one of the three, flinging his arms around her.  “What have we here?  Beauty in distress?”

“Let me go!” she cried.  “Don’t let him take me.”

“Him!” echoed the gentleman, releasing her.  He was a distinguished-looking fellow of twenty-eight or so, with a winning face and very fine eyes.  “Oh, I see.  The villain in pursuit!”

“Egad, that makes you the hero to the rescue, Dick,” said one of the young gentleman’s companions.

“Faith, I’ll play the part, too,” replied Dick.  “Fear not, madam.”

“Thank you, sir, for stopping her,” said Ned, coming up, panting.

“Pray, don’t waste your thanks.  What shall I do to the rascal, madam?”

“I don’t care,” she answered.  “Don’t let him have me.”

“None of that, sir,” spoke up Ned.  “She’s a runaway, and I’m her natural protector.”