TIVO SUNDAY AFTERNOONS 2G7 



down from under his cuffs and over his fingers — Kate 

 saw it as he clung to the door Hntel — wliile hands 

 snatched at his torn coat, at his arms, at his body. 

 With smothered exclamations, with groaning and 

 cracking of the strained door, he was overborne ; he 

 fell heavily outward across the hall with a man across 

 his legs. Another man threw himself on him, and 

 forcing his arms down, raised something that glittered 

 sharp and slender in the gaslight, while the gi*ey 

 respectable head jerked and strove on the gaudy 

 oilcloth. 



With a shriek of " Joe," the arm with the knife was 

 caught in the air, and Devine, braced to his one pur- 

 pose, was thrown off his balance, and dragged from 

 his prey. He was on his feet in a moment, and had 

 Kate by the throat, trying to fling her back to the 

 kitchen stairs, while Mr. McKenzie writhed and rolled 

 in the gi*ip of his other assailant. 



" Joe ! " she gurgled out, " what are ye doing to 

 him ? Oh, Joe, ye wouldn't hurt me " 



Her voice rose to a shriek as he flung her to and fro 

 in the effort to throw her down the stairs. The reek 

 of whisky was in his panting breath, and accustomed 

 as she was to seeing men savagely drunk, men brutally 

 rough, she could not believe his purpose, and clung, 

 screaming, to the arm that flung her off. She felt 

 his hand inside the collar of her dress, twisting it and 

 dragging her towards him with his knuckles pressed 

 into her throat. There was a feeling of suffocation, 

 and she struggled desperately, until her senses began 

 to fail, and the pulses of her head rustled and rung 

 into numbness; there came in darkness a flame of 

 agony in her side. After that she sank far and helpless 

 in space, overborne by immense and crushing forces; 

 then, in the stress, a final crisis and surrender. 



