"Pause, my son!" she exclaimed, raising her clasped hands aloft with a supplicating air, as she knelt before him in the pure white snow. "Remember your dead father—I ask you not to remember me—pause before it is too late."
"Hello!" cried Cutts, placing his hand on Frank's shoulder as he spoke, "who the mischief have we here?"
As though stung by an adder, the boy shrank back from that aged form.
"Mother!" he cried, in husky tones, "for God's sake, what brings you here? Have they let you escape again?"
"Escape!" said the woman, in feeble tones. "Can doors hold a mother when danger besets her son? No, no, bolts and bars cannot keep me in. Locks amount to nothing for me. I roam the streets by night and by day, and I watch over you, my son."
"She is mad, Cutts!" cried the boy angrily; "mad for years, and has escaped from those by whom she was confined. Follow me, and let's be done with this thing at once. With her on my hands I need the money more than ever now."
He leaped the fence railing as he spoke with the lightness of a cat, landing by the woman's side.
Cutts instantly followed him, as did the two young men, who had during this strange scene come to a halt a little in the rear of the spot where Frank and the detective had stood.
"No, no, you shall not go! You shall not rob the bank!" shrieked the woman, seizing Frank by the skirts of his coat. "Don't listen to these wicked men, my son; they only seek your harm!"
"Confound the old hag!" muttered the detective, angrily. "What are we going to do? If we don't stop her mouth she will ruin all."