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Cast Adrift

by T. S. Arthur · English · Gutenberg #4592 · 507,310 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Cast Adrift

Author: T. S. Arthur


        
Release date: October 1, 2003 [eBook #4592]
                Most recently updated: March 14, 2018

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4592

Credits: Produced by Charles Aldarondo, and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAST ADRIFT ***




Produced by Charles Aldarondo





CAST ADRIFT

By T. S. Arthur

Author Of “Three Years In A Man-Trap,” “Orange Blossoms,” Etc., Etc.


     Philadelphia:
     Cincinnati:
     New York:
     Boston:
     Chicago, Ills.:
     New Castle, Pa.:
     San Francisco, Cal.:

1873



TO THE READER.

IN this romance of real life, in which the truth is stranger than the
fiction, I have lifted only in part the veil that hides the victims of
intemperance and other terrible vices--after they have fallen to the
lower deeps of degradation to be found in our large cities, where the
vile and degraded herd together more like wild beasts than men and
women--and told the story of sorrow, suffering, crime and debasement
as they really exist in Christian America with all the earnestness and
power that in me lies.

Strange and sad and terrible as are some of the scenes from which I hare
drawn this veil, I have not told the half of what exists. My book, apart
from the thread of fiction that runs through its pages, is but a series
of photographs from real life, and is less a work of the imagination
than a record of facts.

If it stirs the hearts of American readers profoundly, and so awakens
the people to a sense of their duty; if it helps to inaugurate more
earnest and radical modes of reform for a state of society of which a
distinguished author has said, “There is not a country throughout the
earth on which it would not bring a curse; there is no religion upon the
earth that it would not deny; there is no people upon the earth it would
not put to shame;”--then will not my work be in vain.

Sitting in our comfortable homes with well-fed, well-clothed and
happy-hearted children about us--children who have our tenderest care,
whose cry of pain from a pin-prick or a fall on the carpeted floor hurts
us like a blow---how few of us know or care anything about the homes
in which some other children dwell, or of the hard and cruel battle for
life they are doomed to fight from the very beginning!

To get out from these comfortable homes and from the midst of tenderly
cared-for little ones, and stand face to face with squalor and hunger,
with suffering, debasement and crime, to look upon the starved faces
of children and hear their helpless cries, is what scarcely one in a
thousand will do. It is too much for our sensibilities. And so we stand
aloof, and the sorrow, and suffering, the debasement, the wrong and
the crime, go on, and because we heed it not we vainly imagine that no
responsibility lies at our door; and yet there is no man or woman who is
not, according to the measure of his or her influence, responsible for
the human debasement and suffering I have portrayed.

The task I set for myself has not been a pleasant one. It has hurt my
sensibilities and sickened my heart many times as I stood face to face
with the sad and awful degradation that exists in certain regions of
our larger cities; and now that my work is done, I take a deep breath
of relief. The result is in your hands, good citizen, Christian reader,
earnest philanthropist! If it stirs your heart in the reading as it
stirred mine in the writing, it will not die fruitless.

THE AUTHOR.



CONTENTS.


CHAPTER I. The unwelcome babe--The defrauded young mother--The struggle
between life and death--“Your baby is in heaven”--A brief retrospect--A
marriage for social position--An ambitious wife and a disappointed
husband--The young daughter--The matrimonial market--The Circassian
slaves of modern society--The highest bidder--Disappearance--The old sad
story--Secret marriage--The letters--Disappointed ambition--Interview
between the parents--The mother's purpose--“Baffled, but not
defeated”--The father's surprise--The returned daughter--Forgiven--“I am
not going away again, father dear”--Insecurity and distrust

CHAPTER II. The hatred of a bad woman--Mrs. Dinneford's plans for the
destruction of Granger--Starting in business--Plots of Mrs. Dinneford
and Freeling--The discounted notes--The trap--Granger's suspicions
aroused--Forgery--Mrs. Dinneford relentless--The arrest--Fresh evidence
of crime upon Granger's person--The shock to Edith--“That night her baby
was born”

CHAPTER III. “It is a splendid boy”--A convenient, non-interfering
family doctor--Cast adrift--Into the world in a basket, unnamed
and disowned--Edith's second struggle back to life--Her mind a
blank--Granger convicted of forgery--Seeks to gain knowledge of his
child--The doctor's evasion and ignorance--An insane asylum instead of
State's prison--Edith's slow return to intelligence--“There's something
I can't understand, mother”--“Where is my baby?”--“What of George?”--No
longer a child, but a broken hearted woman--The divorce

CHAPTER IV. Sympathy between father and daughter--Interest in public
charities--A dreadful sight--A sick babe in the arms of a half-drunken
woman--“Is there no law to meet such cases?”---“The poor baby has no
vote!”--Edith seeks for the grave of her child, but cannot find
it--She questions her mother, who baffles her curiosity--Mrs. Bray's
visit--Interview between Mrs. Dinneford and Mrs. Bray--“The baby
isn't living?”--“Yes; I saw it day before yesterday in the arms of a
beggar-woman”--Edith's suspicions aroused--Determined to discover the
fate of her child--Visits the doctor--“Your baby is in heaven”--“Would
to God it were so, for I saw a baby in hell not long ago!”

CHAPTER V. Mrs. Dinneford visits Mrs. Bray--“The woman to whom you
gave that baby was here yesterday”--The woman must be put out of the
way--Exit Mrs. Dinneford, enter Pinky Swett--“You know your fate--New
Orleans and the yellow fever”--“All I want of you is to keep track of
the baby”--Division of the spoils--Lucky dreams--Consultation of the
dream-book for lucky figures--Sam McFaddon and his backer, who “drives
in the Park and wears a two thousand dollar diamond pin”--The fate of a
baby begged with--The baby must not die--The lottery-policies

CHAPTER VI. Rottenness at the heart of a great city--Pinky Swett's
attempted rescue of a child from cruel beating--The fight--Pinky's
arrest--Appearance of the “queen”--Pinky's release at her command--The
queen's home--The screams of children being beaten--The rescue of
“Flanagan's Nell”--Death the great rescuer--“They don't look after
things in here as they do outside--Everybody's got the screws on, and
things must break sometimes, but it isn't called murder--The coroner
understands it all”

CHAPTER VII. Pinky Swett at the mercy of the crowd in the street--Taken
to the nearest station-house--Mrs. Dinneford visits Mrs. Bray
again--Fresh alarms--“She's got you in her power”---“Money is of no
account”--The knock at the door--Mrs. Dinneford in hiding--The visitor
gone--Mrs. Bray reports the woman insatiable in her demands--Must have
two hundred dollars by sundown--No way of escape except through police
interference--“People who deal with the devil generally have the devil
to pay”--Suspicion--A mistake--Sound of feet upon the stairs--Mrs.
Dinneford again in hiding--Enter Pinky Swett--Pinky disposed of--Mrs.
Dinneford again released--Mrs. Bray's strategy--“Let us be friends
still, Mrs. Bray”--Mrs. Dinneford's deprecation and humiliation--Mrs.
Bray's triumph

CHAPTER VIII. Mrs. Bray receives a package containing two hundred
dollars--“Poor baby! I must see better to its comfort”--Pinky meets a
young girl from the country--The “Ladies' Restaurant”--Fried oysters
and sangaree--The “bindery” girl--“My head feels strangely”--Through
the back alley--The ten-cent lodging house--Robbery--A second robbery--A
veil drawn--A wild prolonged cry of a woman--The policeman listens only
for a moment, and then passes on--Foul play--“In all our large
cities are savages more cruel and brutal in their instincts than the
Comanches”--Who is responsible?

CHAPTER IX. Valuation of the spoils--The receiver--The “policy-shop” and
its customers--A victim of the lottery mania

CHAPTER X. “Policy-drunkards”--A newly-appointed policeman's
blunder--The end of a “policy-drunkard”--Pinky and her friend in
consultation over “a cast-off baby in Dirty alley”--“If you can't get
hush-money out of its mother, you can bleed Fanny Bray”--The way to
starve a baby--Pinky moves her quarters without the use of “a dozen
furniture cars”--A baby's home--The baby's night nurse--The baby's
supper--The baby's bed--How the baby's money is spent--Where the baby's
nurse passes the night--The baby's disappearance

CHAPTER XI. Reserve between mother and daughter--Mrs. Dinneford
disapproves of Edith's charitable visits--Mrs. Dinneford meets Freeling
by appointment at a hotel--“There's trouble brewing”--“A letter from
George Granger”--Accused of conspiracy--Possibility of Granger's pardon
by the governor--An ugly business--In great peril--Freeling's threats of
exposure--A hint of an alternative

CHAPTER XII. Mr. Freeling fails to appear at his place of
business--Examination of his bank accounts--It is discovered that he has
borrowed largely of his friends--Mrs. Dinneford has supplied him $20,000
from her private purse--Mrs. Dinneford falls sick, and temporarily
loses her reason--“I told you her name was Gray--Gray, not Bray”--Half
disclosures--Recovery--Mother and daughter mutually suspicious--The
visitor--Mrs. Dinneford equal to the emergency--Edith thrown off the
track

CHAPTER XIII. Edith is satisfied that her babe is alive--She has a
desire to teach the children of the poor--“My baby may become like one
of these”--She hears of a baby which has been stolen--Resolves to go
and see it, and to apply to Mr. Paulding of the Briar street mission for
assistance in her attempt--Mr. Paulding persuades her that it is best
not to see the child, and promises that he himself will look after
it--Returns home--Her father remonstrates with her, finally promises to
help her

CHAPTER XIV. Mr. Dinneford sets out for the mission-house--An incident
on the way--Encounters Mr. Paulding--Mr. Paulding makes his report--“The
vicious mark their offspring with unmistakable signs of moral depravity;
this baby has signs of a better origin”--A profitable conversation--“I
think you had better act promptly”

CHAPTER XV. Mr. Dinneford with a policeman goes in quest of the
baby--The baby is gone--Inquiries--Mr. Dinneford resolves to
persevere--Cause of the baby's disappearance--Pinky Swett's
curiosity--Change of baby's nurse--Baby's improved condition--Baby's
first experience of motherly tenderness--Baby's first smile--“Such
beautiful eyes”--Pinky Swett visits the St. John mission-school--Edith
is not there

CHAPTER XVI. Mr. Dinneford's return, and Edith's disappointment--“It
is somebody's baby, and it may be mine”--An unsuspected listener--Mrs.
Dinneford acts promptly--Conference between Mrs. Dinneford and Mrs.
Hoyt, _alias_ Bray--The child must be got out of the way--“If it will
not starve, it must drown”--Mrs. Dinneford sees an acquaintance as
she leaves Mrs. Hoyt's, and endeavors to escape his observation--A new
danger and disgrace awaiting her

CHAPTER XVII. Mental conditions of mother and daughter--Mr. Dinneford
aroused to a sense of his moral responsibilities--The heathen in
our midst--The united evil of policy-lotteries and whisky-shops--The
education of the policy-shops

CHAPTER XVIII. News item: “A child drowned”--Another news item: Pinky
Swett sentenced to prison for robbery--Baby's improved
condition--Mrs. Burke's efforts to retain the baby after Pinky Swett's
imprisonment--Baby Andy's rough life in the street--Mrs. Burke's
death--Cast upon the world--Andy's adventures--He finds a home and a
friend

CHAPTER XIX. Mr. Dinneford visits the mission-school--A comparison of
the present with the past--The first mission-school--Reminiscences of
the school in its early days--The zealous scholar--Good effects of
the mission--“Get the burning brands apart, or interpose incombustible
things between them”--An illustration--“Let in light, and the darkness
flees”

CHAPTER XX. “The man awoke and felt the child against his bosom, soft
and warm”--Led by a little child--“God being my helper, I will be a man
again”--A new life--Meeting of an old friend--A friend in need--Food,
clothes, work--A new home--God's strength our only safety

CHAPTER XXI. Intimate relations of physical and moral purity--Blind
Jake--The harvest of the thieves and beggars--Inconsiderate
charity--Beggary a vice--“The deserving poor are never common
beggars”--“To help the evil is to hurt the good” The malignant ulcer
in the body politic of our city--The breeding-places of epidemics and
malignant diseases--Little Italian street musicians--The existence of
slavery in our midst--Facts in regard to it

CHAPTER XXII. Edith's continued interest in the children of the
poor--Christmas dinner at the mission-house--Edith perceives Andy,
and feels a strange attraction toward him--Andy's disappearance after
dinner--Pinky Swett has been seen dragging him away--Lost sight of

CHAPTER XXIII. Christmas dinner at Mr. Dinneford's--The dropped
letter--It is missed--A scene of wild excitement--Mrs. Dinneford's
sudden death--Edith reads the letter--A revelation--“Innocent!”--Edith
is called to her mother--“Dead, and better so!”--Granger's innocence
established--An agony of affection--No longer Granger's wife

CHAPTER XXIV. Edith's sickness--Meeting of Mrs. Bray and Pinky Swett--A
trial of sharpness, in which neither gains the advantage--Mr. Dinneford
receives a call from a lady--The lady, who is Mrs. Bray, offers
information--Mr. Dinneford surprises her into admitting an important
fact--Mrs. Bray offers to produce the child for a price--Mr. Dinneford
consents to pay the price on certain stipulations--Mrs. Bray departs,
promising to come again

CHAPTER XXV. Granger's pardon procured--How he receives his pardon--Mrs.
Bray tries to trace Pinky home--Loses sight of her in the street--Mrs.
Bray interviews a shop-woman--Pinky's destination--The child is gone

CHAPTER XXVI. Mrs. Bray does not call on Mr. Dinneford, as she
promised--Peril to Andrew Hall through loss of the child--Help--Edith
longs to see or write to Granger, but does not--Edith encounters Mrs.
Bray in the street--“Where is my baby?”--Disappointment--How to identify
the child if found

CHAPTER XXVII. No trace of Andy--Account of Andy's abduction--Andy's
prison--An outlook from prison--A loose nail--The escape--The sprained
ankle--The accident

CHAPTER XXVIII. Edith's visit to the children's hospital--“Oh, my baby!
thank God! my baby!”--The identification

CHAPTER XXIX. Meeting of Mr. Dinneford and George Granger--“We want you
to help us find your child”--“Edith's heart is calling out for you”--The
meeting--The marriage benediction





CAST ADRIFT.



CHAPTER I.



_A BABY_ had come, but he was not welcome. Could anything be sadder?

The young mother lay with her white face to the wall, still as death. A
woman opened the chamber door noiselessly and came in, the faint rustle
of her garments disturbing the quiet air.

A quick, eager turning of the head, a look half anxious, half fearful,
and then the almost breathless question,

“Where is my baby?”

“Never mind about the baby,” was answered, almost coldly; “he's well
enough. I'm more concerned about you.”

“Have you sent word to George?”

“George can't see you. I've said that before.”

“Oh, mother! I must see my husband.”

“Husband!” The tone of bitter contempt with which the word was uttered
struck the daughter like a blow. She had partly risen in her excitement,
but now fell back with a low moan, shutting her eyes and turning her
face away. Even as she did so, a young man stepped back from the door of
the elegant house in which she lay with a baffled, disappointed air. He
looked pale and wretched.

“Edith!” Two hours afterward the doctor stood over the young mother,
and called her name. She did not move nor reply. He laid his hand on her
cheek, and almost started, then bent down and looked at her intently for
a moment or two. She had fever. A serious expression came into his face,
and there was cause.

The sweet rest and heavenly joy of maternity had been denied to his
young patient. The new-born babe had not been suffered to lie even for
one blissful moment on her bosom. Hard-hearted family pride and cruel
worldliness had robbed her of the delight with which God ever seeks to
dower young motherhood, and now the overtaxed body and brain had given
way.

For many weeks the frail young creature struggled with
delirium--struggled and overcame.

“Where is my baby?”

The first thought of returning consciousness was of her baby.

A woman who sat in a distant part of the chamber started up and crossed
to the bed. She was past middle life, of medium stature, with small,
clearly cut features and cold blue eyes. Her mouth was full, but very
firm. Self-poise was visible even in her surprised movements. She bent
over the bed and looked into Edith's wistful eyes.

“Where is my baby, mother?” Mrs. Dinneford put her fingers lightly on
Edith's lips.

“You must be very quiet,” she said, in a low, even voice. “The doctor
forbids all excitement. You have been extremely ill.”

“Can't I see my baby, mother? It won't hurt me to see my baby.”

“Not now. The doctor--”

Edith half arose in bed, a look of doubt and fear coming into her face.

“I want my baby, mother,” she said, interrupting her.

A hard, resolute expression came into the cold blue eyes of Mrs.
Dinneford. She put her hand firmly against Edith and pressed her back
upon the pillow.

“You have been very ill for nearly two months,” she said, softening her
voice. “No one thought you could live. Thank God! the crisis is over,
but not the danger.”

“Two months! Oh, mother!”

The slight flush that had come into Edith's wan face faded out, and the
pallor it had hidden for a few moments became deeper. She shut her eyes
and lay very still, but it was plain from the expression of her face
that thought was busy.

“Not two whole months, mother?” she said, at length, in doubtful tones.
“Oh no! it cannot be.”

“It is just as I have said, Edith; and now, my dear child, as you value
your life, keep quiet; all excitement is dangerous.”

But repression was impossible. To Edith's consciousness there was no
lapse of time. It seemed scarcely an hour since the birth of her baby
and its removal from her sight. The inflowing tide of mother-love, the
pressure and yearning sweetness of which she had begun to feel when she
first called for the baby they had not permitted to rest, even for an
instant, on her bosom, was now flooding her heart. Two months! If that
were so, what of the baby? To be submissive was impossible.

Starting up half wildly, a vague terror in her face, she cried,
piteously,

“Oh, mother, bring me my baby. I shall die if you do not!”

“Your baby is in heaven,” said Mrs. Dinneford, softening her voice to a
tone of tender regret.

Edith caught her breath, grew very white, and then, with a low, wailing
cry that sent a shiver through Mrs. Dinneford's heart, fell back, to all
appearance dead.

The mother did not call for help, but sat by the bedside of her
daughter, and waited for the issue of this new struggle between life and
death. There was no visible excitement, but her mouth was closely set
and her cold blue eyes fixed in a kind of vacant stare.

Edith was Mrs. Dinneford's only child, and she had loved her with
the strong, selfish love of a worldly and ambitious woman. In her
own marriage she had not consulted her heart. Mr. Dinneford's social
position and wealth were to her far more than his personal endowments.
She would have rejected him without a quicker pulse-beat if these had
been all he had to offer. He was disappointed, she was not. Strong,
self-asserting, yet politic, Mrs Dinneford managed her good husband
about as she pleased in all external matters, and left him to the free
enjoyment of his personal tastes, preferences and friendships. The
house they lived in, the furniture it contained, the style and equipage
assumed by the family, were all of her choice, Mr. Dinneford giving
merely a half-constrained or half-indifferent consent. He had learned,
by painful and sometimes humiliating experience, that any contest with
Mrs. Helen Dinneford upon which he might enter was sure to end in his
defeat.

He was a man of fine moral and intellectual qualities. His wealth gave
him leisure, and his tastes, feelings and habits of thought drew
him into the society of some of the best men in the city where he
lived--best in the true meaning of that word. In all enlightened social
reform movements you would be sure of finding Mr. Howard Dinneford. He
was an active and efficient member in many boards of public charity, and
highly esteemed in them all for his enlightened philanthropy and sound
judgment. Everywhere but at home he was strong and influential; there he
was weak, submissive and of little account. He had long ago accepted
the situation, making a virtue of necessity. A different man--one of
stronger will and a more imperious spirit--would have held his own, even
though it wrought bitterness and sorrow. But Mr. Dinneford's aversion
to strife, and gentleness toward every one, held him away from conflict,
and so his home was at least tranquil.

Mrs. Dinneford had her own way, and so long as her husband made no
strong opposition to that way all was peaceful.

For Edith, their only child, who was more like her father than her
mother, Mr. Dinneford had the tenderest regard. The well-springs of
love, choked up so soon after his marriage, were opened freely toward
his daughter, and he lived in her a new, sweet and satisfying life. The
mother was often jealous of her husband's demonstrative tenderness for
Edith. A yearning instinct of womanhood, long repressed by worldliness
and a mean social ambition, made her crave at times the love she had
cast away, and then her cup of life was very bitter. But fear of Mr.
Dinneford's influence over Edith was stronger than any jealousy of his
love. She had high views for her daughter. In her own marriage she had
set aside all considerations but those of social rank. She had made it
a stepping-stone to a higher place in society than the one to which she
was born. Still, above them stood many millionaire families, living
in palace-homes, and through her daughter she meant to rise into one
of them. It mattered not for the personal quality of the scion of the
house; he might be as coarse and common as his father before him, or
weak, mean, selfish, and debased by sensual indulgence. This was of
little account. To lift Edith to the higher social level was the all in
all of Mrs. Dinneford's ambition.

But Mr. Dinneford taught Edith a nobler life-lesson than this, gave her
better views of wedlock, pictured for her loving heart the bliss of a
true marriage, sighing often as he did so, but unconsciously, at the
lost fruition of his own sweet hopes. He was careful to do this only
when alone with Edith, guarding his speech when Mrs. Dinneford was
present. He had faith in true principles, and with these he sought to
guard her life. He knew that she would be pushed forward into society,
and knew but too well that one so pure and lovely in mind as well as
person would become a centre of attraction, and that he, standing on the
outside as it were, would have no power to save her from the saddest of
all fates if she were passive and her mother resolute. Her safety must
lie in herself.

Edith was brought out early. Mrs. Dinneford could not wait. At seventeen
she was thrust into society, set up for sale to the highest bidder, her
condition nearer that of a Circassian than a Christian maiden, with her
mother as slave-dealer.

