“Father!” she cried. “Shall I run and call help? He is robbing you!”
I certainly could not say a word just then, and the judge sat down and gasped and gaped at her.
She came into the room. She was white and pale and thin, but she was no shrinking and anguished maiden. She was showing the female’s ferocity in guarding her own.
“I heard you! Confessing that you’re a robber out of your own mouth! Where have you been with my poor father? What devilish spell have you put on him—you and the rest of your gang?”
She turned away from me.
“Father, don’t you realize that you have come home when it is too late? Oh, God in heaven, why did you not break away from those rogues and come home—or write so that we could ransom you? I know. They have kept you a prisoner!”
“Too late?” he looked at his office safe. I knew what he was afraid of. “Too late?”
She began to sob. “It has killed mother!”
He got up and staggered to her and took her in his arms.
“Your mother dead?”