“You see, the child knows you. Confess the truth now! Are you not his own grandmother?” exclaimed Norman, low but eagerly.
Mrs. Laurens writhed under his grasp, and looked from right to left with frightened eyes.
“Answer me!” persisted Norman. But a dogged look came over her face, and she replied:
“No, my daughter Pansy never had a child. Why do you want to throw disgrace on my poor dead girl?” And she suddenly burst into tears, and, tugging at his hand, wailed out: “Oh, let me go! I promised to meet my daughter Alice when she was coming home from the factory, and—and—it’s past the closing time now.”
“Will you swear that this is not Pansy’s child?” Norman insisted hoarsely; but at that moment she succeeded in freeing her hand from his clasp and darted away like a startled deer. Not wishing to create a sensation, he had to refrain from following her.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE BLACKMAILER BAFFLED.
Mr. Finley had left Pansy and sought his home again in a tempest of fury and baffled cupidity, realizing fully that his scheme of blackmailing her would not succeed, and that he must look elsewhere for booty.
Pansy’s dauntless bravery and defiance had certainly staggered his bold courage, and he began to fear that he was not going to receive such a windfall as he had expected from Pansy’s secret. Having a dangerous secret of his own, which would be sure to come to light if he proceeded openly against her, he found himself in a quandary.
“The plucky little wretch! Who would have believed that she would openly defy me, and deny her identity? Why, she would have handed me over to that policeman in another moment if I hadn’t cut and run,” he exclaimed angrily, feeling that he would like to shake the little beauty for her bold defiance.
He slept but little that night for thinking about her, and the next day he came to the conclusion that, of all those concerned in the drama in which he was so cleverly enacting the villain’s part, there was no chance of blackmailing any but Colonel Falconer.