“Well, he is no blood relation, and I am not being put through the third degree, am I?”
The lawyer went out with the firm conviction that this young man, with his handsome eyes, knew more about this plot of the diamond theft than he cared to admit.
George Benson threw himself out of the room with an impatient gesture.
“I’ll be glad when the old man is dead,” muttered he as he swung off up the avenue, “for he has such a set of inquisitors about him that they drive me out of my senses.”
When poor Annie staggered out of the pawnshop with her pretty bauble in her fingers she ran into another woman hurrying along.
“Why, you poor darling,” said the warm-hearted newcomer; “you ain’t about this kind of a day, and no warm clothes on? Now, be a good girl and come back home with me. Where have you bin?”
“I’ve been trying to pawn this trinket, but he told me that it wasn’t worth over two dollars. And I know better, for my father gave it to me. Oh, Biddy Roan, if the time ever comes that I can repay you and Mrs. Higgins for your kindness to me, then will I come back and make you comfortable. But now I am going away.”
She turned and made her way toward the other street swiftly, and would not listen to the strong Irish voice that commanded her to return. She walked hastily along until she came to Broadway and took this thoroughfare down and seemed bent upon making a certain point before the turning of the night, but fate seemed to have overtaken this poor woman, and with her heart beating and her lips praying for her father’s forgiveness she swept on, dragging the whining child through the now shadowy streets.
“Oh, mother, I am so tired,” cried the child.