"George! George! George!"
"Away! away!"
"No, no! Now that I have found you, I will not let you go. You may kill me, cut off my hands, and still the fingers will cling to you. Oh, God! I thank thee, that, after so many years, thou hast answered my prayers!"
"Woman, release me!"
"George! George!"
Cora was lost in a maze of bewilderment. She was conscious of the strange woman in black clutching her father's arm and calling him George, while he strove to drive her away.
A great throng of people gathered about them. Mr. Waters became rude in his efforts to break away. At last he flung her off, and she fell, her forehead striking on the sharp corner of a stone, which started the blood trickling down her fair white brow. The woman swooned. Sight of blood touched the heart of George Waters, and, stooping, he raised the inanimate form in his arms, as tenderly as if she had been an infant, and bore her to a public house and a private room.
When the woman in black recovered consciousness, she and George Waters were alone, and he was tenderly dressing the wound he had made.
"George," she said with a smile, "you will let me talk with you now?"
"Yes."