From her place in the shadows Moll Hawk watched the other woman stoop over and gaze intently at the face of the slain man. She was a tall, well-developed girl of twenty or thereabouts. Her long, straight hair, the colour of the raven's wing, swung loose about her shoulders, an occasional strand trailing across her face, giving her a singularly witchlike appearance. Her body from the waist up was stripped almost bare; there were several long streaks of blood across her breast, where the fingers of a gory hand had slid in relaxing their grip on her shoulder. With one hand she clutched what was left of a tattered garment, vainly seeking to hide her naked breasts. The stout, coarse dress had been almost torn from her body.
Mrs. Gwyn left the hut but soon returned. After a few earnest words with the sheriff, she came slowly over to the girl. Moll shrank back against the wall, a strange glitter leaping into her sullen, lifeless eyes.
"I don't want nobody prayin' over me," she said huskily. "I jest want to be let alone."
"I am not going to pray over you, my girl. I want you to come out in the back yard with me, where I can wash the blood off of you and put something around you."
"What's the use'n that? They're goin' to take me to jail, ain't they?"
"Have you another frock to put on, Moll?"
The girl looked down at her torn, disordered dress, a sneering smile on her lips.
"This is all I got,—an' now look at it. I ain't had a new dress in God knows how long. Pap ain't much on dressin' me up. Mr. Lapelle he promised me a new dress but—say, who air you?"
"I am Mrs. Gwyn, Moll."
"I might ha' knowed it. You're her ma, huh? Well, I guess you'd better go on away an' let me alone. I ain't axin' no favours off'n—" "I am not trying to do you a favour. I am only trying to make you a little more presentable. You are going up to town, Moll."