“Well, she is a fairy!” admitted Merriwell. “If you win that, you’ll be a lucky lad, Rattles.”
“Ha! ha! ha!” harshly laughed the man, without a trace of mirth in face or voice. “That is all they think of, the fools! That is what brings them here! They know you are rich, my dear—they know it! And they seek to win you! But you are dead to the world—dead and buried!”
“Mr. Morris,” said Frank, speaking quietly, “we have a message for the young lady.”
“Bah!” cried the man.
“It is from her brother,” said Frank.
“Bah!” repeated the hermit.
But the girl started forward, crying:
“My brother—what do you know of him?”
The man put out his hand and held her back.
“It is a trick,” he declared—“a shallow trick! They think to fool you that way. Don’t listen to them, child! Let me talk to them.”