“Never!” cried Louise. “You may kill me if you will, but I’ll not be a street beggar. Why, the very first person we meet, I’ll ask to save me and inform the police!”
“I’ll fix you, my fine lady!” screamed La Frochard, throwing her from her. “Come, Jacques,” she said to her ruffian son, “we’ll trying a means of making her mind!” Together they seized and started dragging her to the steps of a sub-cellar. Tremblingly Pierre urged them to desist, but they cast him aside.
Louise was thrust into the dungeon and the trap closed. Black bread and a cup of water was to be her prison fare. Still moaning “Henriette! Henriette!” she groped along the slimy walls and tried the footing of the mingled mud and straw.
Horrors! What were the creeping things she sensed, though sightless? Two raced under her petticoat, one nibbled at her shoe. She jumped high in air and screamed outright.
Rats! They were upon her again, almost swarming. She fled to a corner, leaped on a pile of rags, literally fought them off with both hands! Her screams echoed through the upper den, to the anguish of Pierre and the mocking laughter of La Frochard and Jacques....
Pitiably broken, Louise was pulled out of the vile sink a few hours later, pledging 37 wildly to obey the least of the hag’s commands.
La Frochard knew that her conquest was complete.
Henceforth the girl would be but as a clay figure in her hands––a decoy to lure the golden charity of the rich and sympathetic.
As for Jacques, that ruffian was now eyeing the blind lass closely, and muttering: