Cast Adrift by T. S. Arthur (page 3)

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 baby’s going to die–the women ‘specially, and most of all the young things that have lost babies. One of these–I know ’em by the way they look out of their eyes–came twice to-day and stood over him sad and sorrowful like; she didn’t give me anything. I’ve seen her before. Maybe she’s his mother. As like as nor, for nobody knows where he came from. Wasn’t Sally Long’s baby; always thought she’d stole him from somebody. Now, mind, he’s to have good milk every day, or I’ll change his boarding-house. D’ye hear!”

And laughing at this sally, the woman turned away to spend in a night’s debauch the money she had gained in half a day’s begging.

Left to herself, Mother Hewitt went staggering back with the baby in her arms, and seated herself on the ground beside the cup of bread and water, which was mixed to the consistence of cream. As she did so the light of her poor candle fell on the baby’s face. It was pinched and hungry and ashen pale, the thin lips wrought by want and suffering into such sad expressions of pain that none but the most stupid and hardened could look at them and keep back a gush of tears.

But Mother Hewitt saw nothing of this–felt nothing of this. Pity and tenderness had long since died out of her heart. As she laid the baby back on one arm she took a spoonful of the mixture prepared for its supper, and pushed it roughly into its mouth. The baby swallowed it with a kind of starving eagerness, but with no sign of satisfaction on its sorrowful little face. But Mother Hewitt was too impatient to get through with her work of feeding the child, and thrust in spoonful after spoonful until it choked, when she shook it angrily, calling it vile names.

The baby cried feebly at this. when she shook it again and slapped it with her heavy hand. Then it grew still. She put the spoon again to its lips, but it shut them tightly and turned its head away.

“Very well,” said Mother Hewitt. “If you won’t, you won’t;” and she tossed the helpless thing as she would have tossed a senseless bundle over upon the heap of straw that served as a bed, adding, as she did so, “I never coaxed my own brats.”

The baby did not cry. Mother Hewitt then blew out the candle, and groping her way to the door of the cellar that opened on the street, went out, shutting down the heavy door behind her, and leaving the child alone in that dark and noisome den–alone in its foul and wet garments, but, thanks to kindly drugs, only partially conscious of its misery.

Mother Hewitt’s first visit was to the nearest dram-shop. Here she spent for liquor five cents of the money she had received. From the dram-shop she went to Sam McFaddon’s policy-office. This was not hidden away, like most of the offices, in an upper room or a back building or in some remote cellar, concealed from public observation, but stood with open door on the very street, its customers going in and out as freely and unquestioned as the customers of its next-door neighbor, the dram-shop. Policemen passed Sam’s door a hundred times in every twenty-four hours, saw his customers going in and out, knew their errand, talked with Sam about his business, some of them trying their luck occasionally after there had been an exciting “hit,” but none reporting him or in any way interfering with his unlicensed plunder of the miserable and besotted wretches that crowded his neighborhood.

From the whisky-shop to the policy-shop went Mother Hewitt. Here she put down five cents more; she never bet higher than this on a “row.” From the policy-shop she went back to the whisky-shop, and took another drink. By this time she was beginning to grow noisy. It so happened that the woman who had left the baby with her a little while before came in just then, and being herself much the worse for drink, picked a quarrel with Mother Hewitt, accusing her of getting drunk on the money she received for keeping the baby, and starving it to death. A fight was the consequence, in which they were permitted to tear and scratch and bruise each other in a shocking way, to the great enjoyment of the little crowd of debased and brutal men and women who filled the dram-shop. But fearing a visit from the police, the owner of the den, a strong, coarse Irishman, interfered, and dragging the women apart, pushed Mother Hewitt out, giving her so violent an impetus that she fell forward into the middle of the narrow street, where she lay unable to rise, not from any hurt, but from sheer intoxication.

“What’s up now?” cried one and another as this little ripple of disturbance broke upon that vile and troubled sea of humanity.

“Only Mother Hewitt drunk again!” lightly spoke a young girl not out of her teens, but with a countenance that seemed marred by centuries of debasing evil. Her laugh would have made an angel shiver.

A policeman came along, and stood for a little while looking at the prostrate woman.

“It’s Mother Hewitt,” said one of the bystanders.

“Here, Dick,” and the policeman spoke to a man near him. “Take hold of her feet.”

The man did as told, and the policeman lifting the woman’s head and shoulders, they carried her a short distance, to where a gate opened into a large yard used for putting in carts and wagons at night, and deposited her on the ground just inside.

“She can sleep it off there,” said the policeman as he dropped his unseemly load. “She’ll have a-plenty to keep her company before morning.”

And so they left her without covering or shelter in the wet and chilly air of a late November night, drunk and asleep.

As the little crowd gathered by this ripple of excitement melted away, a single figure remained lurking in a corner of the yard and out of sight in its dark shadow. It was that of a man. The moment he was alone with the unconscious woman he glided toward her with the alert movements of an animal, and with a quickness that made his work seem instant, rifled her pockets. His gains were ten cents and the policy-slip she had just received at Sam McFaddon’s. He next examined her shoes, but they were of no value, lifted her dirty dress and felt its texture for a moment, then dropped it with a motion of disgust and a growl of disappointment.

