“Let me go!” she screamed. “I will not accompany you. I do not believe a word you say. If you touch me, I shall defend myself.”
“Spit-fire, eh?” she heard Voles say. There was something of a struggle. She never knew exactly what happened. She found herself clasped in his giant arms and heard his half jesting protest:
“Now, my butterfly, don’t beat your little wings so furiously, or you’ll hurt yourself.”
He carried her, screaming, up-stairs, and pushed her into a large room. Rachel Craik followed, with set face and angry words.
“Ungrateful girl!” was her cry. “After all I’ve done for you!”
“You stole me from my mother,” sobbed Winifred despairingly. “I am sure you did. You are afraid now lest some one should recognize me. I am ‘the image of my mother’ that horrible man said, and I am to be taken away because I resemble her. It is you who are frightened, not I. I defy you. Even Mrs. Carshaw knew my face. I scorn you, I say, and if you think your devices can deceive me or keep Rex from me, you are mistaken. Before it is too late, let me go!”
Rachel Craik was, indeed, alarmed by the girl’s hysterical outpouring. But Winifred’s taunts worked harm in one way. They revealed most surely that the danger dreaded by both Voles and Meiklejohn did truly exist. From that instant Rachel Craik, who felt beneath her rough exterior some real tenderness for the girl she had reared, became her implacable foe.
“You had better calm yourself,” she said quietly. “If you care to eat, food will soon be brought for you and Mr. Grey. He is your fellow-boarder for a few days!”
Then Winifred saw, for the first time, that the spacious room held another occupant. Reclining in a big chair, and scowling at her, was Mick the Wolf, whose arm Carshaw had broken recently.