So it was and so, it is. You may see the thing every day. But it did not
come out according to Mrs. Dinneford's programme. There was a highest
bidder; but when he came for his slave, she was not to be found.

Well, the story is trite and brief--the old sad story. Among her suitors
was a young man named Granger, and to him Edith gave her heart. But
the mother rejected him with anger and scorn. He was not rich, though
belonging to a family of high character, and so fell far below her
requirements. Under a pressure that almost drove the girl to despair,
she gave her consent to a marriage that looked more terrible than death.
A month before the time fixed for, its consummation, she barred the
contract by a secret union with Granger.

Edith knew her mother's character too well to hope for any
reconciliation, so far as Mr. Granger was concerned. Coming in as he had
done between her and the consummation of her highest ambition, she could
never feel toward him anything but the most bitter hatred; and so, after
remaining at home for about a week after her secret marriage, she wrote
this brief letter to her mother and went away:

“My DEAR MOTHER: I do not love Spencer Wray, and would rather die than
marry him, and so I have made the marriage to which my heart has never
consented, an impossibility. You have left me no other alternative but
this. I am the wife of George Granger, and go to cast my lot with his.

“Your loving daughter,

“EDITH.”

To her father she wrote:

“My DEAR, DEAR FATHER: If I bring sorrow to your good and loving heart
by what I have done, I know that it will be tempered with joy at my
escape from a union with one from whom my soul has ever turned with
irrepressible dislike. Oh, my father, you can understand, if mother
cannot, into what a desperate strait I have been brought. I am a deer
hunted to the edge of a dizzy chasm, and I leap for life over the dark
abyss, praying for strength to reach the farther edge. If I fail in the
wild effort, I can only meet destruction; and I would rather be bruised
to death on the jagged rocks than trust myself to the hounds and
hunters. I write passionately--you will hardly recognize your quiet
child; but the repressed instincts of my nature are strong, and peril
and despair have broken their bonds. I did not consult you about the
step I have taken, because I dared not trust you with my secret. You
would have tried to hold me back from the perilous leap, fondly hoping
for some other way of escape. I had resolved on putting an impassable
gulf between me and danger, if I died in the attempt. I have taken the
leap, and may God care for me!

“I have laid up in my heart of hearts, dearest of fathers, the precious
life-truths that so often fell from your lips. Not a word that you ever
said about the sacredness of marriage has been forgotten. I believe
with you that it is a little less than crime to marry when no love
exists--that she who does so, sells her heart's birthright for some
mess of pottage, sinks down from the pure level of noble womanhood, and
traffics away her person, is henceforth meaner in quality if not really
vile.

“And so, my father, to save myself from such a depth of degradation and
misery, I take my destiny into my own hands. I have grown very strong in
my convictions and purposes in the last four weeks. My sight has become
suddenly clear. I am older by many years.

“As for George Granger, all I can now say is that I love him, and
believe him to be worthy of my love. I am willing to trust him, and am
ready to share his lot, however humble.

“Still hold me in your heart, my precious father, as I hold you in mine.

“EDITH.”

Mr. Dinneford read this letter twice. It took him some time, his eyes
were so full of tears. In view of her approaching marriage with Spencer
Wray, his heart had felt very heavy. It was something lighter now. Young
Granger was not the man he would have chosen for Edith, but he liked him
far better than he did the other, and felt that his child was safe now.

He went to his wife's room, and found her with Edith's letter crushed in
her hand. She was sitting motionless, her face pale and rigid, her eyes
fixed and stony and her lips tight against her teeth. She did not seem
to notice his presence until he put his hand upon her, which he did
without speaking. At this she started up and looked at him with a kind
of fierce intentness.

“Are you a party to this frightful things?” she demanded.

Mr. Dinneford weakly handed her the letter he had received from Edith.
She read it through in half the time it had taken his tear-dimmed eyes
to make out the touching sentences. After she had done so, she stood for
a few moments as if surprised or baffled. Then she sat down, dropping
her head, and remained for a long time without speaking.

“The bitter fruit, Mr. Dinneford,” she said, at last, in a voice so
strange and hard that it seemed to his ears as if another had spoken.
All passion had died out of it.

He waited, but she added nothing more. After a long silence she waved
her hand slightly, and without looking at her husband, said,

“I would rather be alone.”

Mr. Dinneford took Edith's letter from the floor, where it had dropped
from his wife's hand, and withdrew from her presence. She arose quickly
as he did so, crossed the room and silently turned the key, locking
herself in. Then her manner changed; she moved about the room in a
half-aimless, half-conscious way, as though some purpose was beginning
to take shape in her mind. Her motions had an easy, cat-like grace, in
contrast with their immobility a little while before. Gradually her step
became quicker, while ripples of feeling began to pass over her face,
which was fast losing its pallor. Gleams of light began shooting from
her eyes, that were so dull and stony when her husband found her with
Edith's letter crushed in her grasp. Her hands opened and shut upon
themselves nervously. This went on, the excitement of her forming
purpose, whatever it was, steadily increasing, until she swept about
the room like a fury, talking to herself and gesticulating as one half
insane from the impelling force of an evil passion.

“Baffled, but not defeated.” The excitement had died out. She spoke
these words aloud, and with a bitter satisfaction in her voice, then sat
down, resting her face in her hands, and remaining for a long time in
deep thought.

When she met her husband, an hour afterward, there was a veil over her
face, and he tried in vain to look beneath it. She was greatly changed;
her countenance had a new expression--something he had never seen there
before. For years she had been growing away from him; now she seemed
like one removed to a great distance--to have become almost stranger. He
felt half afraid of her. She did not speak of Edith, but remained cold,
silent and absorbed.

Mrs. Dinneford gave no sign of what was in her heart for many weeks.
The feeling of distance and strangeness perceived by her husband went on
increasing, until a vague feeling of mystery and fear began to oppress
him. Several times he had spoken of Edith, but his wife made no
response, nor could he read in her veiled face the secret purposes she
was hiding from him.

No wonder that Mr. Dinneford was greatly surprised and overjoyed, on
coming home one day, to meet his daughter, to feel her arms about his
neck, and to hold her tearful face on his bosom.

“And I'm not going away again, father dear,” she said as she kissed him
fondly. “Mother has sent for me, and George is to come. Oh, we shall be
so happy, so happy!”

And father and daughter cried together, like two happy children, in very
excess of gladness. They had met alone, but Mrs. Dinneford came in, her
presence falling on them like a cold shadow.

“Two great babies,” she said, a covert sneer in her chilling voice.

The joy went slowly out of their faces, though not out of their
hearts. There it nestled, and warmed the renewing blood. But a vague,
questioning fear began to creep in, a sense of insecurity, a dread of
hidden danger. The daughter did not fully trust her mother, nor the
husband his wife.




CHAPTER II.



_THE_ reception of young Granger was as cordial as Mrs. Dinneford
chose to make it. She wanted to get near enough to study his character
thoroughly, to discover its weaknesses and defects, not its better
qualities, so that she might do for him the evil work that was in her
heart. She hated him with a bitter hatred, and there is nothing so
subtle and tireless and unrelenting as the hatred of a bad woman.

She found him weak and unwary. His kindly nature, his high sense of
honor, his upright purpose, his loving devotion to Edith, were nothing
in her eyes. She spurned them in her thoughts, she trampled them under
her feet with scorn. But she studied his defects, and soon knew every
weak point in his character. She drew him out to speak of himself,
of his aims and prospects, of his friends and associates, until she
understood him altogether. Then she laid her plans for his destruction.

Granger was holding a clerkship at the time of his marriage, but was
anxious to get a start for himself. He had some acquaintance with a
man named Lloyd Freeling, and often spoke of him in connection with
business. Freeling had a store on one of the best streets, and, as
represented by himself, a fine run of trade, but wanted more capital.
One day he said to Granger,

“If I could find the right man with ten thousand dollars, I would take
him in. We could double this business in a year.”

Granger repeated the remark at home, Mrs. Dinneford listened, laid it up
in her thought, and on the next day called at the store of Mr. Freeling
to see what manner of man he was.

Her first impression was favorable--she liked him. On a second visit she
likes him better. She was not aware that Freeling knew her; in this he
had something of the advantage. A third time she dropped in, asking to
see certain goods and buying a small bill, as before. This time she drew
Mr. Freeling into conversation about business, and put some questions
the meaning of which he understood quite as well as she did.

A woman like Mrs. Dinneford can read character almost as easily as she
can read a printed page, particularly a weak or bad character. She knew
perfectly, before the close of this brief interview, that Freeling was a
man without principle, false and unscrupulous, and that if Granger were
associated with him in business, he could, if he chose, not only involve
him in transactions of a dishonest nature, but throw upon him the odium
and the consequences.

“Do you think,” she said to Granger, not long afterward, “that your
friend, Mr. Freeling, would like to have you for a partner in business?”

The question surprised and excited him.

“I know it,” he returned; “he has said so more than once.”

“How much capital would he require?”

“Ten thousand dollars.”

“A large sum to risk.”

“Yes; but I do not think there will be any risk. The business is well
established.”

“What do you know about Mr. Freeling?”

“Not a great deal; but if I am any judge of character, he is fair and
honorable.”

Mrs. Dinneford turned her head that Granger might not see the expression
of her face.

“You had better talk with Mr. Dinneford,” she said.

But Mr. Dinneford did not favor it. He had seen too many young men go
into business and fail.

So the matter was dropped for a little while. But Mrs. Dinneford had
set her heart on the young man's destruction, and no better way of
accomplishing the work presented itself than this. He must be involved
in some way to hurt his good name, to blast his reputation and drive him
to ruin. Weak, trusting and pliable, a specious villain in whom he
had confidence might easily get him involved in transactions that were
criminal under the law. She would be willing to sacrifice twice ten
thousand dollars to accomplish this result.

Neither Mr. Dinneford nor Edith favored the business connection with
Freeling, and said all they could against it. In weak natures we often
find great pertinacity. Granger had this quality. He had set his mind on
the copartnership, and saw in it a high road to fortune, and no argument
of Mr. Dinneford, nor opposition of Edith, had power to change his
views, or to hold him back from the arrangement favored by Mrs.
Dinneford, and made possible by the capital she almost compelled her
husband to supply.

In due time the change from clerk to merchant was made, and the new
connection announced, under the title of “FREELING & GRANGER.”

Clear seeing as evil may be in its schemes for hurting others, it
is always blind to the consequent exactions upon itself; it strikes
fiercely and desperately, not calculating the force of a rebound. So
eager was Mrs. Dinneford to compass the ruin of Granger that she stepped
beyond the limit of common prudence, and sought private interviews
with Freeling, both before and after the completion of the partnership
arrangement. These took place in the parlor of a fashionable hotel,
where the gentleman and lady seemed to meet accidentally, and without
attracting attention.

Mrs. Dinneford was very confidential in these interviews not concealing
her aversion to Granger. He had come into the family, she said, as an
unwelcome intruder; but now that he was there, they had to make the best
of him. Not in spoken words did Mrs. Dinneford convey to Freeling the
bitter hatred that was in her heart, nor in spoken words let him know
that she desired the young man's utter ruin, but he understood it
all before the close of their first private interview. Freeling was
exceedingly deferential in the beginning and guarded in his speech. He
knew by the quick intuitions of his nature that Mrs. Dinneford cherished
an evil purpose, and had chosen him as the agent for its accomplishment.
She was rich, and occupied a high social position, and his ready
conclusion was that, be the service what it might, he could make it pay.
To get such a woman in his power was worth an effort.

One morning--it was a few months after the date of the
copartnership--Mrs. Dinneford received a note from Freeling. It said,
briefly,

“At the usual place, 12 M. to-day. Important.” There was no signature.

The sharp knitting of her brows and the nervous crumpling of the note
in her hand showed that she was not pleased at the summons. She had come
already to know her partner in evil too well. At 12 M. she was in
the hotel parlor. Freeling was already there. They met in external
cordiality, but it was very evident from the manner of Mrs. Dinneford,
that she felt herself in the man's power, and had learned to be afraid
of him.

“It will be impossible to get through to-morrow,” he said, in a kind of
imperative voice, that was half a threat, “unless we have two thousand
dollars.”

“I cannot ask Mr. Dinneford for anything more,” Mrs. Dinneford replied;
“we have already furnished ten thousand dollars beyond the original
investment.”

“But it is all safe enough--that is, if we do not break down just here
for lack of so small a sum.”

Mrs. Dinneford gave a start.

“Break down!” She repeated the words in a husky, voice, with a paling
face. “What do you mean?”

“Only that in consequence of having in store a large stock of unsalable
goods bought by your indiscreet son-in-law, who knows no more about
business than a child, we are in a temporary strait.”

“Why did you trust him to buy?” asked Mrs. Dinneford.

“I didn't trust him. He bought without consulting me,” was replied,
almost rudely.

“Will two thousand be the end of this thing?”

“I think so.”

“You only think so?”

“I am sure of it.”

“Very well; I will see what can be done. But all this must have an end,
Mr. Freeling. We cannot supply any more money. You must look elsewhere
if you have further need. Mr. Dinneford is getting very much annoyed and
worried. You surely have other resources.”

“I have drawn to the utmost on all my resources,” said the man, coldly.

Mrs. Dinneford remained silent for a good while, her eyes upon the
floor. Freeling watched her face intently, trying to read what was in
her thoughts. At last she said, in a suggestive tone,

“There are many ways of getting money known to business-men--a little
risky some of them, perhaps, but desperate cases require desperate
expedients. You understand me?”

Freeling took a little time to consider before replying.

“Yes,” he said, at length, speaking slowly, as one careful of his words.
“But all expedients are 'risky,' as you say--some of them very risky. It
takes a long, cool head to manage them safely.”

“I don't know a longer or cooler head than yours,” returned Mrs.
Dinneford, a faint smile playing about her lips.

“Thank you for the compliment,” said Freeling, his lips reflecting the
smile on hers.

“You must think of some expedient.” Mrs. Dinneford's manner grew
impressive. She spoke with emphasis and deliberation. “Beyond the sum of
two thousand dollars, which I will get for you by to-morrow, I shall not
advance a single penny. You may set that down as sure. If you are not
sharp enough and strong enough, with the advantage you possess, to hold
your own, then you must go under; as for me, I have done all that I can
or will.”

Freeling saw that she was wholly in earnest, and understood what she
meant by “desperate expedients.” Granger was to be ruined, and she was
growing impatient of delay. He had no desire to hurt the young man--he
rather liked him. Up to this time he had been content with what he could
draw out of Mrs. Dinneford. There was no risk in this sort of business.
Moreover, he enjoyed his interviews and confidences with the elegant
lady, and of late the power he seemed to be gaining over her; this power
he regarded as capital laid up for another use, and at another time.

But it was plain that he had reached the end of his present financial
policy, and must decide whether to adopt the new one suggested by Mrs.
Dinneford or make a failure, and so get rid of his partner. The question
he had to settle with himself was whether he could make more by a
failure than by using Granger a while longer, and then throwing him
overboard, disgraced and ruined. Selfish and unscrupulous as he was,
Freeling hesitated to do this. And besides, the “desperate expedients”
 he would have to adopt in the new line of policy were fraught with
peril to all who took part in them. He might fall into the snare set for
another--might involve himself so deeply as not to find a way of escape.

“To-morrow we will talk this matter over,” he said in reply to Mrs.
Dinneford's last remark; “in the mean time I will examine the ground
thoroughly and see how it looks.”

“Don't hesitate to make any use you can of Granger,” suggested the lady.
“He has done his part toward getting things tangled, and must help to
untangle them.”

“All right, ma'am.”

And they separated, Mrs. Dinneford reaching the street by one door of
the hotel, and Freeling by another.

On the following day they met again, Mrs. Dinneford bringing the two
thousand dollars.

“And now what next?” she asked, after handing over the money and taking
the receipt of “Freeling & Granger.” Her eyes had a hard glitter, and
her face was almost stern in its expression. “How are you going to raise
money and keep afloat?”

“Only some desperate expedient is left me now,” answered Freeling,
though not in the tone of a man who felt himself at bay. It was said
with a wicked kind of levity.

Mrs. Dinneford looked at him keenly. She was beginning to mistrust the
man. They gazed into each other's faces in silence for some moments,
each trying to read what was in the other's thought. At length Freeling
said,

“There is one thing more that you will have to do, Mrs. Dinneford.”

“What?” she asked.

“Get your husband to draw two or three notes in Mr. Granger's favor.
They should not be for less than five hundred or a thousand dollars
each. The dates must be short--not over thirty or sixty days.”

“It can't be done,” was the emphatic answer.

“It must be done,” replied Freeling; “they need not be for the business.
You can manage the matter if you will; your daughter wants an India
shawl, or a set of diamonds, or a new carriage--anything you choose. Mr.
Dinneford hasn't the ready cash, but we can throw his notes into bank
and get the money; don't you see?”

But Mrs. Dinneford didn't see.

“I don't mean,” said Freeling, “that we are to use the money. Let the
shawl, or the diamond, or the what-not, be bought and paid for. We get
the discounts for your use, not ours.”

“All very well,” answered Mrs. Dinneford; “but how is that going to help
you?”

“Leave that to me. You get the notes,” said Freeling.

“Never walk blindfold, Mr. Freeling,” replied the lady, drawing herself
up, with a dignified air. “We ought to understand each other by this
time. I must see beyond the mere use of these notes.”

Freeling shut his mouth tightly and knit his heavy brows. Mrs. Dinneford
watched him, closely.

“It's a desperate expedient,” he said, at length.

“All well as far as that is concerned; but if I am to have a hand in it,
I must know all about it,” she replied, firmly. “As I said just now, I
never walk blindfold.”

Freeling leaned close to Mrs. Dinneford, and uttered a few sentences in
a low tone, speaking rapidly. The color went and came in her face, but
she sat motionless, and so continued for some time after he had ceased
speaking.

“You will get the notes?” Freeling put the question as one who has
little doubt of the answer.

“I will get them,” replied Mrs. Dinneford.

“When?”

“It will take time.”

“We cannot wait long. If the thing is done at all, it must be done
quickly. 'Strike while the iron is hot' is the best of all maxims.”

“There shall be no needless delay on my part. You may trust me for
that,” was answered.

Within a week Mrs. Dinneford brought two notes, drawn by her husband
in favor of George Granger--one for five hundred and the other for one
thousand dollars. The time was short--thirty and sixty days. On this
occasion she came to the store and asked for her son-in-law. The meeting
between her and Freeling was reserved and formal. She expressed regret
for the trouble she was giving the firm in procuring a discount for her
use, and said that if she could reciprocate the favor in any way she
would be happy to do so.

“The notes are drawn to your order,” remarked Freeling as soon as the
lady had retired. Granger endorsed them, and was about handing them to
his partner, when the latter said:

“Put our name on them while you are about it.” And the young man wrote
also the endorsement of the firm.

After this, Mr. Freeling put the bank business into Granger's hands.
Nearly all checks were drawn and all business paper endorsed by the
younger partner, who became the financier of the concern, and had the
management of all negotiations for money in and out of bank.

One morning, shortly after the first of Mr. Dinneford's notes was paid,
Granger saw his mother-in-law come into the store. Freeling was at the
counter. They talked together for some time, and then Mrs. Dinneford
went out.

On the next day Granger saw Mrs. Dinneford in the store again. After
she had gone away, Freeling came back, and laying a note-of-hand on his
partner's desk, said, in a pleased, confidential way.

“Look at that, my friend.”

Granger read the face of the note with a start of surprise. It was drawn
to his order, for three thousand dollars, and bore the signature of
Howard Dinneford.

“A thing that is worth having is worth asking for,” said Freeling.
“We obliged your mother-in-law, and now she has returned the favor. It
didn't come very easily, she said, and your father-in-law isn't feeling
rather comfortable about it; so she doesn't care about your speaking of
it at home.”

Granger was confounded.

“I can't understand it,” he said.

“You can understand that we have the note, and that it has come in the
nick of time,” returned Freeling.

“Yes, I can see all that.”

“Well, don't look a gift-horse in the mouth, but spring into the saddle
and take a ride. Your mother-in-law is a trump. If she will, she will,
you may depend on't.”

Freeling was unusually excited. Granger looked the note over and over
in a way that seemed to annoy his partner, who said, presently, with a
shade of ill-nature in his voice,

“What's the matter? Isn't the signature all right?”

“That's right enough,” returned the young man, after looking at it
closely. “But I can't understand it.”

“You will when you see the proceeds passed to our accounted in bank--ha!
ha!”

Granger looked up at his partner quickly, the laugh had so strange a
sound, but saw nothing new in his face.

In about a month Freeling had in his possession another note, signed by
Mr. Dinneford and drawn to the order of George Granger. This one was for
five thousand dollars. He handed it to his partner soon after the latter
had observed Mrs. Dinneford in the store.

A little over six weeks from this time Mrs. Dinneford was in the store
again. After she had gone away, Freeling handed Granger three more
notes drawn by Mr. Dinneford to his order, amounting in all to fifteen
thousand dollars. They were at short dates.

Granger took these notes without any remark, and was about putting them
in his desk, when Freeling said,

“I think you had better offer one in the People's Bank and another in
the Fourth National. They discount to-morrow.”

“Our line is full in both of these banks,” replied Granger.

“That may or may not be. Paper like this is not often thrown out. Call
on the president of the Fourth National and the cashier of the People's
Bank. Say that we particularly want the money, and would like them to
see that the notes go through. Star & Giltedge can easily place the
other.”

Granger's manner did not altogether please his partner. The notes lay
before him on his desk, and he looked at them in a kind of dazed way.

“What's the matter?” asked Freeling, rather sharply.

“Nothing,” was the quiet answer.