As he came out from the yard with his poor booty, the light from a street-lamp fell on as miserable a looking wretch as ever hid himself from the eyes of day–dirty, ragged, bloated, forlorn, with scarcely a trace of manhood in his swollen and disfigured face. His steps, quick from excitement a few moments before, were now shambling and made with difficulty. He had not far to walk for what he was seeking. The ministers to his appetite were all about him, a dozen in every block of that terrible district that seemed as if forsaken by God and man. Into the first that came in his way he went with nervous haste, for he had not tasted of the fiery stimulant he was craving with a fierce and unrelenting thirst for many hours. He did not leave the bar until he had drank as much of the burning poison its keeper dispensed as his booty would purchase. In less than half an hour he was thrown dead drunk into the street and then carried by policemen to the old wagon-yard, to take his night’s unconscious rest on the ground in company with Mother Hewitt and a score besides of drunken wretches who were pitilessly turned out from the various dram-shops after their money was spent, and who were not considered by the police worth the trouble of taking to the station-house.

When Mother Hewitt crept back into her cellar at daylight, the baby was gone.

CHAPTER XI.

_FOR_ more than a week after Edith’s call on Dr. Radcliffe she seemed to take but little interest in anything, and remained alone in her room for a greater part of the time, except when her father was in the house. Since her questions about her baby a slight reserve had risen up between them. During this time she went out at least once every day, and when questioned by her mother as to where she had been, evaded any direct answer. If questioned more closely, she would show a rising spirit and a decision of manner that had the effect to silence and at the same time to trouble Mrs. Dinneford, whose mind was continually on the rack.

One day the mother and daughter met in a part of the city where neither of them dreamed of seeing the other. It was not far from where Mrs. Bray lived. Mrs. Dinneford had been there on a purgational visit, and had come away lighter in purse and with a heavier burden of fear and anxiety on her heart.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“I’ve been to St. John’s mission sewing-school,” replied Edith. “I have a class there.”

“You have! Why didn’t you tell me this before? I don’t like such doings. This is no place for you.”

“My place is where I can do good,” returned Edith, speaking slowly, but with great firmness.

“Good! You can do good if you want to without demeaning yourself to work like this. I don’t want you mixed up with these low, vile people, and I won’t have it!” Mrs. Dinneford spoke in a sharp, positive voice.

Edith made no answer, and they walked on together.

“I shall speak to your father about this,” said Mrs. Dinneford. “It isn’t reputable. I wouldn’t have you seen here for the world.”

“I shall walk unhurt; you need not fear,” returned Edith.

There was silence between them for some time, Edith not caring to speak, and her mother in doubt as to what it were best to say.

“How long have you been going to St. John’s mission school?” at length queried Mrs. Dinneford.

“I’ve been only a few times,” replied Edith.

“And have a class of diseased and filthy little wretches, I suppose–gutter children?”

“They are God’s children,” said Edith, in a tone of rebuke.

“Oh, don’t preach to me!” was angrily replied.

“I only said what was true,” remarked Edith.

There was silence again.

“Are you going directly home?” asked Mrs. Dinneford, after they had walked the distance of several blocks. Edith replied that she was.

“Then you’d better take that car. I shall not be home for an hour yet.”

They separated, Edith taking the car. As soon as she was alone Mrs. Dinneford quickened her steps, like a person who had been held back from some engagement. A walk of ten minutes brought her to one of the principal hotels of the city. Passing in, she went up to a reception-parlor, where she was met by a man who rose from a seat near the windows and advanced to the middle of the room. He was of low stature, with quick, rather nervous movements, had dark, restless eyes, and wore a heavy black moustache that was liberally sprinkled with gray. The lower part of his face was shaved clean. He showed some embarrassment as he came forward to meet Mrs. Dinneford.

“Mr. Feeling,” she said, coldly.

The man bowed with a mixture of obsequiousness and familiarity, and tried to look steadily into Mrs. Dinneford’s face, but was not able to do so. There was a steadiness and power in her eyes that his could not bear.

“What do you want with me, sir?” she demanded, a little sharply.

“Take a chair, and I will tell you,” replied Freeling, and he turned, moving toward a corner of the room, she following. They sat down, taking chairs near each other.

“There’s trouble brewing,” said the man, his face growing dark and anxious.

“What kind of trouble?”

“I had a letter from George Granger yesterday.”

“What!” The color went out of the lady’s face.

“A letter from George Granger. He wished to see me.”

“Did you go?”

“Yes.”

“What did he want?”

Freeling took a deep breath, and sighed. His manner was troubled.

“What did he want?” Mrs. Dinneford repeated the question.

“He’s as sane as you or I,” said Freeling.

“Is he? Oh, very well! Then let him go to the State’s prison.” Mrs. Dinneford said this with some bravado in her manner. But the color did not come back to her face.

“He has no idea of that,” was replied.

“What then?” The lady leaned toward Freeling. Her hands moved nervously.

“He means to have the case in court again, but on a new issue.”

“He does!”

“Yes; says that he’s innocent, and that you and I know it–that he’s the victim of a conspiracy, and that we are the conspirators!”

“Talk!–amounts to nothing,” returned Mrs. Dinneford, with a faint little laugh.

“I don’t know about that. It’s ugly talk, and especially so, seeing that it’s true.”

“No one will give credence to the ravings of an insane criminal.”

“People are quick to credit an evil report. They will pity and believe him, now that the worst is reached. A reaction in public feeling has already taken place. He has one or two friends left who do not hesitate to affirm that there has been foul play. One of these has been tampering with a clerk of mine, and I came upon them with their heads together on the street a few days ago, and had my suspicions aroused by their startled look when they saw me.”

“‘What did that man want with you?’ I inquired, when the clerk came in.

“He hesitated a moment, and then replied, ‘He was asking me something about Mr. Granger.’

“‘What about him?’ I queried. ‘He asked me if I knew anything in regard to the forgery,’ he returned.

“I pressed him with questions, and found that suspicion was on the right track. This friend of Granger’s asked particularly about your visits to the store, and whether he had ever noticed anything peculiar in our intercourse–anything that showed a familiarity beyond what would naturally arise between a customer and salesman.”

“There’s nothing in that,” said Mrs. Dinneford. “If you and I keep our own counsel, we are safe. The testimony of a condemned criminal goes for nothing. People may surmise and talk as much as they please, but no one knows anything about those notes but you and I and George.”

“A pardon from the governor may put a new aspect on the case.”

“A pardon!” There was a tremor of alarm in Mrs. Dinneford’s voice.

“Yes; that, no doubt, will be the first move.”

“The first move! Why, Mr. Freeling, you don’t think anything like this is in contemplation?”

“I’m afraid so. George, as I have said, is no more crazy than you or I. But he cannot come out of the asylum, as the case now stands, without going to the penitentiary. So the first move of his friends will be to get a pardon. Then he is our equal in the eyes of the law. It would be an ugly thing for you and me to be sued for a conspiracy to ruin this young man, and have the charge of forgery added to the count.”

Mrs. Dinneford gave a low cry, and shivered.

“But it may come to that.”

“Impossible!”

“The prudent man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself, but the simple pass on and are punished,” said Freeling. “It is for this that I have sent for you. It’s an ugly business, and I was a weak fool ever to have engaged in it.”

“You were a free agent.”

“I was a weak fool.”

“As you please,” returned Mrs. Dinneford, coldly, and drawing herself away from him.

It was some moments before either of them spoke again. Then Freeling said,

“I was awake all night, thinking over this matter, and it looks uglier the more I think of it. It isn’t likely that enough evidence could be found to convict either of us, but to be tried on such an accusation would be horrible.”

“Horrible! horrible!” ejaculated Mrs. Dinneford. “What is to be done?” She gave signs of weakness and terror. Freeling observed her closely, then felt his way onward.

“We are in great peril,” he said. “There is no knowing what turn affairs will take. I only wish I were a thousand miles from here. It would be safer for us both.” Then, after a pause, he added, “If I were foot-free, I would be off to-morrow.”

He watched Mrs. Dinneford closely, and saw a change creep over her face.

“If I were to disappear suddenly,” he resumed, “suspicion, if it took a definite shape, would fall on me. You would not be thought of in the matter.”

He paused again, observing his companion keenly but stealthily. He was not able to look her fully in the face.

“Speak out plainly,” said Mrs. Dinneford, with visible impatience.

“Plainly, then, madam,” returned Freeling, changing his whole bearing toward her, and speaking as one who felt that he was master of the situation, “it has come to this: I shall have to break up and leave the city, or there will be a new trial in which you and I will be the accused. Now, self-preservation is the first law of nature. I don’t mean to go to the State’s prison if I can help it. What I am now debating are the chances in my favor if Granger gets a pardon, and then makes an effort to drive us to the wall, which he most surely will. I have settled it so far–“

Mrs. Dinneford leaned toward him with an anxious expression on her countenance, waiting for the next sentence. But Freeling did not go on.

“How have you settled it?” she demanded, trembling as she spoke with the excitement of suspense.

“That I am not going to the wall if I can help it.”

“How will you help it?”

“I have an accomplice;” and this time he was able to look at Mrs. Dinneford with such a fixed and threatening gaze that her eyes fell.

“You have?” she questioned, in a husky voice.

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“Mrs. Helen Dinneford. And do you think for a moment that to save myself I would hesitate to sacrifice her?”

The lady’s face grew white. She tried to speak, but could not.

“I am talking plainly, as you desired, madam,” continued Freeling. “You led me into this thing. It was no scheme of mine; and if more evil consequences are to come, I shall do my best to save my own head. Let the hurt go to where it rightfully belongs.”

“What do you mean?” Mrs. Dinneford tried to rally herself.

“Just this,” was answered: “if I am dragged into court, I mean to go in as a witness, and not as a criminal. At the first movement toward an indictment, I shall see the district attorney, whom I know very well, and give him such information in the case as will lead to fixing the crime on you alone, while I will come in as the principal witness. This will make your conviction certain.”

“Devil!” exclaimed Mrs. Dinneford, her white face convulsed and her eyes starting from their sockets with rage and fear. “Devil!” she repeated, not able to control her passion.

“Then you know me,” was answered, with cool self-possession, “and what you have to expect.”

Neither spoke for a considerable time. Up to this period they had been alone in the parlor. Guests of the house now came in and took seats near them. They arose and walked the floor for a little while, still in silence, then passed into an adjoining parlor that happened to be empty, and resumed the conference.

“This is a last resort,” remarked Freeling, softening his voice as they sat down–“a card that I do not wish to play, and shall not if I can help it. But it is best that you should know that it is in my hand. If there is any better way of escape, I shall take it.”

“You spoke of going away,” said Mrs. Dinneford.

