“Ay, that she is; bond servant to the patroon just like your sister.” He clapped his hand quickly over his mouth. “Oh, I did not mean to let it out so soon.”
I gripped him by the arm. “What do you mean?”
“I said that you did not know half of what you have to hate him for,” replied Pierre fiercely. “Your sister Ruth was bound out in service to Kilian Van Volkenberg.”
I was now to learn the stuff that was in Pierre. His jolly manner was but a garment. He cast it aside, and, as we walked along, he spoke to me with a fierce zeal that I had not suspected in him.
“There are but half a dozen persons in New York who know what happened to your sister. I dared not speak openly to-day when Bromm was crying the proclamation, but I knew that my time had come. He set his dogs on me one night; but he made a mistake. He called me a giggling monkey. I’ll monkey him. Do you——”
“For God’s sake, Pierre,” I interrupted. “Tell me what you know of my sister.”
His vague hint that I did not know half of what I had to hate the patroon for filled me with dread. The earnestness of my voice affected him. He dropped the side threads of his own affairs and fell into a direct relation of my sister’s fate. She had arrived safely with Captain Donaldson and had lived in the city for a short time. Then her money gave out and she took service with Van Volkenberg, laying the condition, however, of redeeming herself at any time if I should return.
“I saw her more than once,” said Pierre. “She was a sweet girl. Annetje boxed my ears once for looking at her. She said that it was rude. God knows I did not mean it, but she had a winsome face. Every one said that, Annetje like the rest. Her lot was none too easy at the manor. They say that Mistress Miriam took great abuse for standing between her and the patroon.”
“Was she abused by him?” I asked.
“Ay, that she was.”