More than once in such instances Michael had been able successfully to add his influence to the wife's and get the man to go quietly home.
He put the key hastily in his pocket and hurried toward the two.
"You shan't! You shan't! You shan't never go back to her!" he heard the woman cry fiercely. "You promised me--"
"Shut up, will you? I don't care what I promised--" said the man in a guarded voice that Michael felt sure he had heard before.
"I shan't shut up! I'll holler ef you go, so the police'll come. You've got a right to stay with me. You shan't do me no wrong ner you shan't go back to that stuck-up piece. You're mine, I say, and you promised--!"
With a curse the man struck her a cruel blow across the mouth, and tried to tear her clinging hands away from his coat, but they only clung the more fiercely.
Michael sprang to the woman's side like a panther.
"Look out!" he said in clear tones. "You can't strike a woman!" His voice was low and calm, and sounded as it used to sound on the ball field when he was giving directions to his team at some crisis in the game.
"Who says I can't?" snarled the man, and now Michael was sure he knew the voice. Then the wretch struck the woman between her eyes and she fell heavily to the ground.
Like a flash Michael's great arm went out and felled the man, and in the same breath, from the shadows behind there sprang out the slender, wiry figure of Sam and flung itself upon the man on the ground who with angry imprecations was trying to struggle to his feet. His hand had gone to an inner pocket, as he fell and in a moment more there was a flash of light and Michael felt a bullet whiz by his ear. Nothing but the swerving of the straggling figures had saved it from going through his brain. It occurred to Michael in that instant that that was what had been intended. The conviction that the man had also recognized him gave strength to his arm as he wrenched the revolver from the hand of the would-be assassin. Nobody knew better than Michael how easy it would be to plead "self-defense" if the fellow got into any trouble. A man in young Carter's position with wealth and friends galore need not fear to wipe an unknown fellow out of existence; a fellow whose friends with few exceptions were toughs and jail birds and ex-criminals of all sorts.