“Yes. But that involves a great deal.”

“What?”

“The breaking up of my business, and loss of money and opportunities that I can hardly hope ever to regain.”

“Why loss of money?”

“I shall have to wind up hurriedly, and it will be impossible to collect more than a small part of my outstanding claims. I shall have to go away under a cloud, and it will not be prudent to return. Most of these claims will therefore become losses. The amount of capital I shall be able to take will not be sufficient to do more than provide for a small beginning in some distant place and under an assumed name. On the other hand, if I remain and fight the thing through, as I have no doubt I can, I shall keep my business and my place in society here–hurt, it may be, in my good name, but still with the main chance all right. But it will be hard for you. If I pass the ordeal safely, you will not. And the question to consider is whether you can make it to my interest to go away, to drop out of sight, injured in fortune and good name, while you go unscathed. You now have it all in a nutshell. I will not press you to a decision to-day. Your mind is too much disturbed. To-morrow, at noon, I would like to see you again.”

Freeling made a motion to rise, but Mrs. Dinneford did not stir.

“Perhaps,” he said, “you decide at once to let things take their course. Understand me, I am ready for either alternative. The election is with yourself.”

Mrs. Dinneford was too much stunned by all this to be able to come to any conclusion. She seemed in the maze of a terrible dream, full of appalling reality. To wait for twenty-four hours in this state of uncertainty was more than her thoughts could endure. And yet she must have time to think, and to get command of her mental resources.

“Will you be disengaged at five o’clock?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“I will be here at five.”

“Very well.”

Mrs. Dinneford arose with a weary air.

“I shall want to hear from you very explicitly,” she said. “If your demand is anywhere in the range of reason and possibility, I may meet it. If outside of that range, I shall of course reject it. It is possible that you may not hold all the winning cards–in fact, I know that you do not.”

“I will be here at five,” said Freeling.

“Very well. I shall be on time.”

And they turned from each other, passing from the parlor by separate doors.

CHAPTER XII.

_ONE_ morning, about two weeks later, Mr. Freeling did not make his appearance at his place of business as usual. At ten o’clock a clerk went to the hotel where he boarded to learn the cause of his absence. He had not been there since the night before. His trunks and clothing were all in their places, and nothing in the room indicated anything more than an ordinary absence.

Twelve o’clock, and still Mr. Freeling had not come to the store. Two or three notes were to be paid that day, and the managing-clerk began to feel uneasy. The bank and check books were in a private drawer in the fireproof of which Mr. Freeling had the key. So there was no means of ascertaining the balances in bank.

At one o’clock it was thought best to break open the private drawer and see how matters stood. Freeling kept three bank-accounts, and it was found that on the day before he had so nearly checked out all the balances that the aggregate on deposit was not over twenty dollars. In looking back over these bank-accounts, it was seen that within a week he had made deposits of over fifty thousand dollars, and that most of the checks drawn against these deposits were in sums of five thousand dollars each.

At three o’clock he was still absent. His notes went to protest, and on the next day his city creditors took possession of his effects. One fact soon became apparent–he had been paying the rogue’s game on a pretty liberal scale, having borrowed on his checks, from business friends and brokers, not less than sixty or seventy thousand dollars. It was estimated, on a thorough examination of his business, that he had gone off with at least a hundred thousand dollars. To this amount Mrs. Dinneford had contributed from her private fortune the sum of twenty thousand dollars. Not until she had furnished him with that large amount would he consent to leave the city. He magnified her danger, and so overcame her with terrors that she yielded to his exorbitant demand.

On the day a public newspaper announcement of Freeling’s rascality was made, Mrs. Dinneford went to bed sick of a nervous fever, and was for a short period out of her mind.

Neither Mr. Dinneford nor Edith had failed to notice a change in Mrs. Dinneford. She was not able to hide her troubled feelings. Edith was watching her far more closely than she imagined; and now that she was temporarily out of her mind, she did not let a word or look escape her. The first aspect of her temporary aberration was that of fear and deprecation. She was pursued by some one who filled her with terror, and she would lift her hands to keep him off, or hide her head in abject alarm. Then she would beg him to keep away. Once she said,

“It’s no use; I can’t do anything more. You’re a vampire!”

“Who is a vampire?” asked Edith, hoping that her mother would repeat some name.

But the question seemed to put her on her guard. The expression of fear went out of her face, and she looked at her daughter curiously.

Edith did not repeat the question. In a little while the mother’s wandering thoughts began to find words again, and she went on talking in broken sentences out of which little could be gleaned. At length she said, turning to Edith and speaking with the directness of one in her right mind,

“I told you her name was Gray, didn’t I? Gray, not Bray.”

It was only by a quick and strong effort that Edith could steady her voice as she replied:

“Yes; you said it was Gray.”

“Gray, not Bray. You thought it was Bray.”

“But it’s Gray,” said Edith, falling in with her mother’s humor. Then she added, still trying to keep her voice even,

“She was my nurse when baby was born.”

“Yes; she was the nurse, but she didn’t–“

Checking herself, Mrs. Dinneford rose on one arm and looked at Edith in a frightened way, then said, hurriedly,

“Oh, it’s dead, it’s dead! You know that; and the woman’s dead, too.”

Edith sat motionless and silent as a statue, waiting for what more might come. But her mother shut her lips tightly, and turned her head away.

