Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/203

 summon a policeman when Bessie stopped him. "Leave 'im alone," she said. "I'll pay for it."

Winterbottom was content. It had happened before. He would rather have the money than see the stranger arrested, even if the money came out of Bessie's pocket.

"And what are you going to do when it closes?" he asked her.

"Never you fret about that. I'll take 'im in charge."

The revellers, singing, went out at last. Teena Bitts put on her hat and went off scornfully to spend a respectable Christmas with her parents in Limehouse, and Winterbottom stood waiting to see what Bessie proposed to do. In a moment she came in from the washroom and gave the cynical Winterbottom a challenging glance. She was looking high-colored and high-spirited as if she felt her reputation menaced a second time in the same evening. She was a strong woman, and after raising the stranger to his feet she took him firmly by one arm and set out through the fog. Winterbottom put up the shutters, locked the door and put out the lights, unaware that he had lost Our Bess forever.

Somehow, through fog and snow, through crooked and winding streets, she got the stranger back to her own room. Toward the end it was a little easier because he began to see things following him and that hurried him along.