But even Merry had not seen all the sides of Dugan’s nature, for the man, apparently a perfect ruffian, could be as gentle and tender as a baby toward one he loved, and he had loved both his wife and his daughter. For long years he had kept the truth from his wife, leading her to believe him an honest trader, but one day, when an officer came to arrest Dugan, the truth came out. The officer escaped with his life because Mrs. Dugan begged her husband not to stain his hands with blood; but from that time she shrank from him in terror, and within a year she died. The shock of her horrible discovery that she was the wife of a criminal killed her; at least, the men of the woods said so.
Then, having buried his wife, Dugan disappeared with his baby daughter. Years after he returned, and Hilda grew to budding girlhood near Vanceborough, where she once attended school. Later, when the officers became too troublesome and old Enos retired to the island far up the lake, where his cabin was built so that one-half of it stood in Maine and the other half in New Brunswick, the girl was sent away to school.
Hilda’s return created a sensation, for she wore stylish clothes and she was the prettiest girl ever seen in that region. The young men talked of her, but the fear of old Enos kept them at a distance.
As she sat beside Frank in the hansom cab her eyes were downcast and she showed signs of painful embarrassment that was entirely foreign to her usual self-possession.
“We have escaped before the reporters could get hold of us, Miss Dugan,” smiled Frank, “so we may keep our names out of the papers. That was one object of my haste. Now, if you will tell me where you wish to go, I’ll give further instructions to the driver.”
She hesitated.
“Never mind,” she said, still showing embarrassment. “It will be better, perhaps, if you do not know where I am living.”
Her words gave him a painful shock. Why should she wish to conceal from him where she was living? The question brought all sorts of frightful possibilities to his mind, but he tried to thrust them away. True, it seemed most remarkable that she should be here in New York, so far from her home, and the words of the stranger who had twice attacked him began to sound again in his ears. He had been accused of doing her a wrong of some sort, and did that mean——
“I’m afraid you do not understand,” she went on, beholding the look of bewilderment on his face. “I hope you will not think it very strange, but there is a reason why I do not wish you to know where I am stopping.”
“Very well,” he said. “That is your privilege, Miss Dugan, but I fear you have no confidence in me.”