A long time elapsed before she was able to read in her mother’s confused utterances anything to which she could attach a meaning. At last Mrs. Dinneford spoke out again, and with an abruptness that startled her:

“Not another dollar, sir! Remember, you don’t hold _all_ the winning cards!”

Edith held her breath, and sat motionless. Her mother muttered and mumbled incoherently for a while, and then said, sharply,

“I said I would ruin him, and I’ve done it!”

“Ruin who?” asked Edith, in a repressed voice.

This question, instead of eliciting an answer, as Edith had hoped, brought her mother back to semi-consciousness. She rose again in bed, and looked at her daughter in the same frightened way she had done a little while before, then laid herself over on the pillows again. Her lips were tightly shut.

Edith was almost wild with suspense. The clue to that sad and painful mystery which was absorbing her life seemed almost in her grasp. A word from those closely-shut lips, and she would have certainty for uncertainty. But she waited and waited until she grew faint, and still the lips kept silent.

But after a while Mrs. Dinneford grew uneasy, and began talking. She moved her head from side to side, threw her arms about restlessly and appeared greatly disturbed.

“Not dead, Mrs. Bray?” she cried out, at last, in a clear, strong voice.

Edith became fixed as a statue once more.

A few moments, and Mrs. Dinneford added,

“No, no! I won’t have her coming after me. More money! You’re a vampire!”

Then she muttered, and writhed and distorted her face like one in some desperate struggle. Edith shuddered as she stood over her.

After this wild paroxysm Mrs. Dinneford grew more quiet, and seemed to sleep. Edith remained sitting by the bedside, her thoughts intent on the strange sentences that had fallen from her Mother’s lips. What mystery lay behind them? Of what secret were they an obscure revelation? “Not dead!” Who not dead? And again, “It’s dead! You know that; and the woman’s dead, too.” Then it was plain that she had heard aright the name of the person who had called on her mother, and about whom her mother had made a mystery. It was Bray; if not, why the anxiety to make her believe it Gray? And this woman had been her nurse. It was plain, also, that money was being paid for keeping secret. What secret? Then a life had been ruined. “I said I would ruin him, and I’ve done it!” Who? who could her mother mean but the unhappy man she had once called husband, now a criminal in the eyes of the law, and only saved by insanity from a criminal’s cell?

Putting all together, Edith’s mind quickly wrought out a theory, and this soon settled into a conviction–a conviction so close to fact that all the chief elements were true.

During her mother’s temporary aberration, Edith never left her room except for a few minutes at a time. Not a word or sentence escaped her notice. But she waited and listened in vain for anything more. The talking paroxysm was over. A stupor of mind and body followed. Out of this a slow recovery came, but it did not progress to a full convalescence. Mrs. Dinneford went forth from her sick-chamber weak and nervous, starting at sudden noises, and betraying a perpetual uneasiness and suspense. Edith was continually on the alert, watching every look and word and act with untiring scrutiny. Mrs. Dinneford soon became aware of this. Guilt made her wary, and danger inspired prudence. Edith’s whole manner had changed. Why? was her natural query. Had she been wandering in her mind? Had she given any clue to the dark secrets she was hiding? Keen observation became mutual. Mother and daughter watched each other with a suspicion that never slept.

It was over a month from the time Freeling disappeared before Mrs. Dinneford was strong enough to go out, except in her carriage. In every case where she had ridden out, Edith had gone with her.

“If you don’t care about riding, it’s no matter,” the mother would say, when she saw Edith getting ready. “I can go alone. I feel quite well and strong.”

But Edith always had some reason for going against which her mother could urge no objections. So she kept her as closely under observation as possible. One day, on returning from a ride, as the carriage passed into the block where they lived, she saw a woman standing on the step in front of their residence. She had pulled the bell, and was waiting for a servant to answer it.

“There is some one at our door,” said Edith.

Mrs. Dinneford leaned across her daughter, and then drew back quickly, saying,

“It’s Mrs. Barker. Tell Henry to drive past. I don’t want to see visitors, and particularly not Mrs. Barker.”

She spoke hurriedly, and with ill-concealed agitation. Edith kept her eyes on the woman, and saw her go in, but did not tell the driver to keep on past the house. It was not Mrs. Barker. She knew that very well. In the next moment their carriage drew up at the door.

“Go on, Henry!” cried Mrs. Dinneford, leaning past her daughter, and speaking through the window that was open on that side. “Drive down to Loring’s.”

“Not till I get out, Henry,” said Edith, pushing open the door and stepping to the pavement. Then with a quick movement she shut the door and ran across the pavement, calling back to the driver as she did so,

“Take mother to Loring’s.”

“Stop, Henry!” cried Mrs. Dinneford, and with an alertness that was surprising sprung from the carriage, and was on the steps of their house before Edith’s violent ring had brought a servant to the door. They passed in, Edith holding her place just in advance.

“I will see Mrs. Barker,” said Mrs. Dinneford, trying to keep out of her voice the fear and agitation from which she was suffering. “You can go up to your room.”

“It isn’t Mrs. Barker. You are mistaken.” There was as much of betrayal in the voice of Edith as in that of her mother. Each was trying to hide herself from the other, but the veil in both cases was far too thin for deception.

Mother and daughter entered the parlor together. As they did so a woman of small stature, and wearing a rusty black dress, arose from a seat near the window. The moment she saw Edith she drew a heavy dark veil over her face with a quickness of movement that had in it as much of discomfiture as surprise.