“You saw Mrs. Dinneford in the store just now. I told her last week that
I should claim another favor at her hands. She tried to beg off, but I
pushed the matter hard. It must end here, she says. Mr. Dinneford won't
go any farther.”

“I should think not,” replied Granger. “I wouldn't if I were he. The
wonder to me is that he has gone so far. What about the renewal of these
notes?”

“Oh, that is all arranged,” returned Freeling, a little hurriedly.
Granger looked at him for some moments. He was not satisfied.

“See that they go in bank,” said Freeling, in a positive way.

Granger took up his pen in an abstracted manner and endorsed the notes,
after which he laid them in his bank-book. An important customer coming
in at the moment, Freeling went forward to see him. After Granger was
left alone, he took the notes from his bank-book and examined them
with great care. Suspicion was aroused. He felt sure that something
was wrong. A good many things in Freeling's conduct of late had seemed
strange. After thinking for a while, he determined to take the notes at
once to Mr. Dinneford and ask him if all was right. As soon as his mind
had reached this conclusion he hurried through the work he had on hand,
and then putting his bank-book in his pocket, left the store.

On that very morning Mr. Dinneford received notice that he had a note
for three thousand dollars falling due at one of the banks. He went
immediately and asked to see the note. When it was shown to him, he was
observed to become very pale, but he left the desk of the note-clerk
without any remark, and returned home. He met his wife at the door, just
coming in.

“What's the matter?” she asked, seeing how pale he was. “Not sick, I
hope?”

“Worse than sick,” he replied as they passed into the house together.
“George has been forging my name.”

“Impossible!” exclaimed Mrs. Dinneford.

“I wish it were,” replied Mr. Dinneford, sadly; “but, alas! it is too
true. I have just returned from the Fourth National Bank. They have a
note for three thousand dollars, bearing my signature. It is drawn
to the order of George Granger, and endorsed by him. The note is a
forgery.”

Mrs. Dinneford became almost wild with excitement. Her fair face grew
purple. Her eyes shone with a fierce light.

“Have you had him arrested?” she asked.

“Oh no, no, no!” Mr. Dinneford answered. “For poor Edith's sake, if for
nothing else, this dreadful business must be kept secret. I will take up
the note when due, and the public need be none the wiser.”

“If,” said Mrs. Dinneford, “he has forged your name once, he has, in all
probability, done it again and again. No, no; the thing can't be hushed
up, and it must not be. Is he less a thief and a robber because he is
our son-in-law? My daughter the wife of a forger! Great heavens! has it
come to this Mr. Dinneford?” she added, after a pause, and with intense
bitterness and rejection in her voice. “The die is cast! Never again, if
I can prevent it, shall that scoundrel cross our threshold. Let the law
have its course. It is a crime to conceal crime.”

“It will kill our poor child!” answered Mr. Dinneford in a broken voice.

“Death is better than the degradation of living with a criminal,”
 replied his wife. “I say it solemnly, and I mean it; the die is cast!
Come what will, George Granger stands now and for ever on the outside!
Go at once and give information to the bank officers. If you do not, I
will.”

With a heavy heart Mr. Dinneford returned to the bank and informed the
president that the note in question was a forgery. He had been gone from
home a little over half an hour, when Granger, who had come to ask him
about the three notes given him that morning by Freeling, put his key in
the door, and found, a little to his surprise, that the latch was down.
He rang the bell, and in a few moments the servant appeared. Granger was
about passing in, when the man said, respectfully but firmly, as he held
the door partly closed,

“My orders are not to let you come in.”

“Who gave you those orders?” demanded Granger, turning white.

“Mrs. Dinneford.”

“I wish to see Mr. Dinneford, and I must see him immediately.”

“Mr. Dinneford is not at home,” answered the servant.

“Shut that door instantly!”

It was the voice of Mrs. Dinneford, speaking from within. Granger heard
it; in the next moment the door was shut in his face.

The young man hardly knew how he got back to the store. On his arrival
he found himself under arrest, charged with forgery, and with fresh
evidence of the crime on his person in the three notes received that
morning from his partner, who denied all knowledge of their existence,
and appeared as a witness against him at the hearing before a
magistrate. Granger was held to bail to answer the charge at the next
term of court.

It would have been impossible to keep all this from Edith, even if there
had been a purpose to do so. Mrs. Dinneford chose to break the dreadful
news at her own time and in her own way. The shock was fearful. On the
night that followed her baby was born.




CHAPTER III.



“_IT_ is a splendid boy,” said the nurse as she came in with the
new-born baby in her arms, “and perfect as a bit of sculpture. Just look
at that hand.”

“Faugh!” ejaculated Mrs. Dinneford, to whom this was addressed. Her
countenance expressed disgust. She turned her head away. “Hide the thing
from my sight!” she added, angrily. “Cover it up! smother it if you
will!”

“You are still determined?” said the nurse.

“Determined, Mrs. Bray; I am not the woman to look back when I have once
resolved. You know me.” Mrs. Dinneford said this passionately.

The two women were silent for a little while. Mrs. Bray, the nurse, kept
her face partly turned from Mrs. Dinneford. She was a short, dry, wiry
little woman, with French features, a sallow complexion and very black
eyes.

The doctor looked in. Mrs. Dinneford went quickly to the door, and
putting her hand on his arm, pressed him back, going out into the entry
with him and closing the door behind them. They talked for a short time
very earnestly.

“The whole thing is wrong,” said the doctor as he turned to go, “and I
will not be answerable for the consequences.”

“No one will require them at your hand, Doctor Radcliffe,” replied
Mrs. Dinneford. “Do the best you can for Edith. As for the rest, know
nothing, say nothing. You understand.”

Doctor Burt Radcliffe had a large practice among rich and fashionable
people. He had learned to be very considerate of their weaknesses,
peculiarities and moral obliquities. His business was to doctor them
when sick, to humor them when they only thought themselves sick, and to
get the largest possible fees for his, services. A great deal came under
his observation that he did not care to see, and of which he saw as
little as possible. From policy he had learned to be reticent. He held
family secrets enough to make, in the hands of a skillful writer, more
than a dozen romances of the saddest and most exciting character.

Mrs. Dinneford knew him thoroughly, and just how far to trust him. “Know
nothing, say nothing” was a good maxim in the case, and so she divulged
only the fact that the baby was to be cast adrift. His weak remonstrance
might as well not have been spoken, and he knew it.

While this brief interview was in progress, Nurse Bray sat with the baby
on her lap. She had taken the soft little hands into her own; and evil
and cruel though she was, an impulse of tenderness flowed into her heart
from the angels who were present with the innocent child. It grew
lovely in her eyes. Its helplessness stirred in her a latent instinct of
protection. “No no, it must not be,” she was saying to herself, when the
door opened and Mrs. Dinneford came back.

Mrs. Bray did not lift her head, but sat looking down at the baby and
toying with its hands.

“Pshaw!” ejaculated Mrs. Dinneford, in angry disgust, as she noticed
this manifestation of interest. “Bundle the thing up and throw into that
basket. Is the woman down stairs?”

“Yes,” replied Mrs. Bray as she slowly drew a light blanket over the
baby.

“Very well. Put it in the basket, and let her take it away.”

“She is not a good woman,” said the nurse, whose heart was failing her
at the last moment.

“She may be the devil for all I care,” returned Mrs. Dinneford.

Mrs. Bray did as she was ordered, but with an evident reluctance that
irritated Mrs. Dinneford.

“Go now and bring up the woman,” she said, sharply.

The woman was brought. She was past the prime of life, and had an evil
face. You read in it the record of bad passions indulged and the signs
of a cruel nature. She was poorly clad, and her garments unclean.

“You will take this child?” said Mrs. Dinneford abruptly, as the woman
came into her presence.

“I have agreed to do so,” she replied, looking toward Mrs. Bray.

“She is to have fifty dollars,” said the nurse.

“And that is to be the last of it!” Mrs. Dinneford's face was pale, and
she spoke in a hard, husky voice.

Opening her purse, she took from it a small roll of bills, and as she
held out the money said, slowly and with a hard emphasis,

“You understand the terms. I do not know you--not even your name. I
don't wish to know you. For this consideration you take the child away.
That is the end of it between you and me. The child is your own as much
as if he were born to you, and you can do with him as you please. And
now go.” Mrs. Dinneford waved her hand.

“His name?” queried the woman.

“He has no name!” Mrs. Dinneford stamped her foot in angry impatience.

The woman stooped down, and taking up the basket, tucked the covering
that had been laid over the baby close about its head, so that no one
could see what she carried, and went off without uttering another word.

It was some moments before either Mrs. Dinneford or the nurse spoke.
Mrs. Bray was first to break silence.

“All this means a great deal more than you have counted on,” she said,
in a voice that betrayed some little feeling. “To throw a tender baby
out like that is a hard thing. I am afraid--”

“There, there! no more of that,” returned Mrs. Dinneford, impatiently.
“It's ugly work, I own, but it had to be done--like cutting off a
diseased limb. He will die, of course, and the sooner it is over, the
better for him and every one else.”

“He will have a hard struggle for life, poor little thing!” said the
nurse. “I would rather see him dead.”

Mrs. Dinneford, now that this wicked and cruel deed was done, felt ill
at ease. She pushed the subject away, and tried to bury it out of sight
as we bury the dead, but did not find the task an easy one.

What followed the birth and removal of Edith's baby up to the time of
her return to reason after long struggle for life, has already been
told. Her demand to have her baby--“Oh, mother, bring me my baby!
I shall die if you do not!” and the answer, “Your baby is in
heaven!”--sent the feeble life-currents back again upon her heart. There
was another long period of oblivion, out of which she came very slowly,
her mind almost as much a blank as the mind of a child.

She had to learn again the names of things, and to be taught their use.
It was touching to see the untiring devotion of her father, and the
pleasure he took in every new evidence of mental growth. He went
over the alphabet with her, letter by letter, many times each day,
encouraging her and holding her thought down to the unintelligible signs
with a patient tenderness sad yet beautiful to see; and when she began
to combine letters into words, and at last to put words together, his
delight was unbounded.

Very slowly went on the new process of mental growth, and it was months
before thought began to reach out beyond the little world that lay just
around her.

Meanwhile, Edith's husband had been brought to trial for forgery,
convicted and sentenced to the State's prison for a term of years. His
partner came forward as the chief witness, swearing that he had believed
the notes genuine, the firm having several times had the use of Mr.
Dinneford's paper, drawn to the order of Granger.

Ere the day of trial came the poor young man was nearly broken-hearted.
Public disgrace like this, added to the terrible private wrongs he was
suffering, was more than he had the moral strength to bear. Utterly
repudiated by his wife's family, and not even permitted to see Edith, he
only knew that she was very ill. Of the birth of his baby he had but
a vague intimation. A rumor was abroad that it had died, but he could
learn nothing certain. In his distress and uncertainty he called on Dr.
Radcliffe, who replied to his questions with a cold evasion. “It was
put out to nurse,” said the doctor, “and that is all I know about it.”
 Beyond this he would say nothing.

Granger was not taken to the State's prison after his sentence, but
to an insane asylum. Reason gave way under the terrible ordeal through
which he had been made to pass.

“Mother,” said Edith, one day, in a tone that caused Mrs. Dinneford's
heart to leap. She was reading a child's simple story-book, and looked
up as she spoke. Her eyes were wide open and full of questions.

“What, my dear?” asked Mrs. Dinneford, repressing her feelings and
trying to keep her voice calm.

“There's something I can't understand, mother.” She looked down at
herself, then about the room. Her manner was becoming nervous.

“What can't you understand?”

Edith shut her hands over her eyes and remained very still. When
she removed them, and her mother looked into her face the childlike
sweetness and content were all gone, and a conscious woman was before
her. The transformation was as sudden as it was marvelous.

Both remained silent for the space of nearly a minute. Mrs. Dinneford
knew not what to say, and waited for some sign from her daughter.

“Where is my baby, mother?” Edith said this in a low, tremulous whisper,
leaning forward as she spoke, repressed and eager.

“Have you forgotten?” asked Mrs. Dinneford, with regained composure.

“Forgotten what?”

“You were very ill after your baby was born; no one thought you could
live; you were ill for a long time. And the baby--”

“What of the baby, mother?” asked Edith, beginning to tremble violently.
Her mother, perceiving her agitation, held back the word that was on her
lips.

“What of the baby, mother?” Edith repeated the question.

“It died,” said Mrs. Dinneford, turning partly away. She could not look
at her child and utter this cruel falsehood.

“Dead! Oh, mother, don't say that! The baby can't be dead!”

A swift flash of suspicion came into her eyes.

“I have said it, my child,” was the almost stern response of Mrs.
Dinneford. “The baby is dead.”

A weight seemed to fall on Edith. She bent forward, crouching down until
her elbows rested on her knees and her hands supported her head. Thus
she sat, rocking her body with a slight motion. Mrs. Dinneford watched
her without speaking.

“And what of George?” asked Edith, checking her nervous movement at
last.

Her mother did not reply. Edith waited a moment, and then lifted herself
erect.

“What of George?” she demanded.

“My poor child!” exclaimed Mrs. Dinneford, with a gush of genuine pity,
putting her arms about Edith and drawing her head against her bosom. “It
is more than you have strength to bear.”

“You must tell me,” the daughter said, disengaging herself. “I have
asked for my husband.”

“Hush! You must not utter that word again;” and Mrs. Dinneford put her
fingers on Edith's lips. “The wretched man you once called by that name
is a disgraced criminal. It is better that you know the worst.”

When Mr. Dinneford came home, instead of the quiet, happy child he
had left in the morning, he found a sad, almost broken-hearted woman,
refusing to be comforted. The wonder was that under the shock of this
terrible awakening, reason had not been again and hopelessly dethroned.

After a period of intense suffering, pain seemed to deaden sensibility.
She grew calm and passive. And now Mrs. Dinneford set herself to the
completion of the work she had begun. She had compassed the ruin of
Granger in order to make a divorce possible; she had cast the baby
adrift that no sign of the social disgrace might remain as an impediment
to her first ambition. She would yet see her daughter in the position
to which she had from the beginning resolved to lift her, cost what it
might. But the task was not to be an easy one.

After a period of intense suffering, as we have said, Edith grew calm
and passive. But she was never at ease with her mother, and seemed to
be afraid of her. To her father she was tender and confiding. Mrs.
Dinneford soon saw that if Edith's consent to a divorce from her husband
was to be obtained, it must come through her father's influence; for
if she but hinted at the subject, it was met with a flash of almost
indignant rejection. So her first work was to bring her husband over to
her side. This was not difficult, for Mr. Dinneford felt the disgrace
of having for a son-in-law a condemned criminal, who was only saved from
the State's prison by insanity. An insane criminal was not worthy to
hold the relation of husband to his pure and lovely child.

After a feeble opposition to her father's arguments and persuasions,
Edith yielded her consent. An application for a divorce was made, and
speedily granted.




CHAPTER IV.



_OUT_ of this furnace Edith came with a new and purer spirit. She had
been thrust in a shrinking and frightened girl; she came out a woman in
mental stature, in feeling and self-consciousness.

The river of her life, which had cut for itself a deeper channel, lay
now so far down that it was out of the sight of common observation. Even
her mother failed to apprehend its drift and strength. Her father knew
her better. To her mother she was reserved and distant; to her father,
warm and confiding. With the former she would sit for hours without
speaking unless addressed; with the latter she was pleased and social,
and grew to be interested in what interested him. As mentioned, Mr.
Dinneford was a man of wealth and leisure, and active in many public
charities. He had come to be much concerned for the neglected and
cast-off children of poor and vicious parents, thousands upon thousands
of whom were going to hopeless ruin, unthought of and uncared for by
Church or State, and their condition often formed the subject of his
conversation as well at home as elsewhere.

Mrs. Dinneford had no sympathy with her husband in this direction. A
dirty, vicious child was an offence to her, not an object of pity, and
she felt more like, spurning it with her foot than touching it with
her hand. But it was not so with Edith; she listened to her father, and
became deeply interested in the poor, suffering, neglected little ones
whose sad condition he could so vividly portray, for the public duties
of charity to which he was giving a large part of his time made him
familiar with much that was sad and terrible in human suffering and
degradation.

One day Edith said to her father,

“I saw a sight this morning that made me sick. It has haunted me ever
since. Oh, it was dreadful!”

“What was it?” asked Mr. Dinneford.

“A sick baby in the arms of a half-drunken woman. It made me shiver to
look at its poor little face, wasted by hunger and sickness and purple
with cold. The woman sat at the street corner begging, and the people
went by, no one seeming to care for the helpless, starving baby in her
arms. I saw a police-officer almost touch the woman as he passed. Why
did he not arrest her?”

“That was not his business,” replied Mr. Dinneford. “So long as she did
not disturb the peace, the officer had nothing to do with her.”

“Who, then, has?”

“Nobody.”

“Why, father!” exclaimed Edith. “Nobody?”

“The woman was engaged in business. She was a beggar, and the sick,
half-starved baby was her capital in trade,” replied Mr. Dinneford.
“That policeman had no more authority to arrest her than he had to
arrest the organ-man or the peanut-vender.”

“But somebody should see after a poor baby like that. Is there no law to
meet such cases?”

“The poor baby has no vote,” replied Mr. Dinneford, “and law-makers
don't concern themselves much about that sort of constituency; and even
if they did, the executors of law would be found indifferent. They are
much more careful to protect those whose business it is to make drunken
beggars like the one you saw, who, if men, can vote and give them place
and power. The poor baby is far beneath their consideration.”

“But not of Him,” said Edith, with eyes full of tears, “who took little
children in his arms and blessed them, and said, Suffer them to come
unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

“Our law-makers are not, I fear, of his kingdom,” answered Mr.
Dinneford, gravely, “but of the kingdom of this world.”

A little while after, Edith, who had remained silent and thoughtful,
said, with a tremor in her voice,

“Father, did you see my baby?”

Mr. Dinneford started at so unexpected a question, surprised and
disturbed. He did not reply, and Edith put the question again.

“No, my dear,” he answered, with a hesitation of manner that was almost
painful.

After looking into his face steadily for some moments, Edith dropped her
eyes to the floor, and there was a constrained silence between them for
a good while.

“You never saw it?” she queried, again lifting her eyes to her father's
face. Her own was much paler than when she first put the question.

“Never.”

“Why?” asked Edith.

She waited for a little while, and then said,

“Why don't you answer me, father?”

“It was never brought to me.”

“Oh, father!”

“You were very ill, and a nurse was procured immediately.”

“I was not too sick to see my baby,” said Edith, with white, quivering
lips. “If they had laid it in my bosom as soon as it was born, I would
never have been so ill, and the baby would not have died. If--if--”

She held back what she was about saying, shutting her lips tightly. Her
face remained very pale and strangely agitated. Nothing more was then
said.

A day or two afterward, Edith asked her mother, with an abruptness that
sent the color to her face, “Where was my baby buried?”

“In our lot at Fairview,” was replied, after a moment's pause.

Edith said no more, but on that very day, regardless of a heavy rain
that was falling, went out to the cemetery alone and searched in the
family lot for the little mound that covered her baby--searched, but did
not find it. She came back so changed in appearance that when her mother
saw her she exclaimed,

“Why, Edith! Are you sick?”

“I have been looking for my baby's grave and cannot find it,” she
answered. “There is something wrong, mother. What was done with my baby?
I must know.” And she caught her mother's wrists with both of her hands
in a tight grip, and sent searching glances down through her eyes.

“Your baby is dead,” returned Mrs. Dinneford, speaking slowly and with
a hard deliberation. “As for its grave--well, if you will drag up the
miserable past, know that in my anger at your wretched _mesalliance_ I
rejected even the dead body of your miserable husband's child, and would
not even suffer it to lie in our family ground. You know how bitterly I
was disappointed, and I am not one of the kind that forgets or forgives
easily. I may have been wrong, but it is too late now, and the past may
as well be covered out of sight.”

“Where, then, was my baby buried?” asked Edith, with a calm resolution
of manner that was not to be denied.

“I do not know. I did not care at the time, and never asked.”

“Who can tell me?”

“I don't know.”

“Who took my baby to nurse?”

“I have forgotten the woman's name. All I know is that she is dead. When
the child died, I sent her money, and told her to bury it decently.”

“Where did she live?”

“I never knew precisely. Somewhere down town.”

“Who brought her here? who recommended her?” said Edith, pushing her
inquiries rapidly.

“I have forgotten that also,” replied Mrs. Dinneford, maintaining her
coldness of manner.

“My nurse, I presume,” said Edith. “I have a faint recollection of
her--a dark little woman with black eyes whom I had never seen before.
What was her name?”

“Bodine,” answered Mrs. Dinneford, without a moment's hesitation.

“Where does she live?”

“She went to Havana with a Cuban lady several months ago.”

“Do you know the lady's name?”

“It was Casteline, I think.”

Edith questioned no further. The mother and daughter were still sitting
together, both deeply absorbed in thought, when a servant opened the
door and said to Mrs. Dinneford,

“A lady wishes to see you.”

“Didn't she give you her card?”

“No ma'am.”

“Nor send up her name?”

“No, ma'am.”

“Go down and ask her name.”

The servant left the room. On returning, she said,

“Her name is Mrs. Bray.”

Mrs. Dinneford turned her face quickly, but not in time to prevent Edith
from seeing by its expression that she knew her visitor, and that her
call was felt to be an unwelcome one. She went from the room without
speaking. On entering the parlor, Mrs. Dinneford said, in a low, hurried
voice,

“I don't want you to come here, Mrs. Bray. If you wish to see me send me
word, and I will call on you, but you must on no account come here.”

