“How strange for him to have no light,” observed Nancy.
“Very careless, but I suppose something happened to the light. I don’t think we’d better try to stop him,” she added hurriedly. “He’s going like the wind,” and she drew Nancy back into the path beside the road.
To their surprise, as the machine approached, they saw that two men were in it, and, strange to say, it was not the Comet but a gray car which slowed up gradually as it neared the house.
“Better stop here,” said one of the men in a low voice. “So this is the old place,” he added. “Poor things! Poor things!”
“I don’t see why you should pity them,” said the other man. “You have more reason to hate the mother, than not.”
There was silence.
“Now, Ignatius Donahue,” went on the second man,—the girls’ hands met in a frightened clasp and they pressed together behind the trees,—“I didn’t bring you out here to sentimentalize. I want to talk business. We are both looking for the same thing. If I find it, I tell you frankly, I shall destroy it——”
“You scoundrel,” cried the man called Ignatius Donahue. “You thief, you sneak——”
The two men grappled and began to fight. They fought like wild cats, first in the car and then on the ground. Presently the one on top hit his adversary a terrific blow on the head. He fell backward and lay quite still in the road.
Nancy was about to scream but Billie put her hand over her mouth.