Frightened and trembling the girl came forward. She looked far older than her years. Her bold, coarse beauty had developed amazingly during the past few months, and the expression on her face now roused all the dormant manhood in Morley's nature. Ignoring the woman by the stairway, he gripped Molly by the shoulders, and holding her so that the lurid light of the flaming logs fell upon her, he drove his questions into the girl's consciousness and brought alarmed truth forth before a lie could master it.
"Whar yo' been, Molly?"
"Up to—to Teale's."
"What—doing?"
"Dancing for 'em."
Martin's eyes flashed. It was quite plain to him now—the hideous, drunken orgy, and this little girl fanning ugly passions into fire by her youth and beauty!
"You——" Morley rarely swore, but the eloquent pause was more thrilling than the word he might have spoken. While he clutched Molly, his infuriated eyes held Mary like something tangible, and drew her forth from her shadows.
"She's—mine!" the woman panted. For the first time in her life she was awed by Morley; "she's mine and—the devil's. That was the bargain and no questions asked. The devil pays good wages, Mart. We'll—we'll share with you!"
The woman was actually whining and seeking to propitiate the man.
"I've been true to you, Mart. Sure as God hears me, and 'taint cause I'm old and unsought either. I'll look after her, Mart—but—we-all have got to live!"