“Why? Is anything wrong?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“Edith isn't satisfied about the baby, has been out to Fairview looking
for its grave, wants to know who her nurse was.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I said that your name was Mrs. Bodine, and that you had gone to Cuba.”

“Do you think she would know me?”

“Can't tell; wouldn't like to run the risk of her seeing you here. Pull
down your veil. There! close. She said, a little while ago, that she had
a faint recollection of you as a dark little woman with black eyes whom
she had never seen before.”

“Indeed!” and Mrs. Bray gathered her veil close about her face.

“The baby isn't living?” Mrs. Dinneford asked the question in a whisper.

“Yes.”

“Oh, it can't be! Are you sure?”

“Yes; I saw it day before yesterday.”

“You did! Where?”

“On the street, in the arms of a beggar-woman.”

“You are deceiving me!” Mrs. Dinneford spoke with a throb of anger in
her voice.

“As I live, no! Poor little thing! half starved and half frozen. It
'most made me sick.”

“It's impossible! You could not know that it was Edith's baby.”

“I do know,” replied Mrs. Bray, in a voice that left no doubt on Mrs.
Dinneford's mind.

“Was the woman the same to whom we gave the baby?”

“No; she got rid of it in less than a month.”

“What did she do with it?”

“Sold it for five dollars, after she had spent all the money she
received from you in drink and lottery-policies.”

“Sold it for five dollars!”

“Yes, to two beggar-women, who use it every day, one in the morning and
the other in the afternoon, and get drunk on the money they receive,
lying all night in some miserable den.”

Mrs. Dinneford gave a little shiver.

“What becomes of the baby when they are not using it?” she asked.

“They pay a woman a dollar a week to take care of it at night.”

“Do you know where this woman lives?”

“Yes.”

“Were you ever there?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of a place is it?”

“Worse than a dog-kennel.”

“What does all this mean?” demanded Mrs. Dinneford, with repressed
excitement. “Why have you so kept on the track of this baby, when you
knew I wished it lost sight of?”

“I had my own reasons,” replied Mrs. Bray. “One doesn't know what may
come of an affair like this, and it's safe to keep well up with it.”

Mrs. Dinneford bit her lips till the blood almost came through. A faint
rustle of garments in the hall caused her to start. An expression of
alarm crossed her face.

“Go now,” she said, hurriedly, to her visitor; “I will call and see you
this afternoon.”

Mrs. Bray quietly arose, saying, as she did so, “I shall expect you,”
 and went away.

There was a menace in her tone as she said, “I shall expect you,” that
did not escape the ears of Mrs. Dinneford.

Edith was in the hall, at some distance from the parlor door. Mrs. Bray
had to pass her as she went out. Edith looked at her intently.

“Who is that woman?” she asked, confronting her mother, after the
visitor was gone.

“If you ask the question in a proper manner, I shall have no objection
to answer,” said Mrs. Dinneford, with a dignified and slightly offended
air; “but my daughter is assuming rather, too much.”

“Mrs. Bray, the servant said.”

“No, Mrs. Gray.”

“I understood her to say Mrs. Bray.”

“I can't help what you understood.” The mother spoke with some asperity
of manner. “She calls herself Gray, but you can have it anything you
please; it won't change her identity.”

“What did she want?”

“To see me.”

“I know.” Edith was turning away with an expression on her face that
Mrs. Dinneford did not like, so she said,

“She is in trouble, and wants me to help her, if you must know. She
used to be a dressmaker, and worked for me before you were born; she got
married, and then her troubles began. Now she is a widow with a house
full of little children, and not half bread enough to feed them. I've
helped her a number of times already, but I'm getting tired of it; she
must look somewhere else, and I told her so.”

Edith turned from her mother with an unsatisfied manner, and went up
stairs. Mrs. Dinneford was surprised, not long afterward, to meet her at
her chamber door, dressed to go out. This was something unusual.

“Where are you going?” she asked, not concealing her surprise.

“I have a little errand out,” Edith replied.

This was not satisfactory to her mother. She asked other questions, but
Edith gave only evasive answers.

On leaving the house, Edith walked quickly, like one in earnest about
something; her veil was closely drawn. Only a few blocks from where she
lived was the office of Dr. Radcliffe. Hither she directed her steps.

“Why, Edith, child!” exclaimed the doctor, not concealing the surprise
he felt at seeing her. “Nobody sick, I hope?”

“No one,” she answered.

There was a momentary pause; then Edith said, abruptly,

“Doctor, what became of my baby?”

“It died,” answered Doctor Radcliffe, but not without betraying some
confusion. The question had fallen upon him too suddenly.

“Did you see it after it was dead?” She spoke in a firm voice, looking
him steadily in the face.

“No,” he replied, after a slight hesitation.

“Then how do you know that it died?” Edith asked.

“I had your mother's word for it,” said the doctor.

“What was done with my baby after it was born?”

“It was given out to nurse.”

“With your consent?”

“I did not advise it. Your mother had her own views in the case. It was
something over which I had no control.”

“And you never saw it after it was taken away?”

“Never.”

“And do not really know whether it be dead or living?”

“Oh, it's dead, of course, my child. There is no doubt of that,” said
the doctor, with sudden earnestness of manner.

“Have you any evidence of the fact?”

“My dear, dear child,” answered the doctor, with much feeling, “it is
all wrong. Why go back over this unhappy ground? why torture yourself
for nothing? Your baby died long ago, and is in heaven.”

“Would God I could believe it!” she exclaimed, in strong agitation. “If
it were so, why is not the evidence set before me? I question my mother;
I ask for the nurse who was with me when my baby was born, and for the
nurse to whom it was given afterward, and am told that they are dead or
out of the country. I ask for my baby's grave, but it cannot be found.
I have searched for it where my mother told me it was, but the grave
is not there. Why all this hiding and mystery? Doctor, you said that my
baby was in heaven, and I answered, 'Would God it were so!' for I saw a
baby in hell not long ago!”

The doctor was scared. He feared that Edith was losing her mind, she
looked and spoke so wildly.

“A puny, half-starved, half-frozen little thing, in the arms of a
drunken beggar,” she added. “And, doctor, an awful thought has haunted
me ever since.”

“Hush, hush!” said the doctor, who saw what was in her mind. “You must
not indulge such morbid fancies.”

“It is that I may not indulge them that I have come to you. I want
certainty, Dr. Radcliffe. Somebody knows all about my baby. Who was my
nurse?”

“I never saw her before the night of your baby's birth, and have never
seen her since. Your mother procured her.”

“Did you hear her name?”

“No.”

“And so you cannot help me at all?” said Edith, in a disappointed voice.

“I cannot, my poor child,” answered the doctor.

All the flush and excitement died out of Edith's face. When she arose to
go, she was pale and haggard, like one exhausted by pain, and her steps
uneven, like the steps of an invalid walking for the first time. Dr.
Radcliffe went with her in silence to the door.

“Oh, doctor,” said Edith, in a choking voice, as she lingered a moment
on the steps, “can't you bring out of this frightful mystery something
for my heart to rest upon? I want the truth. Oh, doctor, in pity help me
to find the truth!”

“I am powerless to help you,” the doctor replied. “Your only hope lies
in your mother. She knows all about it; I do not.”

And he turned and left her standing at the door. Slowly she descended
the steps, drawing her veil as she did so about her face, and walked
away more like one in a dream than conscious of the tide of life setting
so strongly all about her.




CHAPTER V.



_MEANTIME_, obeying the unwelcome summons, Mrs. Dinneford had gone to
see Mrs. Bray. She found her in a small third-story room in the lower
part of the city, over a mile away from her own residence. The meeting
between the two women was not over-gracious, but in keeping with their
relations to each other. Mrs. Dinneford was half angry and impatient;
Mrs. Bray cool and self-possessed.

“And now what is it you have to say?” asked the former, almost as soon
as she had entered.

“The woman to whom you gave that baby was here yesterday.”

A frightened expression came into Mrs. Dinneford's face. Mrs. Bray
watched her keenly as, with lips slightly apart, she waited for what
more was to come.

“Unfortunately, she met me just as I was at my own door, and so found
out my residence,” continued Mrs. Bray. “I was in hopes I should never
see her again. We shall have trouble, I'm afraid.”

“In what way?”

“A bad woman who has you in her power can trouble you in many ways,”
 answered Mrs. Bray.

“She did not know my name--you assured me of that. It was one of the
stipulations.”

“She does know, and your daughter's name also. And she knows where the
baby is. She's deeper than I supposed. It's never safe to trust such
people; they have no honor.”

Fear sent all the color out of Mrs. Dinneford's face.

“What does she want?”

“Money.”

“She was paid liberally.”

“That has nothing to do with it. These people have no honor, as I said;
they will get all they can.”

“How much does she want?”

“A hundred dollars; and it won't end there, I'm thinking. If she is
refused, she will go to your house; she gave me that alternative--would
have gone yesterday, if good luck had not thrown her in my way. I
promised to call on you and see what could be done.”

Mrs. Dinneford actually groaned in her fear and distress.

“Would you like to see her yourself?” coolly asked Mrs. Bray.

“Oh dear! no, no!” and the lady put up her hands in dismay.

“It might be best,” said her wily companion.

“No, no, no! I will have nothing to do with her! You must keep her away
from me,” replied Mrs. Dinneford, with increasing agitation.

“I cannot keep her away without satisfying her demands. If you were to
see her yourself, you would know just what her demands were. If you do
not see her, you will only have my word for it, and I am left open
to misapprehension, if not worse. I don't like to be placed in such a
position.”

And Mrs. Bray put on a dignified, half-injured manner.

“It's a wretched business in every way,” she added, “and I'm sorry that
I ever had anything to do with it. It's something dreadful, as I told
you at the time, to cast a helpless baby adrift in such a way. Poor
little soul! I shall never feel right about it.”

“That's neither here nor there;” and Mrs. Dinneford waved her hand
impatiently. “The thing now in hand is to deal with this woman.”

“Yes, that's it--and as I said just now, I would rather have you deal
with her yourself; you may be able to do it better than I can.”

“It's no use to talk, Mrs. Bray. I will not see the woman.”

“Very well; you must be your own judge in the case.”

“Can't you bind her up to something, or get her out of the city? I'd
pay almost anything to have her a thousand miles away. See if you can't
induce her to go to New Orleans. I'll pay her passage, and give her a
hundred dollars besides, if she'll go.”

Mrs. Bray smiled a faint, sinister smile:

“If you could get her off there, it would be the end of her. She'd never
stand the fever.”

“Then get her off, cost what it may,” said Mrs. Dinneford.

“She will be here in less than half an hour.” Mrs. Bray looked at the
face of a small cheap clock that stood on the mantel.

“She will?” Mrs. Dinneford became uneasy, and arose from her chair.

“Yes; what shall I say to her?”

“Manage her the best you can. Here are thirty dollars--all the money I
have with me. Give her that, and promise more if necessary. I will see
you again.”

“When?” asked Mrs. Bray.

“At any time you desire.”

“Then you had better come to-morrow morning. I shall not go out.”

“I will be here at eleven o'clock. Induce her if possible to leave the
city--to go South, so that she may never come back.”

“The best I can shall be done,” replied Mrs. Bray as she folded the
bank-bills she had received from Mrs. Dinneford in a fond, tender sort
of way and put them into her pocket.

Mrs. Dinneford retired, saying as she did so,

“I will be here in the morning.”

An instant change came over the shallow face of the wiry little woman as
the form of Mrs. Dinneford vanished through the door. A veil seemed to
fall away from it. All its virtuous sobriety was gone, and a smile of
evil satisfaction curved about her lips and danced in her keen black
eyes. She stood still, listening to the retiring steps of her visitor,
until she heard the street door shut. Then, with a quick, cat-like step,
she crossed to the opposite side of the room, and pushed open a door
that led to an adjoining chamber. A woman came forward to meet her. This
woman was taller and stouter than Mrs. Bray, and had a soft, sensual
face, but a resolute mouth, the under jaw slightly protruding. Her eyes
were small and close together, and had that peculiar wily and alert
expression you sometimes see, making you think of a serpent's eyes. She
was dressed in common finery and adorned by cheap jewelry.

“What do you think of that, Pinky Swett?” exclaimed Mrs. Bray, in a
voice of exultation. “Got her all right, haven't I?”

“Well, you have!” answered the woman, shaking all over with unrestrained
laughter. “The fattest pigeon I've happened to see for a month of
Sundays. Is she very rich?”

“Her husband is, and that's all the same. And now, Pinky”--Mrs. Bray
assumed a mock gravity of tone and manner--“you know your fate--New
Orleans and the yellow fever. You must pack right off. Passage free and
a hundred dollars for funeral expenses. Nice wet graves down there--keep
off the fire;” and she gave a low chuckle.

“Oh yes; all settled. When does the next steamer sail?” and Pinky almost
screamed with merriment. She had been drinking.

“H-u-s-h! h-u-s-h! None of that here, Pinky. The people down stairs are
good Methodists, and think me a saint.”

“You a saint? Oh dear!” and she shook with repressed enjoyment.

After this the two women grew serious, and put their heads together for
business.

“Who is this woman, Fan? What's her name, and where does she live?”
 asked Pinky Swett.

“That's my secret, Pinky,” replied Mrs. Bray, “and I can't let it go; it
wouldn't be safe. You get a little off the handle sometimes, and don't
know what you say--might let the cat out of the bag. Sally Long took the
baby away, and she died two months ago; so I'm the only one now in
the secret. All I want of you is to keep track of the baby. Here is a
five-dollar bill; I can't trust you with more at a time. I know your
weakness, Pinky;” and she touched her under the chin in a familiar,
patronizing way.

Pinky wasn't satisfied with this, and growled a little, just showing her
teeth like an unquiet dog.

“Give me ten,” she said; “the woman gave you thirty. I heard her say so.
And she's going to bring you seventy to-morrow.”

“You'll only waste it, Pinky,” remonstrated Mrs. Bray. “It will all be
gone before morning.”

“Fan,” said the woman, leaning toward Mrs. Bray and speaking in a low,
confidential tone, “I dreamed of a cow last night, and that's good
luck, you know. Tom Oaks made a splendid hit last Saturday--drew twenty
dollars--and Sue Minty got ten. They're all buzzing about it down in our
street, and going to Sam McFaddon's office in a stream.”

“Do they have good luck at Sam McFaddon's?” asked Mrs. Bray, with
considerable interest in her manner.

“It's the luckiest place that I know. Never dreamed of a cow or a hen
that I didn't make a hit, and I dreamed of a cow last night. She was
giving such a splendid pail of milk, full to the brim, just as old Spot
and Brindle used to give. You remember our Spot and Brindle, Fan?”

“Oh yes.” There was a falling inflection in Mrs. Bray's voice, as if
the reference had sent her thoughts away back to other and more innocent
days.

The two women sat silent for some moments after that; and when Pinky
spoke, which she did first, it was in lower and softer tones:

“I don't like to think much about them old times, Fan; do you? I might
have done better. But it's no use grizzling about it now. What's done's
done, and can't be helped. Water doesn't run up hill again after it's
once run down. I've got going, and can't stop, you see. There's nothing
to catch at that won't break as soon as you touch it. So I mean to be
jolly as I move along.”

“Laughing is better than crying at any time,” returned Mrs. Bray; “here
are five more;” and she handed Pinky Swett another bank-bill. “I'm going
to try my luck. Put half a dollar on ten different rows, and we'll go
shares on what is drawn. I dreamed the other night that I saw a flock of
sheep, and that's good luck, isn't it?”

Pinky thrust her hand into her pocket and drew out a worn and soiled
dream-book.

“A flock of sheep; let me see;” and she commenced turning over the
leaves. “Sheep; here it is: 'To see them is a sign of sorrow--11, 20,
40, 48. To be surrounded by many sheep denotes good luck--2, 11, 55.'
That's your row; put down 2, 11, 55. We'll try that. Next put down 41
11, 44--that's the lucky row when you dream of a cow.”

As Pinky leaned toward her friend she dropped her parasol.

“That's for luck, maybe,” she said, with a brightening face. “Let's see
what it says about a parasol;” and she turned over her dream-book.

“For a maiden to dream she loses her parasol shows that her sweetheart
is false and will never marry her--5, 51, 56.”

“But you didn't dream about a parasol, Pinky.”

“That's no matter; it's just as good as a dream. 5, 51, 56 is the row.
Put that down for the second, Fan.”

As Mrs. Bray was writing out these numbers the clock on the mantel
struck five.

“8, 12, 60,” said Pinky, turning to the clock; “that's the clock row.”

And Mrs. Bray put down these figures also.

“That's three rows,” said Pinky, “and we want ten.” She arose, as she
spoke, and going to the front window, looked down upon the street.

“There's an organ-grinder; it's the first thing I saw;” and she came
back fingering the leaves of her dream-book. “Put down 40, 50, 26.”

Mrs. Bray wrote the numbers on her slip of paper.

“It's November; let's find the November row.” Pinky consulted her book
again. “Signifies you will have trouble through life--7, 9, 63. That's
true as preaching; I was born in November, and I've had it all trouble.
How many rows does that make?”

“Five.”

“Then we will cut cards for the rest;” and Pinky drew a soiled pack from
her pocket, shuffled the cards and let her friends cut them.

“Ten of diamonds;” she referred to the dream-book. “10, 13, 31; put that
down.”

The cards were shuffled and cut again.

“Six of clubs--6, 35, 39.”

Again they were cut and shuffled. This time the knave of clubs was
turned up.

“That's 17, 19, 28,” said Pinky, reading from her book.

The next cut gave the ace of clubs, and the policy numbers were 18, 63,
75.

“Once more, and the ten rows will be full;” and the cards were cut
again.

“Five of hearts--5, 12, 60;” and the ten rows were complete.

“There's luck there, Fan; sure to make a hit,” said Pinky, with almost
childish confidence, as she gazed at the ten rows of figures. “One
of 'em can't help coming out right, and that would be fifty
dollars--twenty-five for me and twenty-five for you; two rows would give
a hundred dollars, and the whole ten a thousand. Think of that, Fan!
five hundred dollars apiece.”

“It would break Sam McFaddon, I'm afraid,” remarked Mrs. Bray.

“Sam's got nothing to do with it,” returned Pinky.

“He hasn't?”

“No.”

“Who has, then?”

“His backer.”

“What's that?”

“Oh, I found it all out--I know how it's done. Sam's got a backer--a man
that puts up the money. Sam only sells for his backer. When there's a
hit, the backer pays.”

“Who's Sam's backer, as you call him?”

“Couldn't get him to tell; tried him hard, but he was close as an
oyster. Drives in the Park and wears a two thousand dollar diamond pin;
he let that out. So he's good for the hits. Sam always puts the money
down, fair and square.”

“Very well; you get the policy, and do it right off, Pinky, or the
money'll slip through your fingers.”

“All right,” answered Pinky as she folded the slip of paper containing
the lucky rows. “Never you fear. I'll be at Sam McFaddon's in ten
minutes after I leave here.”

“And be sure,” said Mrs. Bray, “to look after the baby to-night, and see
that it doesn't perish with cold; the air's getting sharp.”

“It ought to have something warmer than cotton rags on its poor little
body,” returned Pinky. “Can't you get it some flannel? It will die if
you don't.”

“I sent it a warm petticoat last week,” said Mrs. Bray.

“You did?”

“Yes; I bought one at a Jew shop, and had it sent to the woman.”

“Was it a nice warm one?”

“Yes.”

Pinky drew a sigh. “I saw the poor baby last night; hadn't anything on
but dirty cotton rags. It was lying asleep in a cold cellar on a little
heap of straw. The woman had given it something, I guess, by the way
it slept. The petticoat had gone, most likely, to Sam McFaddon's. She
spends everything she can lay her hands on in policies and whisky.”

“She's paid a dollar a week for taking care of the baby at night and on
Sundays,” said Mrs. Bray.

“It wouldn't help the baby any if she got ten dollars,” returned Pinky.
“It ought to be taken away from her.”

“But who's to do that? Sally Long sold it to the two beggar women, and
they board it out. I have no right to interfere; they own the baby, and
can do as they please with it.”

“It could be got to the almshouse,” said Pinky; “it would be a thousand
times better off.”

“It mustn't go to the almshouse,” replied Mrs. Bray; “I might lose track
of it, and that would never do.”

“You'll lose track of it for good and all before long, if you don't get
it out of them women's bands. No baby can hold out being begged with
long; it's too hard on the little things. For you know how it is, Fan;
they must keep 'em half starved and as sick as they will bear without
dying right off, so as to make 'em look pitiful. You can't do much at
begging with a fat, hearty-looking baby.”

“What's to be done about it?” asked Mrs. Bray. “I don't want that baby
to die.”

“Would its mother know it if she saw it?” asked Pinky.

“No; for she never set eyes on it.”

“Then, if it dies, get another baby, and keep track of that. You can
steal one from a drunken mother any night in the week. I'll do it for
you. One baby is as good as another.”

“It will be safer to have the real one,” replied Mrs. Bray. “And now,
Pinky that you have put this thing into my head, I guess I'll commission
you to get the baby away from that woman.”

“All right!”

“But what are we to do with it? I can't have it here.”

“Of course you can't. But that's easily managed, if your're willing to
pay for it.”

“Pay for it?”

“Yes; if it isn't begged with, and made to pay its way and earn
something into the bargain, it's got to be a dead weight on somebody. So
you see how it is, Fan. Now, if you'll take a fool's advice, you'll
let 'it go to the almshouse, or let it alone to die and get out of its
misery as soon as possible. You can find another baby that will do just
as well, if you should ever need one.”

“How much would it cost, do you think, to have it boarded with some one
who wouldn't abuse it? She might beg with it herself, or hire it out two
or three times a week. I guess it would stand that.”

