"Let me go!" cried the woman, speaking in French in her excitement.
"Let us cry quits and I will tell the truth. If I am arrested, Lady
Lolita must also fall into the hands of the police. You do not know
everything or you would not do this! Let us go--and save her."
There was something in her quick argument that struck me as truthful.
If the pair were arrested they might certainly lay some counter-charge,
true or false, against my love, therefore with as sudden an impulse as I
had raised the alarm I released my hold, saying--
"Very well. That's a bargain. I shall hold you both to it, remember.
Get away as quickly as you can."
And before the detective, the newsvendor and the two other men attracted
by my shouts could reach the spot, the pair had sped along the Chelsea
Embankment as fast as their legs could carry them and turned into a
narrow thoroughfare running parallel with Britten Street.
The detective had, of course, not recognised them and when he inquired
what was the matter I merely explained that two drunken men had struck
me on the head when passing, and that I had been alarmed.
"Well," he grunted, "you needn't have kicked up such a fuss. We thought
you were being killed, at least!"
"The fact is," I responded lamely, "I was frightened. I'm from the
country, you see, and don't appreciate the horseplay of your London
hooligans."
"Then you'd better not take evening walks along this place," was the man
Bullen's response, while the ragged newsvendor picked up my battered
silk hat, and handing it to me with a grim laugh, said--
"You'll want a new 'un, sir. Them 'ooligans likes toppers. Some o'
Jimmy Boyle's gang agin, I 'spect."