“Who?”
“You know the man. His name is Jones.”
“Yes, I know the man,” said Merry grimly. “His name will be Mud if I ever get another good chance at him. I’ve often wondered if—if you——”
“Had married him? No! no! no! I have fought against it ever since. Father tried time after time to compel me to, but I could get the best of him, for, no matter what else he was, he did care for me. He really thought Huck Jones would make me a good husband, and that was why he wished me to have the man. Father had lived a life that made him see everything in a wrong light.
“He sneered at honest men, for he said they were like cowering curs that did not dare fling themselves at the throat of their brutal master, the law. Therefore he admired Jones because he would not be restrained by the law. If my father had saved anything, that man Jones was the only one who knew where it was hidden. After father’s death, finding myself alone in the world and poor, I was in a desperate strait. Then Jones forced his attentions upon me. He was not the only one. But I could not marry any of them, and—I am here!”
What had brought her to New York? What could a poor girl like her do in that wicked, heartless city, where often a pretty face is a curse and the purest heart falters, faints, and falls before the gnawing wolf of hunger.
CHAPTER X
AN UNCONVENTIONAL GIRL.
Frank remembered that the people of Vanceborough had told him that Hilda Dugan was rather wild and wayward. He also remembered that when he first met her, there was something about her that had not quite pleased him, even while it attracted him. Even then he had decided that there was something in the make-up of this girl against which she would have to keep constant guard, else it would lead her into folly.
He could see that she had suffered, and something told him that even now she was in trouble which preyed upon her mind. Then he thought of the desperate fellow who had followed her and attacked him.