"No; to another house, where I had been placed by my father. He procured a person to represent a southern gentleman, and personate my father. That is, I was represented as the only child of a rich southerner; and in that capacity my picture was painted, and—and—I afterward visited the home of the artist, in a miserable garret, and saw his daughter, who assisted her father, by the humblest kind of work. She was a seamstress—she worked for 'sixteen cents per day.'"
"And she is dead," said Nameless, in a low voice.
"I lost sight of Mary and her father about a year ago, and have since received intelligence of their death."
"How did you receive this intelligence?"
"It was in all the papers. Beverly Barron wrote quite a touching poem upon the Death of the Artist and his Daughter. Beverly, you are aware, was eloquent upon such occasions: the death of a friend was always a godsend to him."
Nameless did not reply, but seemed for a moment to surrender himself to the influence of unalloyed despair.
"Look you, Frank," he said, after a long pause, "I have seventy-one thousand dollars—"
"Seventy-one thousand dollars!" she ejaculated.
"Yes, and it is 'Frank and Nameless and Ninety-One against the World.' To-morrow is the 24th of December; the day after will be THE DAY. We must lay our plans; we must track Martin Fulmer to his haunt; we must foil your father, and, in a word, show the world that its cunning can be baffled and its crime brought to justice, by the combination of three persons—a Fallen Woman, a Convict and a Murderer! O, does it not make your heart bound to think of the good work we can do with seventy-one thousand dollars!"
She gave him her hand, quietly, but her dark eye answered the excitement which flashed from every line of his countenance.