"No, indeed!" cried the little girl, looking greatly shocked. "Oh, I am so sorry! He is your brother, I suppose?"
"Oh, no! His name is Peter Perry, and he's staying here with his aunt. I'm a friend of his—Tom Burford. I say, how is it you are hungry? Haven't you had any breakfast?"
"No. The Sordellos said I shouldn't have it till I had promised— promised—oh, I mustn't tell you that! If they found out I'd been telling about them they'd half kill me—yes, they would!"
"It's dreadful you should be so afraid of them. Some one ought to interfere to prevent their ill-treating you. I'll speak to my father, and—"
"Oh, no, no!" interrupted the child, evidently alarmed at the idea, "please don't! If any one interfered it would make things worse for me, indeed it would!"
At that point in the conversation Peter returned, carrying a paper bag containing some slices of bread-and-butter and a couple of pieces of cake. "Here, Grace," he said, kindly, thrusting the bag between the bars of the gate.
In another minute Grace was eating hungrily. She had finished the bread-and-butter and one of the pieces of cake, the boys having asked her all sorts of curious questions meanwhile, when, glancing back along the road, she started violently, and let the bag containing the other piece of cake fall to the ground.
"What's the matter?" asked Tom. As he spoke he caught sight of a man approaching—a tall, slim, very dark man, with coal-black eyes, a fierce black moustache, and a smiling, though at the same time sinister, expression of countenance.
"It's Max Sordello!" gasped Grace, in a tone of mingled fear and dismay; "oh, what shall I do?"
She had turned white to the lips, and was all of a tremor. Tom opened the gate, and, followed by Peter, stepped to her side. Max Sordello glanced sharply, but smilingly, from Grace to the boys as he came up to them. "Grace, child, what are you doing here?" he inquired, in a voice which was particularly soft in tone. "You should not have wandered away without your breakfast," he proceeded, glancing at the paper bag on the ground; "I hope you have not been begging?"