“Nay, be seated,” the girl replied, waving him to a seat, and at the same time sinking back upon the divan from which she had risen.
Robert took the seat indicated, and anxiously waited for his fair hostess to resume the conversation.
At length she said, with a strain of sympathy in her sweet voice:
“I know something of your history, and partly the reason why you are confined here, and I sorrow every day I live that I cannot in some way be the means of liberating the unfortunate ones who are so often brought here. But I am only a weak woman, and can do but very little against so many wicked men.”
Robert thought that she was a very, very beautiful woman, if she was weak; almost as lovely as Dora.
“I told you,” she continued, “that I have no other home. My mother is dead. My father I never saw, as he deserted his wife before I was born. My uncles, who were once rich and prosperous, have spent all their wealth in trying to hunt down the man who so deeply wronged their sister; and when she died they took me, a poor little orphan, brought me up and educated me, suffering every privation that I might not be denied any dainty or luxury.
“Finally their last dollar was spent, and in their desperation they joined this band of smugglers, and while on some business for the gang in the United States they discovered my father.
“They watched and dogged his every step until he came to this country, and are now waiting for a favorable opportunity to wreak their vengeance upon him, and claim my rights, after which they have promised me they will forever renounce this wicked business.”
“You say the man, who is your father, is now in this country,” said Robert, as he paused for a moment.
“Yes, in the country and in this very village, though why he is here, I do not know, unless a righteous Providence has driven him here to compel him to do justice to the wronged.”