Mrs. Dinneford was equal to the occasion. The imminent peril in which she stood calmed the wild tumult within, as the strong wind calms this turbulent ocean, and gave her thoughts clearness and her mind decision. Edith saw before the veil fell a startled face, and recognized the sallow countenance and black, evil eyes, the woman who had once before called to see her mother.

“Didn’t I tell you not to come here, Mrs. Gray?” cried out Mrs. Dinneford, with an anger that was more real than feigned, advancing quickly upon the woman as she spoke. “Go!” and she pointed to the door, “and don’t you dare to come here again. I told you when you were here last time that I wouldn’t be bothered with you any longer. I’ve done all I ever intend doing. So take yourself away.”

And she pointed again to the door. Mrs. Bray–for it was that personage–comprehended the situation fully. She was as good an actor as Mrs. Dinneford, and quite as equal to the occasion. Lifting her hand in a weak, deprecating way, and then shrinking like one borne down by the shock of a great disappointment, she moved back from the excited woman and made her way to the hall, Mrs. Dinneford following and assailing her in passionate language.

Edith was thrown completely off her guard by this unexpected scene. She did not stir from the spot where she stood on entering the parlor until the visitor was at the street door, whither her mother had followed the retreating figure. She did not hear the woman say in the tone of one who spoke more in command than entreaty,

“To-morrow at one o’clock, or take the consequences.”

“It will be impossible to-morrow,” Mrs. Dinneford whispered back, hurriedly; “I have been very ill, and have only just begun to ride out. It may be a week, but I’ll surely come. I’m watched. Go now! go! go!”

And she pushed Mrs. Bray out into the vestibule and shut the door after her. Mrs. Dinneford did not return to the parlor, but went hastily up to her own room, locking herself in.

She did not come out until dinner-time, when she made an effort to seem composed, but Edith saw her hand tremble every time it was lifted. She drank three glasses of wine during the meal. After dinner she went to her own apartment immediately, and did not come down again that day.

On the next morning Mrs. Dinneford tried to appear cheerful and indifferent. But her almost colorless face, pinched about the lips and nostrils, and the troubled expression that would not go out of her eyes, betrayed to Edith the intense anxiety and dread that lay beneath the surface.

Days went by, but Edith had no more signs. Now that her mother was steadily getting back both bodily strength and mental self-poise, the veil behind which she was hiding herself, and which had been broken into rifts here and there during her sickness, grew thicker and thicker. Mrs. Dinneford had too much at stake not to play her cards with exceeding care. She knew that Edith was watching her with an intentness that let nothing escape. Her first care, as soon as she grew strong enough to have the mastery over herself, was so to control voice, manner and expression of countenance as not to appear aware of this surveillance. Her next was to re-establish the old distance between herself and daughter, which her illness had temporarily bridged over, and her next was to provide against any more visits from Mrs. Bray.

CHAPTER XIII.

_AS_ for Edith, all doubts and questionings as to her baby’s fate were merged into a settled conviction that it was alive, and that her mother knew where it was to be found. From her mother’s pity and humanity she had nothing to hope for the child. It had been cruelly cast adrift, pushed out to die; by what means was cared not, so that it died and left no trace.

The face of Mrs. Bray had, in the single glance Edith obtained of it, become photographed in her mind. If she had been an artist, she could have drawn it from memory so accurately that no one who knew the woman could have failed to recognize her likeness. Always when in the street her eyes searched for this face; she never passed a woman of small stature and poor dark clothing without turning to look at her. Every day she went out, walking the streets sometimes for hours looking for this face, but not finding it. Every day she passed certain corners and localities where she had seen women begging, and whenever she found one with a baby in her arms would stop to look at the poor starved thing, and question her about it.

Gradually all her thoughts became absorbed in the condition of poor, neglected and suffering children. Her attendance at the St. John’s mission sewing-school, which was located in the neighborhood of one of the worst places in the city, brought her in contact with little children in such a wretched state of ignorance, destitution and vice that her heart was moved to deepest pity, intensified by the thought that ever and anon flashed across her mind: “And my baby may become like one of these!”

Sometimes this thought would drive her almost to madness. Often she would become so wild in her suspense as to be on the verge of openly accusing her mother with having knowledge of her baby’s existence and demanding of her its restoration. But she was held back by the fear that such an accusation would only shut the door of hope for ever. She had come to believe her mother capable of almost any wickedness. Pressed to the wall she would never be if there was any way of escape, and to prevent such at thing there was nothing so desperate that she would not do it; and so Edith hesitated and feared to take the doubtful issue.

Week after week and month after month now went on without a single, occurrence that gave to Edith any new light. Mrs. Dinneford wrought with her accomplice so effectually that she kept her wholly out of the way. Often, in going and returning from the mission-school, Edith would linger about the neighborhood where she had once met her mother, hoping to see her come out of some one of the houses there, for she had got it into her mind that the woman called Mrs. Gray lived somewhere in this locality.

One day, in questioning a child who had come to the sewing-school as to her home and how she lived, the little girl said something about a baby that her mother said she knew must have been stolen.

“How old is the baby?” asked Edith, hardly able to keep the tremor out of her voice.

“It’s a little thing,” answered the child. “I don’t know how old it is; maybe it’s six months old, or maybe it’s a year. It can sit upon the floor.”

“Why does your mother think it has been stolen?”