“Beggars don't belong to the merciful kind,” answered Pinky; “there's no
trusting any of them. A baby in their hands is never safe. I've seen 'em
brought in at night more dead than alive, and tossed on a dirty rag-heap
to die before morning. I'm always glad when they're out of their misery,
poor things! The fact is, Fan, if you expect that baby to live, you've
got to take it clean out of the hands of beggars.”

“What could I get it boarded for outright?” asked Mrs. Bray.

“For 'most anything, 'cording to how it's done. But why not, while
you're about it, bleed the old lady, its grandmother, a little deeper,
and take a few drops for the baby?”

“Guess you're kind o' right about that, Fan; anyhow, we'll make a start
on it. You find another place for the brat.”

“'Greed; when shall I do it?”

“The sooner, the better. It might die of cold any night in that horrible
den. Ugh!”

“I've been in worse places. Bedlow street is full of them, and so is
Briar street and Dirty alley. You don't know anything about it.”

“Maybe not, and maybe I don't care to know. At present I want to settle
about this baby. You'll find another place for it?”

“Yes.”

“And then steal it from the woman who has it now?”

“Yes; no trouble in the world. She's drunk every night,” answered Pinky
Swett, rising to go.

“You'll see me to-morrow?” said Mrs. Bray.

“Oh yes.”

“And you won't forget about the policies?”

“Not I. We shall make a grand hit, or I'm a fool. Day-day!” Pinky waved
her hand gayly, and then retired.




CHAPTER VI.



_A COLD_ wet drizzling rain was beginning to fall when Pinky Swett
emerged from the house. Twilight was gathering drearily. She drew her
thin shawl closely, and shivered as the east wind struck her with a
chill.

At hurried walk of five or ten minutes brought her to a part of the town
as little known to its citizens generally as if it were in the centre
of Africa--a part of the town where vice, crime, drunkenness and beggary
herd together in the closest and most shameless contact; where men and
women, living in all foulness, and more like wild beasts than human
beings, prey greedily upon each other, hurting, depraving and marring
God's image in all over whom they can get power or influenced--_a very
hell upon the earth!_--at part of the town where theft and robbery and
murder are plotted, and from which prisons and almshouses draw their
chief population.

That such a herding together, almost in the centre of a great Christian
city, of the utterly vicious and degraded, should be permitted, when
every day's police and criminal records give warning of its cost
and danger, is a marvel and a reproach. Almost every other house, in
portions of this locality, is a dram-shop, where the vilest liquors are
sold. Policy-offices, doing business in direct violation of law, are in
every street and block, their work of plunder and demoralization going
on with open doors and under the very eyes of the police. Every one of
them is known to these officers. But arrest is useless. A hidden and
malign influence, more potent than justice, has power to protect the
traffic and hold the guilty offenders harmless. Conviction is rarely, if
ever, reached.

The poor wretches, depraved and plundered through drink and
policy-gambling, are driven into crime. They rob and steal and debase
themselves for money with which to buy rum and policies, and sooner or
later the prison or death removes the greater number of them from their
vile companions. But drifting toward this fatal locality under the
attraction of affinity, or lured thither by harpies in search of new
supplies of human victims to repair the frightful waste perpetually
made, the region keeps up its dense population, and the work of
destroying human souls goes on. It is an awful thing to contemplate.
Thousands of men and women, boys and girls, once innocent as the
babes upon whom Christ laid his hand in blessing, are drawn into this
whirlpool of evil every year, and few come out except by the way of
prison or death.

It was toward this locality that Pinky Swett directed her feet, after
parting with Mrs. Bray. Darkness was beginning to settle down as she
turned off from one of the most populous streets, crowded at the time by
citizens on their way to quiet and comfortable homes, few if any of whom
had ever turned aside to look upon and get knowledge of the world or
crime and wretchedness so near at hand, but girdled in and concealed
from common observation.

Down a narrow street she turned from the great thoroughfare, walking
with quick steps, and shivering a little as the penetrating east wind
sent a chill of dampness through the thin shawl she drew closer and
closer about her shoulders. Nothing could be in stronger contrast than
the rows of handsome dwellings and stores that lined the streets through
which she had just passed, and the forlorn, rickety, unsightly and
tumble-down houses amid which she now found herself.

Pinky had gone only a little way when the sharp cries of a child cut the
air suddenly, the shrill, angry voice of a woman and the rapid fall of
lashes mingled with the cries. The child begged for mercy in tones of
agony, but the loud voice, uttering curses and imprecations, and the
cruel blows, ceased not. Pinky stopped and shivered. She felt the pain
of these blows, in her quickly-aroused sympathy, almost as much as
if they had been falling on her own person. Opposite to where she had
paused was a one-story frame house, or enclosed shed, as unsightly
without as a pig-pen, and almost as filthy within. It contained two
small rooms with very low ceilings. The only things in these rooms that
could be called furniture were an old bench, two chairs from which the
backs had been broken, a tin cup black with smoke and dirt, two or
three tin pans in the same condition, some broken crockery and an iron
skillet. Pinky stood still for a moment, shivering, as we have said. She
knew what the blows and the curses and the cries of pain meant; she had
heard them before. A depraved and drunken woman and a child ten years
old, who might or might not be her daughter, lived there. The child was
sent out every day to beg or steal, and if she failed to bring home a
certain sum of money, was cruelly beaten by the woman. Almost every
day the poor child was cut with lashes, often on the bare flesh; almost
every day her shrieks rang out from the miserable hovel. But there was
no one to interfere, no one to save her from the smarting blows, no one
to care what she suffered.

Pinky Swett could stand it no longer. She had often noticed the ragged
child, with her pale, starved face and large, wistful eyes, passing
in and out of this miserable woman's den, sometimes going to the
liquor-shops and sometimes to the nearest policy-office to spend for
her mother, if such the woman really was, the money she had gained by
begging.

With a sudden impulse, as a deep wail and a more piteous cry for mercy
smote upon her ears, Pinky sprang across the street and into the hovel.
The sight that met her eyes left no hesitation in her mind. Holding up
with one strong arm the naked body of the poor child--she had drawn the
clothes over her head--the infuriated woman was raining down blows from
a short piece of rattan upon the quivering flesh, already covered with
welts and bruises.

“Devil!” cried Pinky as she rushed upon this fiend in human shape and
snatched the little girl from her arm. “Do you want to kill the child?”

She might almost as well have assaulted a tigress.

The woman was larger, stronger, more desperate and more thoroughly given
over to evil passions than she. To thwart her in anything was to rouse
her into a fury. A moment she stood in surprise and bewilderment; in
the next, and ere Pinky had time to put herself on guard, she had sprung
upon her with a passionate cry that sounded more like that of a wild
beast than anything human. Clutching her by the throat with one hand,
and with the other tearing the child from her grasp, she threw the
frightened little thing across the room.

“Devil, ha!” screamed the woman; “devil!” and she tightened her grasp
on Pinky's throat, at the same time striking her in the face with her
clenched fist.

Like a war-horse that snuffs the battle afar off and rushes to the
conflict, so rushed the inhabitants of that foul neighborhood to the
spot from whence had come to their ears the familiar and not unwelcome
sound of strife. Even before Pinky had time to shake off her assailant,
the door of the hovel was darkened by a screen of eager faces. And
such faces! How little of God's image remained in them to tell of
their divine origination!--bloated and scarred, ashen pale and wasted,
hollow-eyed and red-eyed, disease looking out from all, yet all lighted
up with the keenest interest and expectancy.

Outside, the crowd swelled with a marvelous rapidity. Every cellar and
room and garret, every little alley and hidden rookery, “hawk's nest”
 and “wren's nest,” poured out its unseemly denizens, white and black,
old and young, male and female, the child of three years old, keen,
alert and self-protective, running to see the “row” side by side with
the toothless crone of seventy; or most likely passing her on the way.
Thieves, beggars, pick-pockets, vile women, rag-pickers and the like,
with the harpies who prey upon them, all were there to enjoy the show.

Within, a desperate fight was going on between Pinky Swett and the woman
from whose hands she had attempted to rescue the child--a fight in which
Pinky was getting the worst of it. One garment after another was torn
from her person, until little more than a single one remained.

“Here's the police! look out!” was cried at this juncture.

“Who cares for the police? Let 'em come,” boldly retorted the woman. “I
haven't done nothing; it's her that's come in drunk and got up a row.”

Pushing the crowd aside, a policeman entered the hovel.

“Here she is!” cried the woman, pointing toward Pinky, from whom she
had sprung back the moment she heard the word police. “She came in here
drunk and got up a row. I'm a decent woman, as don't meddle with nobody.
But she's awful when she gets drunk. Just look at her--been tearing her
clothes off!”

At this there was a shout of merriment from the crowd who had witnessed
the fight.

“Good for old Sal! she's one of 'em! Can't get ahead of old Sal, drunk
or sober!” and like expressions were shouted by one and another.

Poor Pinky, nearly stripped of her clothing, and with a great bruise
swelling under one of her eyes, bewildered and frightened at the aspect
of things around her, could make no acceptable defence.

“She ran over and pitched into Sal, so she did! I saw her! She made
the fight, she did!” testified one of the crowd; and acting on this
testimony and his own judgment of the case, the policeman said roughly,
as he laid his hand on Pinky.

“Pick up your duds and come along.”

Pinky lifted her torn garments from the dirty floor and gathered them
about her person as best she could, the crowd jeering all the time. A
pin here and there, furnished by some of the women, enabled her to get
them into a sort of shape and adjustment. Then she tried to explain the
affair to the policeman, but he would not listen.

“Come!” he said, sternly.

“What are you going to do with me?” she asked, not moving from where she
stood.

“Lock you up,” replied the policeman. “So come along.”

“What's the matter here?” demanded a tall, strongly-built woman,
pressing forward. She spoke with a foreign accent, and in a tone of
command. The motley crowd, above whom she towered, gave way for her as
she approached. Everything about the woman showed her to be superior in
mind and moral force to the unsightly wretches about her. She had the
fair skin, blue eyes and light hair of her nation. Her features were
strong, but not masculine. You saw in them no trace of coarse sensuality
or vicious indulgence.

“Here's Norah! here's the queen!” shouted a voice from the crowd.

“What's the matter here?” asked the woman as she gained an entrance to
the hovel.

“Going to lock up Pinky Swett,” said a ragged little girl who had forced
her way in.

“What for?” demanded the woman, speaking with the air of one in
authority.

“'Cause she wouldn't let old Sal beat Kit half to death,” answered the
child.

“Ho! Sal's a devil and Pinky's a fool to meddle with her.” Then turning
to the policeman, who still had his hand on the girl, she said,

“What're you goin' to do, John?”

“Goin' to lock her up. She's drunk an' bin a-fightin'.”

“You're not goin' to do any such thing.”

“I'm not drunk, and it's a lie if anybody says so,” broke in Pinky. “I
tried to keep this devil from beating the life out of poor little Kit,
and she pitched into me and tore my clothes off. That's what's the
matter.”

The policeman quietly removed his hand from Pinky's shoulder, and
glanced toward the woman named Sal, and stood as if waiting orders.

“Better lock _her_ up,” said the “queen,” as she had been called. Sal
snarled like a fretted wild beast.

“It's awful, the way she beats poor Kit,” chimed in the little girl who
had before spoken against her. “If I was Kit, I'd run away, so I would.”

“I'll wring your neck off,” growled Sal, in a fierce undertone, making a
dash toward the girl, and swearing frightfully. But the child shrank to
the side of the policeman.

“If you lay a finger on Kit to-night,” said the queen, “I'll have her
taken away, and you locked up into the the bargain.”

Sal responded with another snarl.

“Come.” The queen moved toward the door. Pinky followed, the policeman
offering no resistance. A few minutes later, and the miserable crowd of
depraved human beings had been absorbed again into cellar and garret,
hovel and rookery, to take up the thread of their evil and sensual
lives, and to plot wickedness, and to prey upon and deprave each
other--to dwell as to their inner and real lives among infernals, to be
in hell as to their spirits, while their bodies yet remained upon the
earth.

Pinky and her rescuer passed down the street for a short distance until
they came to another that was still narrower. On each side dim lights
shone from the houses, and made some revelation of what was going on
within. Here liquor was sold, and there policies. Here was a junk-shop,
and there an eating-saloon where for six cents you could make a meal out
of the cullings from beggars' baskets. Not very tempting to an ordinary
appetite was the display inside, nor agreeable to the nostrils the odors
that filled the atmosphere. But hunger like the swines', that was not
over-nice, satisfied itself amid these disgusting conglomerations, and
kept off starvation.

Along this wretched street, with scarcely an apology for a sidewalk,
moved Pinky and the queen, until they reached a small two-story frame
house that presented a different aspect from the wretched tenements amid
which it stood. It was clean upon the outside, and had, as contrasted
with its neighbors, an air of superiority. This was the queen's
residence. Inside, all was plain and homely, but clean and in order.

The excitement into which Pinky had been thrown was nearly over by this
time.

“You've done me a good turn, Norah,” she said as the door closed upon
them, “and I'll not soon forget you.”

“Ugh!” ejaculated Norah as she looked into Pinky's bruised face; “Sal's
hit you square in the eye; it'll be black as y'r boot by morning. I'll
get some cold water.”

A basin of cold water was brought, and Pinky held a wet cloth to the
swollen spot for a long time, hoping thereby not only to reduce the
swelling, but to prevent discoloration.

“Y'r a fool to meddle with Sal,” said Norah as she set the basin of
water before Pinky.

“Why don't you meddle with her? Why do you let her beat poor little Kit
the way she does?” demanded Pinky.

Norah shrugged her shoulders, and answered with no more feeling in her
voice than if she had been speaking of inanimate things:

“She's got to keep Kit up to her work.”

“Up to her work!”

“Yes; that's just it. Kit's lazy and cheats--buys cakes and candies; and
Sal has to come down on her; it's the way, you know. If Sal didn't come
down sharp on her all the while, Kit wouldn't bring her ten cents a day.
They all have to do it--so much a day or a lickin'; and a little lickin'
isn't any use--got to 'most kill some of 'em. We're used to it in here.
Hark!”

The screams of a child in pain rang out wildly, the sounds coming from
across the narrow street. Quick, hard strokes of a lash were heard at
the same time. Pinky turned a little pale.

“Only Mother Quig,” said Norah, with an indifferent air; “she has to do
it 'most every night--no getting along any other way with Tom. It beats
all how much he can stand.”

“Oh, Norah, won't she never stop?” cried Pinky, starting up. “I can't
bear it a minute longer.”

“Shut y'r ears. You've got to,” answered the woman, with some impatience
in her voice. “Tom has to be kept to his work as well as the rest of
'em. Half the fuss he's making is put on, anyhow; he doesn't mind a
beating any more than a horse. I know his hollers. There's Flanagan's
Nell getting it now,” added Norah as the cries and entreaties of another
child were heard. She drew herself up and listened, a slight shade of
concern drifting across her face.

A long, agonizing wail shivered through the air.

“Nell's Sick, and can't do her work.” The woman rose as she spoke. “I
saw her goin' off to-day, and told Flanagan she'd better keep her at
home.”

Saying this, Norah went out quickly, Pinky following. With head erect
and mouth set firmly, the queen strode across the street and a little
way down the pavement, to the entrance of a cellar, from which the cries
and sounds of whipping came. Down the five or six rotten and broken
steps she plunged, Pinky close after her.

“Stop!” shouted Norah, in a tone of command.

Instantly the blows ceased, and the cries were hushed.

“You'll be hanged for murder if you don't take care,” said Norah.
“What's Nell been doin'?”

“Doin', the slut!” ejaculated the woman, a short, bloated, revolting
creature, with scarcely anything human in her face. “Doin', did ye say?
It's nothin' she's been doin', the lazy, trapsing huzzy! Who's that
intrudin' herself in here?” she added fiercely, as she saw Pinky, making
at the same time a movement toward the girl. “Get out o' here, or I'll
spile y'r pictur'!”

“Keep quiet, will you?” said Norah, putting her hand on the woman and
pushing her back as easily as if she had been a child. “Now come here,
Nell, and let me look at you.”

Out of the far corner of the cellar into which Flanagan had thrown her
when she heard Norah's voice, and into the small circle of light made
by a single tallow candle, there crept slowly the figure of a child
literally clothed in rags. Norah reached out her hand to her as she came
up--there was a scared look on her pinched face--and drew her close to
the light.

“Gracious! your hand's like an ice-ball!” exclaimed Norah.

Pinky looked at the child, and grew faint at heart. She had large hazel
eyes, that gleamed with a singular lustre out of the suffering, grimed
and wasted little face, so pale and sad and pitiful that the sight of it
was enough to draw tears from any but the brutal and hardened.

“Are you sick?” asked Norah.

“No, she's not sick; she's only shamming,” growled Flanagan.

“You shut up!” retorted Norah. “I wasn't speaking to you.” Then she
repeated her question:

“Are you sick, Nell?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“I don't know.”

Norah laid her hand on the child's head:

“Does it hurt here?”

“Oh yes! It hurts so I can't see good,” answered Nell.

“It's all a lie! I know her; she's shamming.”

“Oh no, Norah!” cried the child, a sudden hope blending with the fear in
her voice. “I ain't shamming at all. I fell down ever so many times in
the street, and 'most got run over. Oh dear! oh dear!” and she clung to
the woman with a gesture of despair piteous to see.

“I don't believe you are, Nell,” said Norah, kindly. Then, to the woman,
“Now mind, Flanagan, Nell's sick; d'ye hear?”

The woman only uttered a defiant growl.

“She's not to be licked again to-night.” Norah spoke as one having
authority.

“I wish ye'd be mindin' y'r own business, and not come interfarin' wid
me. She's my gal, and I've a right to lick her if I plaze.”

“Maybe she is and maybe she isn't,” retorted Norah.

“Who says she isn't my gal?” screamed the woman, firing up at this and
reaching out for Nell, who shrunk closer to Norah.

“Maybe she is and maybe she isn't,” said the queen, quietly repeating
her last sentence; “and I think maybe she isn't. So take care and mind
what I say. Nell isn't to be licked any more to-night.”

“Oh, Norah,” sobbed the child, in a husky, choking voice, “take me,
won't you? She'll pinch me, and she'll hit my head on the wall, and
she'll choke me and knock me. Oh, Norah, Norah!”

Pinky could stand this no longer. Catching up the bundle of rags in
her arms, she sprang out of the cellar and ran across the street to the
queen's house, Norah and Flanagan coming quickly after her. At the
door, through which Pinky had passed, Norah paused, and turning to the
infuriated Irish woman, said, sternly,

“Go back! I won't have you in here; and if you make a row, I'll tell
John to lock you up.”

“I want my Nell,” said the woman, her manner changing. There was a shade
of alarm in her voice.

“You can't have her to-night; so that's settled. And if there's any row,
you'll be locked up.” Saying which, Norah went in and shut the door,
leaving Flanagan on the outside.

The bundle of dirty rags with the wasted body of a child inside, the
body scarcely heavier than the rags, was laid by Pinky in the corner
of a settee, and the unsightly mass shrunk together like something
inanimate.

“I thought you'd had enough with old Sal,” said Norah, in a tone of
reproof, as she came in.

“Couldn't help it,” replied Pinky. “I'm bad enough, but I can't stand to
see a child abused like that--no, not if I die for it.”

Norah crossed to the settee and spoke to Nell. But there was no answer,
nor did the bundle of rags stir.

“Nell! Nell!” She called to deaf ears. Then she put her hand on the
child and raised one of the arms. It dropped away limp as a withered
stalk, showing the ashen white face across which it had lain.

The two women manifested no excitement. The child had fainted or was
dead--which, they did not know. Norah straightened out the wasted little
form and turned up the face. The eyes were shut, the mouth closed, the
pinched features rigid, as if still giving expression to pain, but there
was no mistaking the sign that life had gone out of them. It might be
for a brief season, it might be for ever.

A little water was thrown into the child's face. Its only effect was to
streak the grimy skin.

“Poor little thing!” said Pinky. “I hope she's dead.”

“They're tough. They don't die easy,” returned Norah.

“She isn't one of the tough kind.”

“Maybe not. They say Flanagan stole her when she was a little thing,
just toddling.”

“Don't let's do anything to try to bring her to,” said Pinky.

Norah stood for some moment's with an irresolute air, then bent over the
child and examined her more carefully. She could feel no pulse beat, nor
any motion of the heart,

“I don't want the coroner here,” she said, in a tone of annoyance. “Take
her back to Flanagan; it's her work, and she must stand by it.”

“Is she really dead?” asked Pinky.

“Looks like it, and serves Flanagan right. I've told her over and over
that Nell wouldn't stand it long if she didn't ease up a little. Flesh
isn't iron.”

Again she examined the child carefully, but without the slightest sign
of feeling.

“It's all the same now who has her,” she said, turning off from the
settee. “Take her back to Flanagan.”

But Pinky would not touch the child, nor could threat or persuasion
lead her to do so. While they were contending, Flanagan, who had fired
herself up with half a pint of whisky, came storming through the door in
a blind rage and screaming out,

“Where's my Nell? I want my Nell!”

Catching sight of the child's inanimate form lying on the settee, she
pounced down upon it like some foul bird and bore it off, cursing and
striking the senseless clay in her insane fury.

Pinky, horrified at the dreadful sight, and not sure that the child was
really dead, and so insensible to pain, made a movement to follow, but
Norah caught her arm with a tight grip and held her back.

“Are you a fool?” said the queen, sternly. “Let Flanagan alone. Nell's
out of her reach, and I'm glad of it.”

“If I was only sure!” exclaimed Pinky.

“You may be. I know death--I've seen it often enough. They'll have the
coroner over there in the morning. It's Flanagan's concern, not yours or
mine, so keep out of it if you know when you're well off.”

