Again he smiled, and this time he pressed her frail little hand warmly, and helped her gently to her feet.
“Oh, Mr. Crane!” she breathed. “With that lovely stepdaughter—and his poor wife—how my heart goes out to them!”
“Only two more of his victims,” was Enoch’s grim reply. “That dear child, and worse, that poor mother who is married to him, believing in him—um!—a difficult question.”
Again he laid his hand tenderly on her frail shoulder as he opened his door.
“You are not to worry,” he repeated, as she went down the stairs.
Miss Ann smiled back at him bravely. Enoch waited until he saw her reach her door, and for some moments stood listening. Having made up his mind that Miss Jane was still out, he returned to his room, wrote a brief note, and rang for Moses.
There were but five lines in the missive, but they said much to Ebner Ford. They informed him that Enoch might be exceedingly interested in his laundry stock, and that if it was still at par, he would be pleased to see him without fail at his office in South Street the following morning at ten o’clock.
Ebner Ford had passed a bad quarter of an hour with himself after the lawyer’s departure. Finally he had sat himself down at that roll-top desk of his with its worthless contents, and began drumming with his long fingers, trying to sharpen his wits as to the best way out of the matter, and reluctantly coming to the conclusion that the only means of silencing old Mrs. Miggs and her attorney was to settle the eighteen hundred dollars she claimed, and to do this he would be obliged to pay her out of his lucky nest-egg—Miss Ann’s money. He was turning over in his mind this unfortunate turn in his affairs, when Moses rapped and handed him Enoch’s note.
“Well, say!” he exclaimed, brightening into a broad grin as he read it. “Interested at last, is he? That saves my bacon. He’ll pay for Mrs. Miggs.”