For an instant, the instincts of outraged femininity overbore all other considerations. She was only a woman fighting in self-defense. Unluckily, Arthur Hardwick entered before she could fling off her assailant. He had paused on the way to her room to obtain some roses and carnations at the hotel flower stall, and his hands wore laden with flowers. Taking in the situation at a glance, he leaped forward, dropped the blooms, and threw Merriam headlong to the floor.
The doctor sprang up at once. "Are you, too, going to lie a fool?" he snarled. Hardwick understood. At last, the scales had fallen from his eyes, and he could peer into the man's filthy soul.
Merriam was minded to be defiant, but something in Hardwick's expression forced him to obey. He, with an evil sneer, he picked up his medicine case and went out. Without a spoken word to Justice, her avowed lover followed.
He overtook Merriam in the corridor and pointed silently in the direction of the doctor's own room. Not caring to raise a scene just then, Merriam nodded and strode on ahead. He would have closed the door of his bedroom in Hardwick's face, but the latter closely intended to force an entrance, and the doctor yielded. Then Hardwick turned the key in the lock, took off his coat, and, almost without any preliminary, the two men engaged in a fierce fight.
They were fairly equally.  matched in the play, but sheer resolution and fiery wrath gave the victory, and he did not leave his opponent until the man was beaten to the ground. 