She shivered and paled a little, and her great eyes opened wide as she searched his face beseechingly, as if trying to discern whether he was in earnest. There was no banter in his tones, so she came closer and, catching his hand again, looked into his face with a forlorn sort of smile that was at once both roguish and pitiful.
“D’you mean that, or are you on’y just foolin’, Policeman?” she implored. “You wouldn’t arrest me, would you?”
The Sergeant contemplated her thoughtfully. And a great pity arose in him, for the fingers that clasped his own were deadly cold, and the cheap finery that she was clad in was but a miserable protection against the chilly wind that had sprung up.
“Now listen,” he said. “You haven’t been in business long, my girl. You can’t fool me. Quit it, kid, before you get in real wrong. Get back to th’ farm again.”
She stared at him with open-eyed astonishment.
“Why!” she gasped, “who told you I come from a farm?”
He laughed quietly. “Just a sayin’ sister,” he said. “Seems I wasn’t far out, eh? Where do you come from, then?”
But her lips only trembled and closed tightly, as she regarded him now steadfastly, in dogged silence.
“Now, see here; look,” Ellis went on slowly. “If it’s because you’re up against it an’ want money, why—” He drew out a five-dollar bill from his pocket and closed her fingers gently over it.
The kind ring in his voice unnerved her. She looked at him vaguely for a few seconds with heaving bosom and glistening, tear-filled eyes, then suddenly burst out into passionate sobbing.