“I'll appear against her at the inquest,” said Pinky.

“You'll do no such thing. Keep your tongue behind your teeth. It's time
enough to show it when it's pulled out. Take my advice, and mind your
own business. You'll have enough to do caring for your own head, without
looking after other people's.”

“I'm not one of that kind,” answered Pinky, a little tartly; “and if
there's any way to keep Flanagan from murdering another child, I'm going
to find it out.”

“You'll find out something else first,” said Norah, with a slight curl
of her lip.

“What?”

“The way to prison.”

“Pshaw! I'm not afraid.”

“You'd better be. If you appear against Flanagan, she'll have you caged
before to-morrow night.”

“How can she do it?”

“Swear against you before an alderman, and he'll send you down if it's
only to get his fee. She knows her man.”

“Suppose murder is proved against her?”

“Suppose!” Norah gave a little derisive laugh.

“They don't look after things in here as they do outside. Everybody's
got the screws on, and things must break sometimes, but it isn't called
murder. The coroner understands it all. He's used to seeing things
break.”




CHAPTER VII.



_FOR_ a short time the sounds of cruel exultation came over from
Flanagan's; then all was still.

“Sal's put her mark on you,” said Norah, looking steadily into Pinky's
face, and laughing in a cold, half-amused way.

Pinky raised her hand to her swollen cheek. “Does it look very bad?” she
asked.

“Spoils your beauty some.”

“Will it get black?”

“Shouldn't wonder. But what can't be helped, can't. You'll mind your own
business next time, and keep out of Sal's way. She's dangerous. What's
the matter?”

“Got a sort of chill,” replied the girl, who from nervous reaction was
beginning to shiver.

“Oh, want something to warm you up.” Norah brought out a bottle of
spirits. Pinky poured a glass nearly half full, added some water, and
then drank off the fiery mixture.

“None of your common stuff,” said Norah, with a smile, as Pinky smacked
her lips. The girl drew her handkerchief from her pocket, and as she did
so a piece of paper dropped on the floor.

“Oh, there it is!” she exclaimed, light flashing into her face. “Going
to make a splendid hit. Just look at them rows.”

Norah threw an indifferent glance on the paper.

“They're lucky, every one of them,” said Pinky. “Going to put half a
dollar on each row--sure to make a hit.”

The queen gave one of her peculiar shrugs.

“Going to break Sam McFaddon,” continued Pinky, her spirits rising under
the influence of Norah's treat.

“Soft heads don't often break hard rocks,” returned the woman, with a
covert sneer.

“That's an insult!” cried Pinky, on whom the liquor she had just taken
was beginning to have a marked effect, “and I won't stand an insult from
you or anybody else.”

“Well, I wouldn't if I was you,” returned Norah, coolly. A hard
expression began settling about her mouth.

“And I don't mean to. I'm as good as you are, any day!”

“You may be a great deal better, for all I care,” answered Norah. “Only
take my advice, and keep a civil tongue in your head.” There was a
threatening undertone in the woman's voice. She drew her tall person
more erect, and shook herself like a wild beast aroused from inaction.

Pinky was too blind to see the change that had come so suddenly. 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. As she arose to her
feet she found herself hemmed in by a jeering crowd.

“Ho! it's Pinky Swett!” cried a girl, pressing toward her. “Hi, Pinky!
what's the matter? What's up?”

“Norah pitched her out! I saw it!” screamed a boy, one of the young
thieves that harbored in the quarter.

“It's a lie!” Pinky answered back as she confronted the crowd.

At this moment another boy, who had come up behind Pinky, gave her dress
so violent a jerk that she fell over backward on the pavement, striking
her head on a stone and cutting it badly. She lay there, unable to rise,
the crowd laughing with as much enjoyment as if witnessing a dog-fight.

“Give her a dose of mud!” shouted one of the boys; and almost as soon
as the words were out of his mouth her face was covered with a paste of
filthy dirt from the gutter. This, instead of exciting pity, only gave
a keener zest to the show. The street rang with shouts and peals of
merriment, bringing a new and larger crowd to see the fun. With them
came one or two policemen.

Seeing that it was only a drunken woman, they pushed back the crowd and
raised her to her feet. As they did so the blood streamed from the back
of her head and stained her dress to the waist. She was taken to the
nearest station-house.

At eleven o'clock on the next morning, punctual to the minute, came Mrs.
Dinneford to the little third-story room in which she had met Mrs. Bray.
She repeated her rap at the door before it was opened, and noticed that
a key was turned in the lock.

“You have seen the woman?” she said as she took an offered seat, coming
at once to the object of her visit.

“Yes.”

“Well?”

“I gave her the money.”

“Well?”

Mrs. Bray shook her head:

“Afraid I can't do much with her.”

“Why?” an anxious expression coming into Mrs. Dinneford's face.

“These people suspect everybody; there is no honor nor truth in them,
and they judge every one by themselves. She half accused me of getting a
larger amount of money from you, and putting her off with the paltry sum
of thirty dollars.”

Mrs. Bray looked exceedingly hurt and annoyed.

“Threatened,” she went on, “to go to you herself--didn't want any
go-betweens nor brokers. I expected to hear you say that she'd been at
your house this morning.”

“Good Gracious! no!” Mrs. Dinneford's face was almost distorted with
alarm.

“It's the way with all these people,” coolly remarked Mrs. Bray. “You're
never safe with them.”

“Did you hint at her leaving the city?--going to New Orleans, for
instance?”

“Oh dear, no! She isn't to be managed in that way--is deeper and more
set than I thought. The fact is, Mrs. Dinneford”--and Mrs. Bray lowered
her voice and looked shocked and mysterious--“I'm beginning to suspect
her as being connected with a gang.”

“With a gang? What kind of a gang?” Mrs. Dinneford turned slightly pale.

“A gang of thieves. She isn't the right thing; I found that out long
ago. You remember what I said when you gave her the child. I told you
that she was not a good woman, and that it was a cruel thing to put a
helpless, new-born baby into her hands.”

“Never mind about that.” Mrs. Dinneford waved her hand impatiently.
“The baby's out of her hands, so far as that is concerned. A gang of
thieves!”

“Yes, I'm 'most sure of it. Goes to people's houses on one excuse and
another, and finds out where the silver is kept and how to get in. You
don't know half the wickedness that's going on. So you see it's no use
trying to get her away.”

Mrs. Bray was watching the face of her visitor with covert scrutiny,
gauging, as she did so, by its weak alarms, the measure of her power
over her.

“Dreadful! dreadful!” ejaculated Mrs. Dinneford, with dismay.

“It's bad enough,” said Mrs. Bray, “and I don't see the end of it. She's
got you in her power, and no mistake, and she isn't one of the kind to
give up so splendid an advantage. I'm only surprised that she's kept
away so long.”

“What's to be done about it?” asked Mrs. Dinneford, her alarm and
distress increasing.

“Ah! that's more than I can tell,” coolly returned Mrs. Bray. “One thing
is certain--I don't want to have anything more to do with her. It isn't
safe to let her come here. You'll have to manage her yourself.”

“No, no, no, Mrs. Bray! You mustn't desert me!” answered Mrs. Dinneford,
her face growing pallid with fear. “Money is of no account. I'll pay
'most anything, reasonable or unreasonable, to have her kept away.”

And she drew out her pocket-book while speaking. At this moment there
came two distinct raps on the door. It had been locked after Mrs.
Dinneford's entrance. Mrs. Bray started and changed countenance, turning
her face quickly from observation. But she was self-possessed in an
instant. Rising, she said in a whisper,

“Go silently into the next room, and remain perfectly still. I believe
that's the woman now. I'll manage her as best I can.”

Almost as quick as thought, Mrs. Dinneford vanished through a door that
led into an adjoining room, and closing it noiselessly, turned a key
that stood in the lock, then sat down, trembling with nervous alarm. The
room in which she found herself was small, and overlooked the street;
it was scantily furnished as a bed-room. In one corner, partly hid by
a curtain that hung from a hoop fastened to the wall, was an old wooden
chest, such as are used by sailors. Under the bed, and pushed as far
back as possible, was another of the same kind. The air of the room was
close, and she noticed the stale smell of a cigar.

A murmur of voices from the room she had left so hastily soon reached
her ears; but though she listened intently, standing close to the door,
she was not able to distinguish a word. Once or twice she was sure that
she heard the sound of a man's voice. It was nearly a quarter of an
hour by her watch--it seemed two hours--before Mrs. Bray's visitor or
visitors retired; then there came a light rap on the door. She opened
it, and stood face to face again with the dark-eyed little woman.

“You kept me here a long time,” said Mrs. Dinneford, with ill-concealed
impatience.

“No longer than I could help,” replied Mrs. Bray. “Affairs of this kind
are not settled in a minute.”

“Then it was that miserable woman?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what did you make out of her?”

“Not much; she's too greedy. The taste of blood has sharpened her
appetite.”

“What does she want?”

“She wants two hundred dollars paid into her hand to-day, and says that
if the money isn't here by sundown, you'll have a visit from her in less
than an hour afterward.”

“Will that be the end of it?”

A sinister smile curved Mrs. Bray's lips slightly.

“More than I can say,” she answered.

“Two hundred dollars?”

“Yes. She put the amount higher, but I told her she'd better not go for
too big a slice or she might get nothing--that there was such a thing
as setting the police after her. She laughed at this in such a wicked,
sneering way that I felt my flesh creep, and said she knew the police,
and some of their masters, too, and wasn't afraid of them. She's a
dreadful woman;” and Mrs. Bray shivered in a very natural manner.

“If I thought this would be the last of it!” said Mrs. Dinneford as she
moved about the room in a disturbed way, and with an anxious look on her
face.

“Perhaps,” suggested her companion, “it would be best for you to grapple
with this thing at the outset--to take our vampire by the throat and
strangle her at once. The knife is the only remedy for some forms of
disease. If left to grow and prey upon the body, they gradually suck
away its life and destroy it in the end.”

“If I only knew how to do it,” replied Mrs. Dinneford. “If I could only
get her in my power, I'd make short works of her.” Her eyes flashed with
a cruel light.

“It might be done.”

“How?”

“Mr. Dinneford knows the chief of police.”

The light went out of Mrs. Dinneford's eyes:

“It can't be done in that way, and you know it as well as I do.”

Mrs. Dinneford turned upon Mrs. Bray sharply, and with a gleam of
suspicion in her face.

“I don't know any other way, unless you go to the chief yourself,”
 replied Mrs. Bray, coolly. “There is no protection in cases like this
except through the law. Without police interference, you are wholly in
this woman's power.”

Mrs. Dinneford grew very pale.

“It is always dangerous,” went on Mrs. Bray, “to have anything to do
with people of this class. A woman who for hire will take a new-born
baby and sell it to a beggar-woman will not stop at anything. It is very
unfortunate that you are mixed up with her.”

“I'm indebted to you for the trouble,” replied. Mrs. Dinneford, with
considerable asperity of manner. “You ought to have known something
about the woman before employing her in a delicate affair of this kind.”

“Saints don't hire themselves to put away new-born babies,” retorted
Mrs. Bray, with an ugly gurgle in her throat. “I told you at the time
that she was a bad woman, and have not forgotten your answer.”

“What did I answer?”

“That she might be the devil for all you cared!”

“You are mistaken.”

“No; I repeat your very words. They surprised and shocked me at the
time, and I have not forgotten them. People who deal with the devil
usually have the devil to pay; and your case, it seems, is not to be an
exception.”

Mrs. Bray had assumed an air of entire equality with her visitor.

A long silence followed, during which Mrs. Dinneford walked the floor
with the quick, restless motions of a caged animal.

“How long do you think two hundred dollars will satisfy her?” she asked,
at length, pausing and turning to her companion.

“It is impossible for me to say,” was answered; “not long, unless you
can manage to frighten her off; you must threaten hard.”

Another silence followed.

“I did not expect to be called on for so large a sum,” Mrs. Dinneford
said at length, in a husky voice, taking out her pocket-book as she
spoke. “I have only a hundred dollars with me. Give her that, and put
her off until to-morrow.”

“I will do the best I can with her,” replied Mrs. Bray, reaching out her
hand for the money, “but I think it will be safer for you to let me have
the balance to-day. She will, most likely, take it into her head that
I have received the whole sum from you, and think I am trying to cheat
her. In that case she will be as good as her word, and come down on
you.”

“Mrs. Bray!” exclaimed Mrs. Dinneford, suspicion blazing from her eyes.
“Mrs. Bray!”--and she turned upon her and caught her by the arms with
a fierce grip--“as I live, you are deceiving me. There is no woman but
yourself. You are the vampire!”

She held the unresisting little woman in her vigorous grasp for some
moments, gazing at her in stern and angry accusation.

Mrs. Bray stood very quit and with scarcely a change of countenance
until this outburst of passion had subsided. She was still holding the
money she had taken from Mrs. Dinneford. As the latter released her she
extended her hand, saying, in a low resolute voice, in which not the
faintest thrill of anger could be detected,

“Take your money.” She waited for a moment, and then let the little roll
of bank-bills fall at Mrs. Dinneford's feet and turned away.

Mrs. Dinneford had made a mistake, and she saw it--saw that she was
now more than ever in the power of this woman, whether she was true or
false. If false, more fatally in her power.

At this dead-lock in the interview between these women there came a
diversion. The sound of feet was heard on the stairs, then a hurrying
along the narrow passage; a hand was on the door, but the key had been
prudently turned on the inside.

With a quick motion, Mrs. Bray waved her hand toward the adjoining
chamber. Mrs. Dinneford did not hesitate, but glided in noiselessly,
shutting and locking the door behind her.

“Pinky Swett!” exclaimed Mrs. Bray, in a low voice, putting her finger
to her lips, as she admitted her visitor, at the same time giving a
warning glance toward the other room. Eyeing her from head to foot, she
added, “Well, you are an object!”

Pinky had drawn aside a close veil, exhibiting a bruised and swollen
face. A dark band lay under one of her eyes, and there was a cut with
red, angry margins on the cheek.

“You are an object,” repeated Mrs. Bray as Pinky moved forward into the
room.

“Well, I am, and no mistake,” answered Pinky, with a light laugh. She
had been drinking enough to overcome the depression and discomfort of
her feelings consequent on the hard usage she had received and a night
in one of the city station-houses. “Who's in there?”

Mrs. Bray's finger went again to her lips. “No matter,” was replied.
“You must go away until the coast is clear. Come back in half an hour.”

And she hurried Pinky out of the door, locking it as the girl retired.
When Mrs. Dinneford came out of the room into which he had gone so
hastily, the roll of bank-notes still lay upon the floor. Mrs. Bray had
prudently slipped them into her pocket before admitting Pinky, but as
soon as she was alone had thrown them down again.

The face of Mrs. Dinneford was pale, and exhibited no ordinary signs of
discomfiture and anxiety.

“Who was that?” she asked.

“A friend,” replied Mrs. Bray, in a cold, self-possessed manner.

A few moments of embarrassed silence followed. Mrs. Bray crossed the
room, touching with her foot the bank-bills, as if they were of no
account to her.

“I am half beside myself,” said Mrs. Dinneford.

Mrs. Bray made no response, did not even turn toward her visitor.

“I spoke hastily.”

“A vampire!” Mrs. Bray swept round upon her fiercely. “A blood-sucker!”
 and she ground her teeth in well-feigned passion.

Mrs. Dinneford sat down trembling.

“Take your money and go,” said Mrs. Bray, and she lifted the bills from
the floor and tossed them into her visitor's lap. “I am served right. It
was evil work, and good never comes of evil.”

But Mrs. Dinneford did not stir. To go away at enmity with this woman
was, so far as she could see, to meet exposure and unutterable disgrace.
Anything but that.

“I shall leave this money, trusting still to your good offices,” she
said, at length, rising. Her manner was much subdued. “I spoke hastily,
in a sort of blind desperation. We should not weigh too carefully the
words that are extorted by pain or fear. In less than an hour I will
send you a hundred dollars more.”

Mrs. Dinneford laid the bank-bills on a table, and then moved to the
door, but she dared not leave in this uncertainty. Looking back, she
said, with an appealing humility of voice and manner foreign to her
character,

“Let us be friends still, Mrs. Bray; we shall gain nothing by being
enemies. I can serve you, and you can serve me. My suspicions were ill
founded. I felt wild and desperate, and hardly knew what I was saying.”

She stood anxiously regarding the little dark-eyed woman, who did not
respond by word or movement.

Taking her hand from the door she was about opening, Mrs. Dinneford came
back into the room, and stood close to Mrs. Bray:

“Shall I send you the money?”

“You can do as you please,” was replied, with chilling indifference.

“Are you implacable?”

“I am not used to suspicion, much less denunciation and assault. A
vampire! Do you know what that means?”

“It meant, as used by me, only madness. I did not know what I was
saying. It was a cry of pain--nothing more. Consider how I stand, how
much I have at stake, in what a wretched affair I have become involved.
It is all new to me, and I am bewildered and at fault. Do not desert me
in this crisis. I must have some one to stand between me and this woman;
and if you step aside, to whom can I go?”

Mrs. Bray relented just a little. Mrs. Dinneford pleaded and humiliated
herself, and drifted farther into the toils of her confederate.

“You are not rich, Mrs. Bray,” she said, at parting, “independent in
spirit as you are. I shall add a hundred dollars for your own use; and
if ever you stand in need, you will know where to find an unfailing
friend.”

Mrs. Bray put up her hands, and replied, “No, no, no; don't think of
such a thing. I am not mercenary. I never serve a friend for money.”

But Mrs. Dinneford heard the “yes” which flushed into the voice that
said “no.” She was not deceived.

A rapid change passed over Mrs. Bray on the instant her visitor left the
room. Her first act was to lock the door; her next, to take the roll of
bank-bills from the table and put it into her pocket. Over her face a
gleam of evil satisfaction had swept.

“Got you all right now, my lady!” fell with a chuckle from her lips. “A
vampire, ha!” The chuckle was changed for a kind of hiss. “Well, have it
so. There is rich blood in your veins, and it will be no fault of mine
if I do not fatten upon it. As for pity, you shall have as much of it
as you gave to that helpless baby. Saints don't work in this kind of
business, and I'm not a saint.”

And she chuckled and hissed and muttered to herself, with many signs of
evil satisfaction.




CHAPTER VIII.



_FOR_ an hour Mrs. Bray waited the reappearance of Pinky Swett, but the
girl did not come back. At the end of this time a package which had been
left at the door was brought to her room. It came from Mrs. Dinneford,
and contained two hundred dollars. A note that accompanied the package
read as follows:

“Forgive my little fault of temper. It is your interest to be my friend.
The woman must not, on any account, be suffered to come near me.”

Of course there was no signature. Mrs. Bray's countenance was radiant as
she fingered the money.

“Good luck for me, but bad for the baby,” she said, in a low, pleased
murmur, talking to herself. “Poor baby! I must see better to its
comfort. It deserves to be looked after. I wonder why Pinky doesn't
come?”

Mrs. Bray listened, but no sound of feet from the stairs or entries, no
opening or shutting of doors, broke the silence that reigned through the
house.

“Pinky's getting too low down--drinks too much; can't count on her any
more.” Mrs. Bray went on talking to herself. “No rest; no quiet; never
satisfied; for ever knocking round, and for ever getting the worst
of it. She was a real nice girl once, and I always liked her. But she
doesn't take any care of herself.”

As Pinky went out, an hour before, she met a fresh-looking girl, not
over seventeen, and evidently from the country. She was standing on the
pavement, not far from the house in which Mrs. Bray lived, and had
a traveling-bag in her hand. Her perplexed face and uncertain manner
attracted Pinky's attention.

“Are you looking for anybody?” she asked.

“I'm trying to find a Mrs. Bray,” the girl answered. “I'm a stranger
from the country.”

“Oh, you are?” said Pinky, drawing her veil more tightly so that her
disfigured face could not be seen.

“Yes I'm from L----.”

“Indeed? I used to know some people there.”

“Then you've been in L----?” said the girl, with a pleased, trustful
manner, as of one who had met a friend at the right time.

“Yes, I've visited there.”

“Indeed? Who did you know in L----?”

“Are you acquainted with the Cartwrights?”

“I know of them. They are among our first people,” returned the girl.

“I spent a week in their family a few years ago, and had a very pleasant
time,” said Pinky.

“Oh, I'm glad to know that,” remarked the girl. “I'm a stranger here;
and if I can't find Mrs. Bray, I don't see what I am to do. A lady from
here who was staying at the hotel gave me at letter to Mrs. Bray. I was
living at the hotel, but I didn't like it; it was too public. I told the
lady that I wanted to learn a trade or get into a store, and she said
the city was just the place for me, and that she would give me a letter
to a particular friend, who would, on her recommendation, interest he
self for me. It's somewhere along here that she lived, I'm sure;” and
she took a letter from her pocket and examined the direction.

The girl was fresh and young and pretty, and had an artless, confiding
manner. It was plain she knew little of the world, and nothing of its
evils and dangers.

“Let me see;” and Pinky reached out her hand for the letter. She put it
under her veil, and read,

“MRS. FANNY BRAY, “No. 631----street, “----

“By the hand of Miss Flora Bond.”

“Flora Bond,” said Pinky, in a kind, familiar tone.

“Yes, that is my name,” replied the girl; “isn't this----street?”

“Yes; and there, is the number you are looking for.”

“Oh, thank you! I'm so glad to find the place. I was beginning to feel
scared.”

“I will ring the bell for you,” said Pinky, going to the door of No.
631. A servant answered the summons.

“Is Mrs. Bray at home?” inquired Pinky.

