Up the darkened street they went, the crowd gradually falling away.  And suddenly they paused before the two green lamps of the new station-house, and then in a moment they had vanished through the doorway.

Myra rushed up, panting, to a policeman who stood on the steps.

“I want to go in—­I’m with her.”

“Can’t do it, lady.  She’s under arrest.”

“Not she,” cried Myra.  “The man.”

“Oh, we’ll see.  You run along—­keep out of trouble!”

Myra turned, confused, weak.  She questioned a passer-by about the location of Ninth Street.  “Up Broadway—­seven or eight blocks!” She started; she hurried; her feet were winged with desperate fear.  What could be done?  How help Rhona?  Surely Joe—­Joe could do something.  He would know—­she would hasten to him and get his aid.  That at least she could do.

Now and then a bitter sob escaped her.  She felt that she had lost her self-respect and her pride.  Like a coward she had watched Rhona attacked, had not even raised her voice, had not, even attempted interference.  They might have listened to a well-dressed woman, a woman of refinement.  And she had done nothing—­just followed the crowd, nursing her wounded pride.  She began to feel that the world was a big place, and that those without money or position are at the mercy of the powerful.  She began to revise her opinion of America, more keenly than ever she understood Joe’s passion for more democracy.  And she had a sense, too, that she had never really known life—­that her narrow existence had touched life at but a few minor points—­and that the great on-struggle of the world, the vast life of the race, the million-eddying evolution were all outside her limits.  Now she was feeling the edge of new existences.  The knowledge humbled, almost humiliated her.  She wondered that Joe had ever thought well of her, had ever been content to share his life with her.

Driven by these thoughts and by her fear and her apprehension for Rhona’s safety, she plunged west, borne by the wind, buffeted, beaten, blown along.  The lights behind the French windows were like beacons in a storm.  She staggered into the hall, entered the room.  Her hair was wild about her face, her cheeks pale, her eyes burning.

The room was still crowded, intensely busy.  She noticed nothing, but pushed her way to Joe’s desk.  He was talking with two girls.

She confronted him.

“Joe!”

He lifted his gray, tragic face, amazed.

“You still here?”

It was as if he had forgotten her.  But Myra was not now thinking of herself.  She spoke, breathlessly: 

“Joe, I think Rhona Hemlitz is in trouble.”

“How so?”

“She was knocked down by a thug, and she had him arrested, but I’m afraid she’s arrested.”

A dangerous light came into Joe’s eyes.

“All right!  All right!  Where did this happen?”