“Because two bad girls have got it, and they pay a woman to take care of it. It doesn’t belong to them, she knows. Mother says it would be a good thing if it died.”

“Why does she say that?”

“Oh she always talks that way about babies–says she’s glad when they die.”

“Is it a boy or a girl?”

“It’s a boy baby,” answered the child.

“Does the woman take good care of it?”

“Oh dear, no! She lets it sit on the floor ‘most all the time, and it cries so that I often go up and nurse it. The woman lives in the room over ours.”

“Where do you live?”

“In Grubb’s court.”

“Will you show me the way there after school is over?”

The child looked up into Edith’s face with an expression of surprise and doubt. Edith repeated her question.

“I guess you’d better not go,” was answered, in a voice that meant all the words expressed.

“Why not?”

“It isn’t a good place.”

“But you live there?”

“Yes, but nobody’s going to trouble me.”

“Nor me,” said Edith.

“Oh, but you don’t know what kind of a place it is, nor what dreadful people live there.”

“I could get a policeman to go with me, couldn’t I?”

“Yes, maybe you could, or Mr. Paulding, the missionary. He goes about everywhere.”

“Where can I find Mr. Paulding?”

“At the mission in Briar street.”

“You’ll show me the way there after school?”

“Oh yes; it isn’t a nice place for you to go, but I guess nobody’ll trouble you.”

After the school closed, Edith, guided by the child, made her way to the Briar st. mission-house. As she entered the narrow street in which it was situated, the aspect of things was so strange and shocking to her eyes that she felt a chill creep to her heart. She had never imagined anything so forlorn and squalid, so wretched and comfortless. Miserable little hovels, many of them no better than pig-styes, and hardly cleaner within, were crowded together in all stages of dilapidation. Windows with scarcely a pane of glass, the chilly air kept out by old hats, bits of carpet or wads of newspaper, could be seen on all sides, with here and there, showing some remains of an orderly habit, a broken pane closed with a smooth piece of paper pasted to the sash. Instinctively she paused, oppressed by a sense of fear.

“It’s only halfway down,” said the child. “We’ll ‘go quick. I guess nobody’ll speak to you. They’re afraid of Mr. Paulding about here. He’s down on ’em if they meddle with anybody that’s coming to the mission.”

Edith, thus urged, moved on. She had gone but a few steps when two men came in sight, advancing toward her. They were of the class to be seen at all times in that region–debased to the lowest degree, drunken, ragged, bloated, evil-eyed, capable of any wicked thing. They were singing when they came in sight, but checked their drunken mirth as soon as they saw Edith, whose heart sunk again. She stopped, trembling.

“They’re only drunk,” said the child. “I don’t believe they’ll hurt you.”

Edith rallied herself and walked on, the men coming closer and closer. She saw them look at each other with leering eyes, and then at her in a way that made her shiver. When only a few paces distant, they paused, and with the evident intention of barring her farther progress.

“Good-afternoon, miss,” said one of them, with a low bow. “Can we do anything for you?”

The pale, frightened face of Edith was noticed by the other, and it touched some remnant of manhood not yet wholly extinguished.

“Let her alone, you miserable cuss!” he cried, and giving his drunken companion a shove, sent him staggering across the street. This made the way clear, and Edith sprang forward, but she had gone only a few feet when she came face to face with another obstruction even more frightful, if possible, than the first. A woman with a red, swollen visage, black eye, soiled, tattered, drunk, with arms wildly extended, came rushing up to her. The child gave a scream. The wretched creature caught at a shawl worn by Edith, and was dragging it from her shoulders, when the door of one of the houses flew open, and a woman came out hastily. Grasping the assailant, she hurled her across the street with the strength of a giant.

“We’re going to the mission,” said the child.

“It’s just down there. Go ‘long. I’ll stand here and see that no one meddles with you again.”

Edith faltered her thanks, and went on.

“That’s the queen,” said her companion.

“The queen!” Edith’s hasty tones betrayed her surprise.

“Yes; it’s Norah. They’re all afraid of her. I’m glad she saw us. She’s as strong as a man.”

In a few minutes they reached the mission, but in those few minutes Edith saw more to sadden the heart, more to make it ache for humanity, than could be described in pages.

The missionary was at home. Edith told him the purpose of her call and the locality she desired to visit.

“I wanted to go alone,” she remarked, “but this little girl, who is in my class at the sewing-school, said it wouldn’t be safe, and that you would go with me.”

“I should be sorry to have you go alone into Grubb’s court,” said the missionary, kindly, and with concern in his voice, “for a worse place can hardly be found in the city–I was going to say in the world. You will be safe with me, however. But why do you wish to visit Grubb’s court? Perhaps I can do all that is needed.”

“This little girl who lives in there, has been telling me about a poor neglected baby that her mother says has no doubt been stolen, and–and–” Edith voice faltered, but she quickly gained steadiness under a strong effort of will: “I thought perhaps I might be able to do something for it–to get it into one of the homes, maybe. It is dreadful, sir, to think of little babies being neglected.”

Mr. Paulding questioned the child who had brought Edith to the mission-house, and learned from her that the baby was merely boarded by the woman who had it in charge, and that she sometimes took it out and sat on the street, begging. The child repeated what she had said to Edith–that the baby was the property, so to speak, of two abandoned women, who paid its board.