“I don't know,” replied the servant, looking annoyed. “Her rooms are in
the third story;” and she held the door wide open for them to enter. As
they passed into the hall Pinky said to her companion,

“Just wait here a moment, and I will run up stairs and see if she is
in.”

The girl stood in the hall until Pinky came back.

“Not at home, I'm sorry to say.”

“Oh dear! that's bad; what shall I do?” and the girl looked distressed.

“She'll be back soon, no doubt,” said Pinky, in a light, assuring voice.
“I'll go around with you a little and see things.”

The girl looked down at her traveling-bag.

“Oh, that's nothing; I'll help you to carry it;” and Pinky took it from
her hand.

“Couldn't we leave it here?” asked Flora.

“It might not be safe; servants are not always to be trusted, and
Mrs. Bray's rooms are locked; we can easily carry it between us. I'm
strong--got good country blood in my veins. You see I'm from the country
as well as you; right glad we met. Don't know what you would have done.”

And she drew the girl out, talking familiarly, as they went.

“Haven't had your dinner yet?”

“No; just arrived in the cars, and came right here.”

“You must have something to eat, then. I know a nice place; often get
dinner there when I'm out.”

The girl did not feel wholly at ease. She had not yet been able to get
sight of Pinky's closely-veiled features, and there was something in her
voice that made her feel uncomfortable.

“I don't care for any dinner,” she said; “I'm not hungry.”

“Well, I am, then, so come. Do you like oysters?”

“Yes.”

“Cook them splendidly. Best place in the city. And you'd like to get
into a store or learn a trade?”

“Yes.”

“What trade did you think of?”

“None in particular.”

“How would you like to get into a book-bindery? I know two or three
girls in binderies, and they can make from five to ten dollars a week.
It's the nicest, cleanest work I know of.”

“Oh, do you?” returned Flora, with newly-awakening interest.

“Yes; we'll talk it all over while we're eating dinner. This way.”

And Pinky turned the corner of a small street that led away from the
more crowded thoroughfare along which they had been passing.

“It's a quiet and retired place, where only the nicest kind of people
go,” she added. “Many working-girls and girls in stores get their
dinners there. We'll meet some of them, no doubt; and if any that I know
should happen in, we might hear of a good place. Just the thing, isn't
it? I'm right glad I met you.”

They had gone halfway down the square, when Pinky stopped before the
shop of a confectioner. In the window was a display of cakes, pies and
candies, and a sign with the words, “LADIES' RESTAURANT.”

“This is the place,” she said, and opening the door, passed in, the
young stranger following.

A sign of caution, unseen by Flora, was made to a girl who stood behind
the counter. Then Pinky turned, saying,

“How will you have your oysters? stewed, fried, broiled or roasted?”

“I'm not particular--any way,” replied Flora.

“I like them fried. Will you have them the same way?”

Flora nodded assent.

“Let them be fried, then. Come, we'll go up stairs. Anybody there?”

“Two or three only.”

“Any girls from the bindery?”

“Yes; I think so.”

“Oh. I'm glad of that! Want to see some of them. Come, Miss Bond.”

And Pinky, after a whispered word to the attendant, led the way to a
room up stairs in which were a number of small tables. At one of these
were two girls eating, at another a girl sitting by herself, and at
another a young man and a girl. As Pinky and her companion entered,
the inmates of the room stared at them familiarly, and then winked and
leered at each other. Flora did not observe this, but she felt a sudden
oppression and fear. They sat down at a table not far from one of the
windows. Flora looked for the veil to be removed, so that she might see
the face of her new friend. But Pinky kept it closely down.

In about ten minutes the oysters were served. Accompanying them were two
glasses of some kind of liquor. Floating on one of these was a small bit
of cork. Pinky took this and handed the other to her companion, saying,

“Only a weak sangaree. It will refresh you after your fatigue; and I
always like something with oysters, it helps to make them lay lighter on
the stomach.”

Meantime, one of the girls had crossed over and spoken to Pinky. After
word or two, the latter said,

“Don't you work in a bindery, Miss Peter?”

“Yes,” was answered, without hesitation.

“I thought so. Let me introduce you to my friend, Miss Flora Bond. She's
from the country, and wants to get into some good establishment. She
talked about a store, but I think a bindery is better.”

“A great deal better,” was replied by Miss Peter. “I've tried them both,
and wouldn't go back to a store again on any account. If I can serve
your friend, I shall be most happy.”

“Thank you!” returned Flora; “you are very kind.”

“Not at all; I'm always glad when I can be of service to any one. You
think you'd like to go into a bindery?”

“Yes. I've come to the city to get employment, and haven't much choice.”

“There's no place like the city,” remarked the other. “I'd die in the
country--nothing going on. But you won't stagnate here. When did you
arrive?”

“To-day.”

“Have you friends here?”

“No. I brought a letter of introduction to a lady who resides in the
city.”

“What's her name?”

“Mrs. Bray.”

Miss Peter turned her head so that Flora could not see her face. It was
plain from its expression that she knew Mrs. Bray.

“Have you seen her yet?” she asked.

“No. She was out when I called. I'm going back in a little while.”

The girl sat down, and went on talking while the others were eating.
Pinky had emptied her glass of sangaree before she was half through with
her oysters, and kept urging Flora to drink.

“Don't be afraid of it, dear,” she said, in a kind, persuasive way;
“there's hardly a thimbleful of wine in the whole glass. It will soothe
your nerves, and make you feel ever so much better.”

There was something in the taste of the sangaree that Flora did not
like--a flavor that was not of wine. But urged repeatedly by her
companion, whose empty glass gave her encouragement and confidence, she
sipped and drank until she had taken the whole of it. By this time she
was beginning to have a sense of fullness and confusion in the head, and
to feel oppressed and uncomfortable. Her appetite suddenly left her, and
she laid down her knife and fork and leaned her head upon her hand.

“What's the matter?” asked Pinky.

“Nothing,” answered the girl; “only my head feels a little strangely. It
will pass off in a moment.”

“Riding in the cars, maybe,” said Pinky. “I always feel bad after being
in the cars; it kind of stirs me up.”

Flora sat very quietly at the table, still resting her head upon
her hands. Pinky and the girl who had joined them exchanged looks of
intelligence. The former had drawn her veil partly aside, yet concealing
as much as possible the bruises on her face.

“My! but you're battered!” exclaimed Miss Peter, in a whisper that was
unheard by Flora.

Pinky only answered by a grimace. Then she said to Flora, with
well-affected concern,

“I'm afraid you are ill, dear? How do you feel?”

“I don't know,” answered the poor girl, in a voice that betrayed great
anxiety, if not alarm. “It came over me all at once. I'm afraid that
wine was too strong; I am not used to taking anything.”

“Oh dear, no! it wasn't that. I drank a glass, and don't feel it any
more than if it had been water.”

“Let's go,” said Flora, starting up. “Mrs. Bray must be home by this
time.”

“All right, if you feel well enough,” returned Pinky, rising at the same
time.

“Oh dear! how my head swims!” exclaimed Flora, putting both hands to
her temples. She stood for a few moments in an uncertain attitude, then
reached out in a blind, eager way.

Pinky drew quickly to her side, and put one arm about her waist.

“Come,” she said, “the air is too close for you here;” and with the
assistance of the girl who had joined them, she steadied Flora down
stairs.

“Doctored a little too high,” whispered Miss Peter, with her mouth close
to Pinky's ear.

“All right,” Pinky whispered back; “they know how to do it.”

At the foot of the stairs Pinky said,

“You take her out through the yard, while I pay for the oysters. I'll be
with you in a moment.”

Poor Flora, was already too much confused by the drugged liquor she had
taken to know what they were doing with her.

Hastily paying for the oysters and liquor, Pinky was on hand in a few
moments. From the back door of the house they entered a small yard, and
passed from this through a gate into a narrow private alley shut in on
each side by a high fence. This alley ran for a considerable distance,
and had many gates opening into it from yards, hovels and rear
buildings, all of the most forlorn and wretched character. It terminated
in a small street.

Along this alley Pinky and the girl she had met at the restaurant
supported Flora, who was fast losing strength and consciousness. When
halfway down, they held a brief consultation.

“It won't do,” said Pinky, “to take her through to----street. She's too
far gone, and the police will be down on us and carry her off.”

“Norah's got some place in there,” said the other, pointing to an old
wooden building close by.

“I'm out with Norah,” replied Pinky, “and don't mean to have anything
more to do with her.”

“Where's your room?”

“That isn't the go. Don't want her there. Pat Maley's cellar is just
over yonder. We can get in from the alley.”

“Pat's too greedy a devil. There wouldn't be anything left of her when
he got through. No, no, Pinky; I'll have nothing to do with it if she's
to go into Pat Maley's cellar.”

“Not much to choose between 'em,” answered Pinky. “But it won't do to
parley here. We must get her in somewhere.”

And she pushed open a gate as she spoke. It swung back on one hinge
and struck the fence with a bang, disclosing a yard that beggared
description in its disorder and filth. In the back part of this yard
was a one-and-a-half-story frame building, without windows, looking more
like an old chicken-house or pig-stye than a place for human beings
to live in. The loft over the first story was reached by ladder on the
outside. Above and below the hovel was laid off in kind of stalls or
bunks furnished with straw. There were about twenty of these. It was
a ten-cent lodging-house, filled nightly. If this wretched hut or
stye--call it what you will--had been torn down, it would not have
brought ten dollars as kindling-wood. Yet its owner, a gentleman (?)
living handsomely up town, received for it the annual rent of two
hundred and fifty dollars. Subletted at an average of two dollars a
night, it gave an income of nearly seven hundred dollars a year. It was
known as the “Hawk's Nest,” and no bird of prey ever had a fouler nest
than this.

As the gate banged on the fence a coarse, evil-looking man, wearing a
dirty Scotch cap and a red shirt, pushed his head up from the cellar of
the house that fronted on the street.

“What's wanted?” he asked, in a kind of growl, his upper lip twitching
and drawing up at one side in a nervous way, letting his teeth appear.

“We want to get this girl in for a little while,” said Pinky. “We'll
take her away when she comes round. Is anybody in there?” and she
pointed to the hovel.

The man shook his head.

“How much?” asked Pinky.

“Ten cents apiece;” and he held out his hand.

Pinky gave him thirty cents. He took a key from his pocket, and opened
the door that led into the lower room. The stench that came out as the
door swung back was dreadful. But poor Flora Bond was by this time so
relaxed in every muscle, and so dead to outward things, that it was
impossible to get her any farther. So they bore her into this horrible
den, and laid her down in one of the stalls on a bed of loose straw.
Inside, there was nothing but these stalls and straw--not a table or
chair, or any article of furniture. They filled up nearly the entire
room, leaving only a narrow passage between them. The only means of
ventilation was by the door.

As soon as Pinky and her companion in this terrible wickedness were
alone with their victim, they searched her pocket for the key of her
traveling-bag. On finding it, Pinky was going to open it, when the other
said,

“Never mind about that; we can examine her baggage in safer place. Let's
go for the movables.”

And saying this, she fell quickly to work on the person of Flora,
slipping out the ear-rings first, then removing her breast-pin and
finger-rings, while Pinky unbuttoned the new gaiter boots, and drew off
both boots and stockings, leaving upon the damp straw the small, bare
feet, pink and soft almost as a baby's.

It did not take these harpies five minutes to possess themselves of
everything but the poor girl's dress and undergarments. Cloth oversack,
pocket-book, collar, linen cuffs, hat, shoes and stockings--all these
were taken.

“Hallo!” cried the keeper of this foul den as the two girls hurried out
with the traveling-bag and a large bundle sooner than he had expected;
and he came quickly forth from the cellar in which he lived like a cruel
spider and tried to intercept them, but they glided through the gate
and were out of his reach before he could get near. He could follow them
only with obscene invectives and horrible oaths. Well he knew what had
been done--that there had been a robbery in the “Hawk's Nest,” and he
not in to share the booty.

Growling like a savage dog, this wretch, in whom every instinct of
humanity had long since died--this human beast, who looked on innocence
and helplessness as a wolf looks upon a lamb--strode across the yard and
entered the den. Lying in one of the stalls upon the foul, damp straw
he found Flora Bond. Cruel beast that he was, even he felt himself
held back as by an invisible hand, as he looked at the pure face of the
insensible girl. Rarely had his eyes rested on a countenance so full of
innocence. But the wolf has no pity for the lamb, nor the hawk for the
dove. The instinct of his nature quickly asserted itself.

Avarice first. From the face his eyes turned to see what had been left
by the two girls. An angry imprecation fell from his lips when he saw
how little remained for him. But when he lifted Flora's head and unbound
her hair, a gleam of pleasure came info his foul face. It was a full
suit of rich chestnut brown, nearly three feet long, and fell in thick
masses over her breast and shoulders. He caught it up eagerly, drew it
through his great ugly hands, and gloated over it with something of a
miser's pleasure as he counts his gold. Then taking a pair of scissors
from his pocket, he ran them over the girl's head with the quickness and
skill of a barber, cutting close down, that he might not lose even the
sixteenth part of an inch of her rich tresses. An Indian scalping his
victim could not have shown more eagerness. An Indian's wild pleasure
was in his face as he lifted the heavy mass of brown hair and held it
above his head. It was not a trophy--not a sign of conquest and triumph
over an enemy--but simply plunder, and had a market value of fifteen or
twenty dollars.

The dress was next examined; it was new, but not of a costly material.
Removing this, the man went out with his portion of the spoils, and
locked the door, leaving the half-clothed, unconscious girl lying on
the damp, filthy straw, that swarmed with vermin. It was cold as well as
damp, and the chill of a bleak November day began creeping into her warm
blood. But the stupefying draught had been well compounded, and held her
senses locked.

Of what followed we cannot write, and we shiver as we draw a veil over
scenes that should make the heart of all Christendom ache--scenes that
are repeated in thousands of instances year by year in our large cities,
and no hand is stretched forth to succor and no arm to save. Under
the very eyes of the courts and the churches things worse than we have
described--worse than the reader can imagine--are done every day. The
foul dens into which crime goes freely, and into which innocence is
betrayed, are known to the police, and the evil work that is done
is ever before them. From one victim to another their keepers pass
unquestioned, and plunder, debauch, ruin and murder with an impunity
frightful to contemplate. As was said by a distinguished author,
speaking of a kindred social enormity, “There is not a country
throughout the earth on which a state of things like this would not
bring a curse. There is no religion upon earth that it would not deny;
there is no people on earth that it would not put to shame.”

And we are Christians!

No. Of what followed we cannot write. Those who were near the “Hawk's
Nest” heard that evening, soon after nightfall, the single wild,
prolonged cry of a woman. It was so full of terror and despair that even
the hardened ears that heard it felt a sudden pain. But they were used
to such things in that region, and no one took the trouble to learn what
it meant. Even the policeman moving on his beat stood listening for only
a moment, and then passed on.

Next day, in the local columns of a city paper, appeared the following:

“FOUL PLAY.--About eleven o'clock last night the body of a beautiful
young girl, who could not have been over seventeen years of age, was
discovered lying on the pavement in----street. No one knew how she came
there. She was quite dead when found. There was nothing by which she
could be identified. All her clothes but a single undergarment had been
removed, and her hair cut off close to her head. There were marks of
brutal violence on her person. The body was placed in charge of the
coroner, who will investigate the matter.”

On the day after, this paragraph appeared:

“SUSPICION OF FOUL PLAY.--The coroner's inquest elicited nothing in
regard to the young girl mentioned yesterday as having been found dead
and stripped of her clothing in----street. No one was able to identify
her. A foul deed at which the heart shudders has been done; but the
wretches by whom it was committed have been able to cover their tracks.”

And that was the last of it. The whole nation gives a shudder of fear at
the announcement of an Indian massacre and outrage. But in all our large
cities are savages more cruel and brutal in their instincts than the
Comanches, and they torture and outrage and murder a hundred poor
victims for every one that is exposed to Indian brutality, and there
comes no succor. Is it from ignorance of the fact? No, no, no! There is
not a Judge on the bench, not a lawyer at the bar, not a legislator at
the State capital, not a mayor or police-officer, not a minister who
preaches the gospel of Christ, who came to seek and to save, not an
intelligent citizen, but knows of all this.

What then? Who is responsible? The whole nation arouses itself at news
of an Indian assault upon some defenseless frontier settlement, and the
general government sends troops to succor and to punish. But who takes
note of the worse than Indian massacres going on daily and nightly in
the heart of our great cities? Who hunts down and punishes the human
wolves in our midst whose mouths are red with the blood of innocence?
Their deeds of cruelty outnumber every year a hundred--nay, a
thousand--fold the deeds of our red savages. Their haunts are known, and
their work is known. They lie in wait for the unwary, they gather in the
price of human souls, none hindering, at our very church doors. Is no
one responsible for all this? Is there no help? Is evil stronger than
good, hell stronger than heaven? Have the churches nothing to do in this
matter? Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost--came to
the lowliest, the poorest and the vilest, to those over whom devils had
gained power, and cast out the devils. Are those who call themselves
by his name diligent in the work to which he put his blessed hands?
Millions of dollars go yearly into magnificent churches, but how
little to the work of saving and succoring the weak, the helpless, the
betrayed, the outcast and the dying, who lie uncared for at the mercy
of human fiends, and often so near to the temples of God that their
agonized appeals for help are drowned by the organ and choir!




CHAPTER IX.



_THE_ two girls, on leaving the “Hawk's Nest” with their plunder, did
not pass from the narrow private alley into the small street at its
termination, but hurried along the way they had come, and re-entered the
restaurant by means of the gate opening into the yard. Through the back
door they gained a small, dark room, from which a narrow stairway led
to the second and third stories of the rear building. They seemed to be
entirely familiar with the place.

On reaching the third story, Pinky gave two quick raps and then a single
rap on a closed door. No movement being heard within, she rapped again,
reversing the order--that is, giving one distinct rap, and then two in
quick succession. At this the door came slowly open, and the two girls
passed in with their bundle of clothing and the traveling-bag.

The occupant of this room was a small, thin, well-dressed man,
with cold, restless gray eyes and the air of one who was alert and
suspicious. His hair was streaked with gray, as were also his full beard
and moustache. A diamond pin of considerable value was in his shirt
bosom. The room contained but few articles. There was a worn and faded
carpet on the floor, a writing-table and two or three chairs, and
a small bookcase with a few books, but no evidence whatever of
business--not a box or bundle or article of merchandise was to be seen.

As the two girls entered he, shut the door noiselessly, and turned the
key inside. Then his manner changed; his eyes lighted, and there was an
expression of interest in his face. He looked toward the bag and bundle.

Pinky sat down upon the floor and hurriedly unlocked the traveling-bag.
Thrusting in her hand, she drew out first a muslin nightgown and threw
it down, then a light shawl, a new barege dress, a pair of slippers,
collars, cuffs, ribbons and a variety of underclothing, and last of all
a small Bible and a prayer-book. These latter she tossed from her with a
low derisive laugh, which was echoed by her companion, Miss Peter.

The bundle was next opened, and the cloth sacque, the hat, the boots
and stockings and the collar and cuffs thrown upon the floor with the
contents of the bag.

“How much?” asked Pinky, glancing up at the man.

They were the first words that had been spoken. At this the man knit
his brows in an earnest way, and looked business. He lifted each article
from the floor, examined it carefully and seemed to be making a close
estimate of its value. The traveling-bag was new, and had cost probably
five dollars. The cloth sacque could not have been made for less than
twelve dollars. A fair valuation of the whole would have been near forty
dollars.

“How much?” repeated Pinky, an impatient quiver in her voice.

“Six dollars,” replied the man.

“Six devils!” exclaimed Pinky, in a loud, angry voice.

“Six devils! you old swindler!” chimed in Miss Peter.

“You can take them away. Just as you like,” returned the man, with cool
indifference. “Perhaps the police will give you more. It's the best I
can do.”

“But see here, Jerkin,” said Pinky: “that sacque is worth twice the
money.”

“Not to me. I haven't a store up town. I can't offer it for sale in the
open market. Don't you understand?”

“Say ten dollars.”

“Six.”

“Here's a breast-pin and a pair of ear-rings,” said Miss Peter; “we'll
throw them in;” and she handed Jerkin, as he was called, the bits of
jewelry she had taken from the person of Flora Bond. He looked at them
almost contemptuously as he replied,

“Wouldn't give you a dollar for the set.”

“Say eight dollars for the whole,” urged Pinky.

“Six fifty, and not a cent more,” answered Jerkin.

“Hand over, then, you old cormorant!” returned the girl, fretfully.
“It's a shame to swindle us in this way.”

The man took out his pocket-book and paid the money, giving half to each
of the girls.

“It's just a swindle!” repeated Pinky. “You're an old hard-fisted
money-grubber, and no better than a robber. Three dollars and a quarter
for all that work! It doesn't pay for the trouble. We ought to have had
ten apiece.”

“You can make it ten or twenty, or maybe a hundred, if you will,” said
Jerkin, with a knowing twinkle in his eyes. He gave his thumb a little
movement over his shoulder as he spoke.

“That's so!” exclaimed Pinky, her manner undergoing a change, and her
face growing bright--at least as much of it as could brighten. “Look
here, Nell,” speaking to Miss Peter, and drawing a piece of paper from
her pocket, “I've got ten rows here. Fanny Bray gave me five dollars to
go a half on each row. Meant to have gone to Sam McFaddon's last night,
but got into a muss with old Sal and Norah, and was locked up.”

“They make ten hits up there to one at Sam McFaddon's,” said Jerkin,
again twitching his thumb over his shoulder. “It's the luckiest office I
ever heard of. Two or three hits every day for a week past--got a lucky
streak, somehow. If you go in anywhere, take my advice and go in there,”
 lifting his hand and twitching his thumb upward and over his shoulder
again.

