“Si, si,” he said blandly; “and thou also?”
“Thou art worse,” she said furiously, but in a low tone, for she was desperately aware that she was being surveyed curiously not only by the children, but also by some of the gentlemen in the hotel windows.
“I am thy father,” said the man with a flash of anger, for he rarely relapsed into a passion unless he had been drinking.
“Who stabbed Constante?” breathed the girl. “Ah, thou startest! I did not always sleep when thou entertainedst thy friends. And if thou dost not leave here, I write at once to the Mafia and thou wilt be declared infamous. A cross will be drawn on thy door,” and she made gestures with her hands signifying the choking of a person.
The man’s olive skin turned to a greenish pallor and he kept his small black eyes fixed pleadingly on her face. “Surely thou wouldst not do that, my daughter. The Mafia is implacable and the companions would consider me a traitor and put me to sleep for what was a mistake. It was not in my heart to kill Constante.”
“Thou hast soft shoes; thou canst walk backward,” said Zilla inexorably. “By sundown if thou art here I write to Guglielmo Barzoni, and thou art doomed.”
“Enough,” replied the man with a gesture of resignation. “Thou art thy mother’s child. Thou canst do all and more than thou promisest. Thou wilt never see me more,” and with no other sign of emotion beyond his unusual pallor, he noiselessly left her and in polite broken English postponed his engagement with the children until the next day, at which time they would return and wait anxiously for the man whose shadow would fall no more on the streets of Halifax.
Zilla began to tremble as soon as he left her. The interview with him had been a terrible strain on her, yet she courageously tried to make her way home. At the street corner she paused and leaned against a house. One of the gentlemen at the window seeing this, left his station there and came slowly sauntering up to her.
“Good-morning,” he said kindly. “Do you remember me?”
“Yes; you are Mr. Patrick Macartney’s brother,” she said, “and I am Dr. Camperdown’s little girl, and that bad beggar-man frightened me.”