Kayne soon learned that Nita had been reared at Pirate Beach by the old fortune-teller, until at the age of fifteen she had run away to make her own living at the metropolis.
"What is the girl to you?" asked Donald Kayne, but she leered and refused to reply.
"And the serpent ring she wore? I will make your fortune, old woman, if you will tell me how Nita Farnham came by that ring," he exclaimed eagerly.
Bitterly did Meg regret that she could not gratify his curiosity.
"I know nothing of the ring, except that I saw it on Nita's hand before she went away on Mountcastle's yacht. Stay—you say there is but one ring like it in the world? Then I saw the same ring more than fourteen years ago on another woman's hand."
"You saw her? Where? Where, woman?" he cried in fierce excitement.
The old witch peered curiously into the face of her interlocutor. Donald Kayne's face was wild and haggard. Unconsciously to himself, in his wild excitement, he stretched out his hand and clutched the woman's shoulder in a grasp that was painful.
"Speak!" he uttered hoarsely; "speak this instant, and tell me when and where you saw the woman with the serpent ring. Why are you so dumb when you see how impatient I am! Answer before I throttle you!"
But with a ghastly grin Meg writhed herself out of his grasp and sneered:
"That secret is worth gold to me!"