“Not at all. You don’t want to leave me, do you? You know your mother is in bed asleep now. Besides, it was understood that you were to spend the night here and take breakfast with me.”
Breakfast! The boy hadn’t been doing anything else for an hour. Was that to continue till morning?
“I’ll tell you what! Just undress yourself; and you needn’t be a bit ashamed before me. I will make down a pallet for you there in the corner. When I’m here alone—just a woman—with all the thieves and robbers—oh, it’s so horrible!”
Walter did not dare to say no; nor did he dare to do what was proposed so enticingly. He hesitated.
She talked sweetly and persuaded him.
He began to——
The child was as if hypnotized.
O Fancy, Fancy! Where art thou?