Fay ceased pleading. He watched the girl. There was a mark behind her left ear which could only have come from a blow. She fingered a black velvet bandeau. She clenched her hands. She started to rise. Suddenly she dropped to the chair.
“I can’t go—even if Dad wants me to. I can’t leave the Dropper. I am afraid he’ll kill me if I go away with you.”
“He’s got you cowed!”
“I can’t help it.”
“And you slave for him—work for him—touch his hand when he calls for you?”
“I do. You don’t understand my position.”
“It’s an outrage. Poor Charley O’Mara’s daughter held in the clutches of that beast!”
“He is going to kill me some day. I saw him kill a man once. He hit him with his fist. They carried the man to the river.”
“Suppose I come here to-morrow night with a gat, stick up the joint, make the Dropper whine like a cur. What would you do?”
“He wouldn’t whine. He’d kill you—the way he killed that man who didn’t pay him for a card of hop.”