“I think,” said the missionary, after some reflection, “that if getting the child out of their hands is your purpose, you had better not go there at present. Your visit would arouse suspicion; and if the two women have anything to gain by keeping the child in their possession, it will be at once taken to a new place. I am moving about in these localities all the while, and can look in upon the baby without anything being thought of it.”

This seemed so reasonable that Edith, who could not get over the nervous tremors occasioned by what she had already seen and encountered, readily consented to leave the matter for the present in Mr. Paulding’s hands.

“If you will come here to-morrow,” said the missionary, “I will tell you all I can about the baby.”

Out of a region where disease, want and crime shrunk from common observation, and sin and death held high carnival, Edith hurried with trembling feet, and heart beating so heavily that she could hear it throb, the considerate missionary going with her until she had crossed the boundary of this morally infected district.

Mr. Dinneford met Edith at the door on her arrival home.

“My child,” he exclaimed as he looked into her face, back to which the color had not returned since her fright in Briar street, “are you sick?”

“I don’t feel very well;” and she tried to pass him hastily in the hall as they entered the house together. But he laid his hand on her arm and held her back gently, then drew her into the parlor. She sat down, trembling, weak and faint. Mr. Dinneford waited for some moments, looking at her with a tender concern, before speaking.

“Where have you been, my dear?” he asked, at length.

After a little hesitation, Edith told her father about her visit to Briar street and the shock she had received.

“You were wrong,” he answered, gravely. “It is most fortunate for you that you took the child’s advice and called at the mission. If you had gone to Grubb’s court alone, you might not have come out alive.”

“Oh no, father! It can’t be so bad as that.”

“It is just as bad as that,” he replied, with a troubled face and manner. “Grubb’s court is one of the traps into which unwary victims are drawn that they may be plundered. It is as much out of common observation almost as the lair of a wild beast in some deep wilderness. I have heard it described by those who have been there under protection of the police, and shudder to think of the narrow escape you have made. I don’t want you to go into that vile district again. It is no place for such as you.”

“There’s a poor little baby there,” said Edith, her voice trembling and tears filling her eyes. Then, after a brief struggle with her feelings, she threw herself upon her father, sobbing out, “And oh, father, it may be my baby!”

“My poor child,” said Mr. Dinneford, not able to keep his voice firm–“my poor, poor child! It is all a wild dream, the suggestion of evil spirits who delight in torment.”

“What became of my baby, father? Can you tell me?”

“It died, Edith dear. We know that,” returned her father, trying to speak very confidently. But the doubt in his own mind betrayed itself.

“Do you know it?” she asked, rising and confronting her father.

“I didn’t actually see it die. But–but–“

“You know no more about it than I do,” said Edith; “if you did, you might set my heart at rest with a word. But you cannot. And so I am left to my wild fears, that grow stronger every day. Oh, father, help me, if you can. I must have certainty, or I shall lose my reason.”

“If you don’t give up this wild fancy, you surely will,” answered Mr. Dinneford, in a distressed voice.

“If I were to shut myself up and do nothing,” said Edith, with greater calmness, “I would be in a madhouse before a week went by. My safety lies in getting down to the truth of this wild fancy, as you call it. It has taken such possession of me that nothing but certainty can give me rest. Will you help me?”

“How can I help you? I have no clue to this sad mystery.”

“Mystery! Then you are as much in the dark as I am–know no more of what became of my baby than I do! Oh, father, how could you let such a thing be done, and ask no questions–such a cruel and terrible thing–and I lying helpless and dumb? Oh, father, my innocent baby cast out like a dog to perish–nay, worse, like a lamb among wolves to be torn by their cruel teeth–and no one to put forth a hand to save! If I only knew that he was dead! If I could find his little grave and comfort my heart over it!”

Weak, naturally good men, like Mr. Dinneford, often permit great wrongs to be done in shrinking from conflict and evading the sterner duties of life. They are often the faithless guardians of immortal trusts.

There was a tone of accusation and rebuke in Edith’s voice that smote painfully on her father’s heart. He answered feebly:

“What could I do? How should I know that anything wrong was being done? You were very ill, and the baby was sent away to be nursed, and then I was told that it was dead.”

“Oh, father! Sent away without your seeing it! My baby! Your little grandson! Oh, father!”

“But you know, dear, in what a temper of mind your mother was–how impossible it is for me to do anything with her when she once sets herself to do a thing.”

“Even if it be murder!” said Edith, in a hoarse whisper.

“Hush, hush, my child! You must not speak so,” returned the agitated father.

A silence fell between them. A wall of separation began to grow up. Edith arose, and was moving from the room.

“My daughter!” There was a sob in the father’s voice.

Edith stopped.

“My daughter, we must not part yet. Come back; sit down with me, and let us talk more calmly. What is past cannot be changed. It is with the now of this unhappy business that we have to do.”

Edith came back and sat down again, her father taking a seat beside her.

“That is just it,” she answered, with a steadiness of tone and manner that showed how great was the self-control she was able to exert. “It is with the now of this unhappy affair that we have to do. If I spoke strongly of the past, it was that a higher and intenser life might be given to present duty.”

“Let there be no distance between us. Let no wall of separation grow up,” said Mr. Dinneford, tenderly. “I cannot bear to think of this. Confide in me, consult with me. I will help you in all possible ways to solve this mystery. But do not again venture alone into that dreadful place. I will go with you if you think any good will come