"I've waited longer for my dinner than ever she has. You shall bring me mine instead. In bed, is she?"
"Yes," sobbed Jessie.
"That's all right."
"Oh, would no one ever come," Jessie wondered, looking frantically about her.
The man read her thoughts and actions. "No, it isn't likely there'll be anybody about just yet, they are all to market, or off somewhere. I took care to choose my time well. Is your grandfather coming home by train?"
"Yes," sobbed Jessie. "Oh, please let me go. What do you want? I haven't got any money—"
"It's you I want, yourself, Jessie Lang."
Jessie looked up in surprise, wondering how he knew her name.
She had thought him a tramp only, though a particularly horrible one.
Now a deeper fear crept into her heart, causing her to feel sick and
faint with alarm, and a dread of she hardly knew what.
"Why do you want me?" she gasped, trembling, scarcely able to form her words, so furiously was her poor little heart beating.
"Why do I want you? 'Cause I'm your own father, and I've been robbed of you for five years! Natural enough, isn't it, that a man should want his own child to come and look after him?"