"No," replied the Pole deprecatingly, shrugging his shoulders and spreading out his hands, "I haf not seen her. If she come here, I shut the door upon her. I say, 'I vil haf no runaway wives here.' My fren, before you vos marrit did not I say, a truant daughter make a truant wife. She haf left me first, now she haf left you."
He had taken Stephen by the front of his coat, and was pushing in his words by the aid of a dirty forefinger.
Talbot abandoned Stephen to argue the matter out with his drunken father-in-law, and strolled back through the passage, through the bar-room, and then stood, with his gloved hands deep in his fur-lined pockets, at the saloon door, looking up and down the street. Presently one of the wrecks of the night came drifting by, a girl of nineteen or so, with her cheeks blue and pinched in the terrible cold under their coat of coarse paint. He signalled to her, and she drifted across to him, and stood, with her hands thrust up her sleeves, in the light from the "Pistol Shot."
"I expect you've seen the inside of most of the drinking-houses to-night," he said, speaking in a kind voice, for the pitiful, cold face of the girl touched him; "have you seen anything of Katrine Poniatovsky, a girl who used to live here?"
"Wot's she like?" the girl asked sullenly. She was so hoarse that she could hardly make the words audible.
"A tall girl, dark, and very handsome."
"Yes, I seed her, not more'n an hour ago, in the 'Cock-pit.' She's a-makin' more money in there than I can make if I walk all night. Curse her! She sits there, and the devil sits behind her, a-playing for her, I know; but she'd better look out—you don't play with that partner long."
"The 'Cock-pit.' That's on the other side, isn't it, away from the river?" Talbot's heart sank a little as he recognized the name of the worst den for gambling in the whole town.
"Go down here, and turn to your left. Any one will tell you where the 'Cock-pit' is," said the girl, with a hollow laugh.
Then she lingered in the light, and looked at Talbot wistfully. He put some money into her hand. "Go into the warmth," he said kindly, "and get yourself something."