“I’m not a jailbird!” she cried passionately. “I never did a dishonest thing in my life!”
“They say differently at Roxbury,” he taunted.
“Yes!” she blazed out. “But why? Because you told a falsehood about me! You know you didn’t see me steal that purse!”
“Let’s cut this short,” he said impatiently. “I’ll put the whole thing in a few words. I’m not going back to Roxbury. I need money, and need it bad! Those folks at Kill Kare have plenty of it, or what can be turned into money, and I want you to help me get it.”
“I never will!” she cried defiantly.
“It’s either that or jail,” he said menacingly. “And I know that you won’t choose jail when you come to think it over. I’ll give you a day to make up your mind. You be here at this same time to-morrow, or it will be the worse for you.”
She pleaded with him to renounce his purpose and leave her in peace, but he laughed at her and went away with a parting threat.
Nina retraced her steps to the house in a state of great agitation. She felt sure that Higby was in desperate earnest and would denounce her to the authorities if she should fail to do his bidding. But she would have died before helping him to rob her benefactors.
What resource then was left? Flight! Once more to become a fugitive—to live under the ban of the law—to fear any moment the touch of an officer’s hand upon her shoulder.
The castle of dreams that she had been building in the last few happy days seemed ready to dissolve in mist.