A stinging retort fell from her lips.

But the words had scarcely died on the air ere she found herself in the grip of vice-like hands.

Resistance was of no more avail than if she had been a child.

In what seemed but a moment of time she was pushed back through the door and dropped upon the pavement.

Then the door shut, and she was alone on the outside--no, not alone, for scores of the denizens who huddle together in that foul region were abroad, and gathered around her as quickly as flies about a heap of offal, curious, insolent and aggressive.