The two girls passed from the room, and the door was shut and locked
inside. No sooner had they done so than Jerkin made a new examination of
the articles, and after satisfying himself as to their value proceeded
to put them out of sight. Lifting aside a screen that covered the
fireplace, he removed from the chimney back, just above the line of
sight, a few loose bricks, and through the hole thus made thrust the
articles he had bought, letting them drop into a fireplace on the other
side.

On leaving the room of this professional receiver of stolen goods, Pinky
and her friend descended to the second story, and by a door which had
been cut through into the adjoining property passed to the rear building
of the house next door. They found themselves on a landing, or little
square hall, with a stairway passing down to the lower story and another
leading to the room above. A number of persons were going up and coming
down--a forlorn set, for the most part, of all sexes, ages and colors.
Those who were going up appeared eager and hopeful, while those who were
coming down looked disappointed, sorrowful, angry or desperate. There
was a “policy shop” in one of the rooms above, and these were some of
its miserable customers. It was the hour when the morning drawings
of the lotteries were received at the office, or “shop,” and the poor
infatuated dupes who had bet on their favorite “rows” were crowding in
to learn the result.

Poor old men and women in scant or wretched clothing, young girls with
faces marred by evil, blotched and bloated creatures of both sexes, with
little that was human in their countenances, except the bare features,
boys and girls not yet in their teens, but old in vice and crime, and
drunkards with shaking nerves,--all these were going up in hope and
coming down in disappointment. Here and there was one of a different
quality, a scantily-dressed woman with a thin, wasted face and hollow
eyes, who had been fighting the wolf and keeping fast hold of her
integrity, or a tender, innocent-looking girl, the messenger of a weak
and shiftless mother, or a pale, bright-eyed boy whose much-worn but
clean and well-kept garments gave sad evidence of a home out of which
prop and stay had been removed. The strong and the weak, the pure and
the defiled, were there. A poor washerwoman who in a moment of weakness
has pawned the garments entrusted to her care, that she might venture
upon a “row” of which she had dreamed, comes shrinking down with a pale,
frightened face, and the bitterness of despair in her heart. She has
lost. What then? She has no friend from whom she can borrow enough money
to redeem the clothing, and if it is not taken home she may be arrested
as a thief and sent to prison. She goes away, and temptation lies close
at her feet. It is her extremity and the evil one's opportunity. So far
she has kept herself pure, but the disgrace of a public prosecution and
a sentence to prison are terrible things to contemplate. She is in peril
of her soul. God help her!

Who is this dressed in rusty black garments and closely veiled, who
comes up from the restaurant, one of the convenient and unsuspected
entrances to this robber's den?--for a “policy-shop” is simply a robbery
shop, and is so regarded by the law, which sets a penalty upon the
“writer” and the “backer” as upon other criminals. But who is this
veiled woman in faded mourning garments who comes gliding as noiselessly
as a ghost out from one of the rooms of the restaurant, and along the
narrow entry leading to the stairway, now so thronged with visitors?
Every day she comes and goes, no one seeing her face, and every day,
with rare exceptions, her step is slower and her form visibly more
shrunken when she goes out than when she comes in. She is a broken-down
gentlewoman, the widow of an officer, who left her at his death a
moderate fortune, and quite sufficient for the comfortable maintenance
of herself and two nearly grown-up daughters. But she had lived at
the South, and there acquired a taste for lottery gambling. During her
husband's lifetime she wasted considerable money in lottery tickets,
once or twice drawing small prizes, but like all lottery dupes spending
a hundred dollars for one gained. The thing had become a sort of mania
with her. She thought so much of prizes and drawn numbers through the
day that she dreamed of them all night. She had a memorandum-book in
which were all the combinations she had ever heard of as taking prizes.
It contained page after page of lucky numbers and fancy “rows,” and was
oftener in her hand than any other book.

There being no public sale of lottery tickets in Northern cities, this
weak and infatuated woman found out where some of the “policy-shops”
 were kept, and instead of buying tickets, as before, risked her money on
numbers that might or might not come out of the wheel in lotteries said
to be drawn in certain Southern States, but chiefly in Kentucky. The
numbers rarely if ever came out. The chances were too remote. After her
husband's death she began fretting over the smallness of her income. It
was not sufficient to give her daughters the advantages she desired
them to have, and she knew of but one way to increase it. That way was
through the policy-shops. So she gave her whole mind to this business,
with as much earnestness and self-absorption as a merchant gives himself
to trade. She had a dream-book, gotten up especially for policy buyers,
and consulted it as regularly as a merchant does his price-current or a
broker the sales of stock. Every day she bet on some “row” or series of
“rows,” rarely venturing less than five dollars, and sometimes, when she
felt more than usually confident, laying down a twenty-dollar bill,
for the “hit” when made gave from fifty to two hundred dollars for each
dollar put down, varying according to the nature of the combinations. So
the more faith a policy buyer had in his “row,” the larger the venture
he would feel inclined to make.

Usually it went all one way with the infatuated lady. Day after day she
ventured, and day after day she lost, until from hundreds the sums she
was spending had aggregated themselves into thousands. She changed from
one policy-shop to another, hoping for better luck. It was her business
to find them out, and this she was able to do by questioning some of
those whom she met at the shops. One of these was in a building on a
principal street, the second story of which was occupied by a milliner.
It was visited mostly by ladies, who could pass in from the street,
no one suspecting their errand. Another was in the attic of a house in
which were many offices and places of business, with people going in and
coming out all the while, none but the initiated being in the secret;
while another was to be found in the rear of a photograph gallery. Every
day and often twice a day, as punctually as any man of business, did
this lady make her calls at one and another of these policy-offices to
get the drawings or make new ventures. At remote intervals she would
make a “hit;” once she drew twenty dollars, and once fifty. But for
these small gains she had paid thousands of dollars.

After a “hit” the betting on numbers would be bolder. Once she selected
what was known as a “lucky row,” and determined to double on it until it
came out a prize. She began by putting down fifty cents. On the next day
she put down a dollar upon the same combination, losing, of course,
Two dollars were ventured on the next day; and so she went on doubling,
until, in her desperate infatuation, she doubled for the ninth time,
putting down two hundred and fifty-six dollars.

If successful now, she would draw over twenty-five thousand dollars.
There was no sleep for the poor lady during the night that followed.
She walked the floor of her chamber in a state of intense nervous
excitement, sometimes in a condition of high hope and confidence and
sometimes haunted by demons of despair. She sold five shares of stock
on which she had been receiving an annual dividend of ten per cent., in
order to get funds for this desperate gambling venture, in which over
five hundred dollars had now been absorbed.

Pale and nervous, she made her appearance at the breakfast-table on the
next morning, unable to take a mouthful of food. It was in vain that her
anxious daughters urged her to eat.

A little after twelve o'clock she was at the policy-office. The drawn
numbers for the morning were already in. Her combination was 4, 10, 40.
With an eagerness that could not be repressed, she caught up the slip
of paper containing the thirteen numbers out of seventy-five, which
purported to have been drawn that morning somewhere in “Kentucky,” and
reported by telegraph--caught it up with hands that shook so violently
that she could not read the figures. She had to lay the piece of paper
down upon the little counter before which she stood, in order that it
might be still, so that she could read her fate.

The first drawn number was 4. What a wild leap her heart gave! The next
was 24; the next 8; the next 70; the next 41, and the next 39. Her heart
grew almost still; the pressure as of a great hand was on her bosom. 10
came next. Two numbers of her row were out. A quiver of excitement ran
through her frame. She caught up the paper, but it shook as before, so
that she could not see the figures. Dashing it back upon the counter,
and holding it down almost violently, she bent over, with eyes starting
from their sockets, and read the line of figures to the end, then sank
over upon the counter with a groan, and lay there half fainting and too
weak to lift herself up. If the 40 had been there, she would have made a
hit of twenty-five thousand dollars. But the 40 was not there, and this
made all the difference.

“Once more,” said the policy-dealer, in a tone of encouragement, as he
bent over the miserable woman. “Yesterday, 4 came out; to-day, 4, 10;
tomorrow will be the lucky chance; 4, 10, 40 will surely be drawn. I
never knew this order to fail. If it had been 10 first, and then 4, 10,
or 10, 4, I would not advise you to go on. But 4, 10, 40 will be drawn
to-morrow as sure as fate.”

“What numbers did you say? 4, 10, 40?” asked an old man, ragged and
bloated, who came shuffling in as the last remarks was made.

“Yes,” answered the dealer. “This lady has been doubling, and as the
chances go, her row is certain to make a hit to-morrow.”

“Ha! What's the row? 4, 10, 40?”

“Yes.”

The old man fumbled in his pocket, and brought out ten cents.

“I'll go that on the row. Give me a piece.”

The dealer took a narrow slip of paper and wrote on it the date, the
sum risked and the combination of figures, and handed it to the old man,
saying,

“Come here to-morrow; and if the bottom of the world doesn't drop out,
you'll find ten dollars waiting for you.”

Two or three others were in by this time, eager to look over the list of
drawn numbers and to make new bets.

“Glory!” cried one of them, a vile-looking young woman, and she
commenced dancing about the room.

All was excitement now. “A hit! a hit!” was cried. “How much? how much?”
 and they gathered to the little counter and desk of the policy-dealer.

“1, 2, 3,” cried the girl, dancing about and waving her little slip
of paper over her head. “I knew it would come--dreamed of them numbers
three nights hand running! Hand over the money, old chap! Fifteen
dollars for fifteen cents! That's the go!”

The policy-dealer took the girl's “piece,” and after comparing it with
the record of drawn numbers, said, in a pleased voice,

“All right! A hit, sure enough. You're in luck to-day.”

The girl took the money, that was promptly paid down, and as she counted
it over the dealer remarked,

“There's a doubling game going on, and it's to be up to-morrow, sure.”

“What's the row?” inquired the girl.

“4, 10, 40,” said the dealer.

“Then count me in;” and she laid down five dollars on the counter.

“Take my advice and go ten,” urged the policy-dealer.

“No, thank you! shouldn't know what to do with more than five hundred
dollars. I'll only go five dollars this time.”

The “writer,” as a policy-seller is called, took the money and gave
the usual written slip of paper containing the selected numbers;
loudly proclaiming her good luck, the girl then went away. She was an
accomplice to whom a “piece” had been secretly given after the drawn
numbers were in.

Of course this hit was the sensation of the day among the policy-buyers
at that office, and brought in large gains.

The wretched woman who had just seen five hundred dollars vanish into
nothing instead of becoming, as under the wand of an enchanter, a
great heap of gold, listened in a kind of maze to what passed around
her--listened and let the tempter get to her ear again. She went away,
stooping in her gait as one bearing a heavy burden. Before an hour had
passed hope had lifted her again into confidence. She had to make but
one venture more to double on the risk of the day previous, and secure a
fortune that would make both herself and daughters independent for life.

Another sale of good stocks, another gambling venture and another loss,
swelling the aggregate in this wild and hopeless “doubling” experiment
to over a thousand dollars.

But she was not cured. As regularly as a drunkard goes to the bar went
she to the policy-shops, every day her fortune growing less. Poverty
began to pinch. The house in which she lived with her daughters was
sold, and the unhappy family shrunk into a single room in a third-rate
boarding-house. But their income soon became insufficient to meet the
weekly demand for board. Long before this the daughters had sought for
something to do by which to earn a little money. Pride struggled hard
with them, but necessity was stronger than pride.

We finish the story in a few words. In a moment of weakness, with want
and hard work staring her in the face, one of the daughters married
a man who broke her heart and buried her in less than two years. The
other, a weak and sickly girl, got a situation as day governess in the
family of an old friend of her father's, where she was kindly treated,
but she lived only a short time after her sister's death.

And still there was no abatement of the mother's infatuation. She was
more than half insane on the subject of policy gambling, and confident
of yet retrieving her fortunes.

At the time Pinky Swett and her friend in evil saw her come gliding up
from the restaurant in faded mourning garments and closely veiled, she
was living alone in a small, meagrely furnished room, and cooking her
own food.

Everything left to her at her husband's death was gone. She earned a
dollar or two each week by making shirts and drawers for the slop-shops,
spending every cent of this in policies. A few old friends who pitied
her, but did not know of the vice in which she indulged, paid her
rent and made occasional contributions for her support. All of these
contributions, beyond the amount required for a very limited supply of
food, went to the policy-shops. It was a mystery to her friends how she
had managed to waste the handsome property left by her husband, but no
one suspected the truth.




CHAPTER X.



“_WHO'S_ that, I wonder?” asked Nell Peter as the dark, close-veiled
figure glided past them on the stairs.

“Oh, she's a policy-drunkard,” answered Pinky, loud enough to be heard
by the woman, who, as if surprised or alarmed, stopped and turned her
head, her veil falling partly away, and disclosing features so pale and
wasted that she looked more like a ghost than living flesh and blood.
There was a strange gleam in her eyes. She paused only for an instant,
but her steps were slower as she went on climbing the steep and narrow
stairs that led to the policy-office.

“Good Gracious, Pinky! did you ever see such a face?” exclaimed Nell
Peter. “It's a walking ghost, I should say, and no woman at all.”

“Oh, I've seen lots of 'em,” answered Pinky. “She's a policy-drunkard.
Bad as drinking when it once gets hold of 'em. They tipple all the time,
sell anything, beg, borrow, steal or starve themselves to get money to
buy policies. She's one of 'em that's starving.”

By this time they had reached the policy-office. It was in a small room
on the third floor of the back building, yet as well known to the police
of the district as if it had been on the front street. One of these
public guardians soon after his appointment through political influence,
and while some wholesome sense of duty and moral responsibility yet
remained, caused the “writer” in this particular office to be arrested.
He thought that he had done a good thing, and looked for approval and
encouragement. But to his surprise and chagrin he found that he had
blundered. The case got no farther than the alderman's. Just how it was
managed he did not know, but it was managed, and the business of the
office went on as before.

A little light came to him soon after, on meeting a prominent politician
to whom he was chiefly indebted for his appointment. Said this
individual, with a look of warning and a threat in his voice,

“See here, my good fellow; I'm told that you've been going out of your
way and meddling with the policy-dealers. Take my advice, and mind your
own business. If you don't, it will be all day with you. There isn't a
man in town strong enough to fight this thing, so you'd better let it
alone.”

And he did let it alone. He had a wife and three little children, and
couldn't afford to lose his place. So he minded his own business, and
let it alone.

Pinky and her friend entered this small third-story back room. Behind a
narrow, unpainted counter, having a desk at one end, stood a middle-aged
man, with dark, restless eyes that rarely looked you in the face. He
wore a thick but rather closely-cut beard and moustache. The police knew
him very well; so did the criminal lawyers, when he happened to come in
their way; so did the officials of two or three State prisons in which
he had served out partial sentences. He was too valuable to political
“rings” and associations antagonistic to moral and social well-being
to be left idle in the cell of a penitentiary for the whole term of a
commitment. Politicians have great influence, and governors are human.

On the walls of the room were pasted a few pictures cut from the
illustrated papers, some of them portraits of leading politicians, and
some of them portraits of noted pugilists and sporting-men. The picture
of a certain judge, who had made himself obnoxious to the fraternity
of criminals by his severe sentences, was turned upside down. There was
neither table nor chair in the room.

The woman in black had passed in just before the girls, and was waiting
her turn to examine the drawn numbers. She had not tasted food since the
day before, having ventured her only dime on a policy, and was feeling
strangely faint and bewildered. She did not have to wait long. It was
the old story. Her combination had not come out, and she was starving.
As she moved back toward the door she staggered a little. Pinky, who had
become curious about her, noticed this, and watched her as she went out.

“It's about up with the old lady, I guess,” she said to her companion,
with an unfeeling laugh.

And she was right. On the next morning the poor old woman was found dead
in her room, and those who prepared her for burial said that she
was wasted to a skeleton. She had, in fact, starved herself in her
infatuation, spending day after day in policies what she should have
spent for food. Pinky's strange remark was but too true. She had become
a policy-drunkard--a vice almost as disastrous in its effects as its
kindred, vice, intemperance, though less brutalizing and less openly
indulged.

“Where now?” was the question of Pinky's friend as they came down, after
spending in policies all the money they had received from the sale of
Flora Bond's clothing. “Any other game?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“Come along to my room, and I'll tell you.”

“Round in Ewing street?”

“Yes. Great game up, if I can only get on the track.”

“What is it?”

“There's a cast-off baby in Dirty Alley, and Fan Bray knows its mother,
and she's rich.”

“What?”

“Fan's getting lots of hush-money.”

“Goody! but that is game!”

“Isn't it? The baby's owned by two beggar-women who board it in Dirty
Alley. It's 'most starved and frozen to death, and Fan's awful 'fraid
it may die. She wants me to steal it for her, so that she may have it
better taken care of, and I was going to do it last night, when I got
into a muss.”

“Who's the woman that boards it?”

“She lives in a cellar, and is drunk every night. Can steal the brat
easily enough; but if I can't find out who it belongs to, you see it
will be trouble for nothing.”

“No, I don't see any such thing,” answered Nell Peter. “If you can't get
hush-money out of its mother, you can bleed Fanny Bray.”

“That's so, and I'm going to bleed her. The mother, you see, thinks
the baby's dead. The proud old grandmother gave it away, as soon as was
born, to a woman that Fan Bray found for her. Its mother was out of her
head, and didn't know nothing. That woman sold the baby to the women who
keep it to beg with. She's gone up the spout now, and nobody knows who
the mother and grandmother are but Fan, and nobody knows where the baby
is but me and Fan. She's bleeding the old lady, and promises to share
with me if I keep track of the baby and see that it isn't killed or
starved to death. But I don't trust her. She puts me off with fives and
tens, when I'm sure she gets hundreds. Now, if we have the baby all
to ourselves, and find out the mother and grandmother, won't we have a
splendid chance? I'll bet you on that.”

“Won't we? Why, Pinky, this is a gold-mine!”

“Didn't I tell you there was great game up? I was just wanting some one
to help me. Met you in the nick of time.”

The two girls had now reached Pinky's room in Ewing street, where they
continued in conference for a long time before settling their plans.

“Does Fan know where you live?” queried Nell Peter.

“Yes.”

“Then you will have to change your quarters.”

“Easily done. Doesn't take half a dozen furniture-cars to move me.”

“I know a room.”

“Where?”

“It's a little too much out of the way, you'll think, maybe, but
it's just the dandy for hiding in. You cart keep the brat there, and
nobody--”

“Me keep the brat?” interrupted Pinky, with a derisive laugh. “That's a
good one! I see myself turned baby-tender! Ha! ha! that's funny!”

“What do you expect to do with the child after you steal it?” asked
Pinky's friend.

“I don't intend to nurse it or have it about me.”

“What then?”

“Board if with some one who doesn't get drunk or buy policies.”

“You'll hunt for a long time.”

“Maybe, but I'll try. Anyhow, it can't be worse off than it is now. What
I'm afraid of is that it will be out of its misery before we can get
hold of it. The woman who is paid for keeping it at night doesn't give
it any milk--just feeds it on bread soaked in water, and that is slow
starvation. It's the way them that don't want to keep their babies get
rid of them about here.”

“The game's up if the baby dies,” said Nell Peter, growing excited under
this view of the case. “If it only gets bread soaked in water, it can't
live. I've seen that done over and over again. They're starving a baby
on bread and water now just over from my room, and it cries and frets
and moans all the time it's awake, poor little wretch! I've been
in hopes for a week that they'd give it an overdose of paregoric or
something else.”

“We must fix it to-night in some way,” answered Pinky. “Where's the room
you spoke of?”

“In Grubb's court. You know Grubb's court?--a kind of elbow going off
from Rider's court. There's a room up there that you can get where even
the police would hardly find you out.”

“Thieves live there,” said Pinky.

“No matter. They'll not trouble you or the baby.”

“Is the room furnished?”

“Yes. There's a bed and a table and two chairs.”

After farther consultation it was decided that Pinky should move at
once from her present lodgings to the room in Grubb's court, and get, if
possible, possession of the baby that very night. The moving was easily
accomplished after the room was secured. Two small bundles of clothing
constituted Pinky's entire effects; and taking these, the two girls went
quietly out, leaving a week's rent unpaid.

The night that closed this early winter day was raw and cold, the
easterly wind still prevailing, with occasional dashes of rain. In a
cellar without fire, except a few bits of smouldering wood in an old
clay furnace, that gave no warmth to the damp atmosphere, and with
scarcely an article of furniture, a woman half stupid from drink sat on
a heap of straw, her bed, with her hands clasped about her knees. She
was rocking her body backward and forward, and crooning to herself in a
maudlin way. A lighted tallow candle stood on the floor of the cellar,
and near it a cup of water, in which was a spoon and some bread soaking.

“Mother Hewitt!” called a voice from the cellar door that opened on the
street. “Here, take the baby!”

Mother Hewitt, as she was called, started up and made her way with an
unsteady gait to the front part of the cellar, where a woman in not
much better condition than herself stood holding out a bundle of rags in
which a fretting baby was wrapped.

“Quick, quick!” called the woman. “And see here,” she continued as
Mother Hewitt reached her arms for the baby; “I don't believe you're
doing the right thing. Did he have plenty of milk last night and this
morning?”

“Just as much as he would take.”

“I don't believe it. He's been frettin' and chawin' at the strings of
his hood all the afternoon, when he ought to have been asleep, and he's
looking punier every day. I believe you're giving him only bread and
water.”

But Mother Hewitt protested that she gave him the best of new milk, and
as much as he would take.

“Well, here's a quarter,” said the woman, handing Mother Hewitt some
money; “and see that he is well fed to-night and to-morrow morning. He's
getting 'most too deathly in his face. The people won't stand it if they
think a bab

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