“Yes!” exclaimed Harry, “that gentleman who came here with me. He disappeared a week since. Tell me where they have gone, and you shall be rewarded.”
Still her gaze was wild and fixed, and no words fell from her lips, till in his impatience, and feeling that she was playing with him. Harry seized one of the bony wrists, when, the touch galvanising her into action, she snatched her hand away, and, as if fleeing from the memory of some past horror, tottered into the back-room; but not to escape, for she was closely followed by Harry.
Volume Two—Chapter Eighteen.
Janet’s Kindness.
Harry Clayton stopped short upon entering D. Wragg’s parlour, as if he had been smitten, for he found himself face to face with Patty, who stood before him pale and trembling, but who met his gaze with a calm look that disarmed him.
For a moment he could not speak, but stood as if petrified.
“You here!” he exclaimed. “Thank God!” and then he was silent again, struggling with the emotion that troubled him—a mingling of pleasure and doubt. “Miss Pellet—Patty!” he said at last, regardless of the bent and desolate figure crouching at her side, and he caught the young girl’s hand in his—“Mr Redgrave? he has been here a good deal lately to see you.”
“I believe,” said Patty, coldly, as she withdrew her hand, “Mr Redgrave has been sometimes, sir, to the shop.”