“There is just light enough left,” he said, “for young (and lovely) eyes to read by. Before I enter upon the personal statement which your flattering inquiry claims from me, pray bestow a moment’s attention on this Document.”
She took the handbill from him. By the last gleam of twilight she read the lines which set a price on her recovery—which published the description of her in pitiless print, like the description of a strayed dog. No tender consideration had prepared her for the shock, no kind word softened it to her when it came. The vagabond, whose cunning eyes watched her eagerly while she read, knew no more that the handbill which he had stolen had only been prepared in anticipation of the worst, and was only to be publicly used in the event of all more considerate means of tracing her being tried in vain—than she knew it. The bill dropped from her hand; her face flushed deeply. She turned away from Captain Wragge, as if all idea of his existence had passed out of her mind.
“Oh, Norah, Norah!” she said to herself, sorrowfully. “After the letter I wrote you—after the hard struggle I had to go away! Oh, Norah, Norah!”
“How is Norah?” inquired the captain, with the utmost politeness.
She turned upon him with an angry brightness in her large gray eyes. “Is this thing shown publicly?” she asked, stamping her foot on it. “Is the mark on my neck described all over York?”
“Pray compose yourself,” pleaded the persuasive Wragge. “At present I have every reason to believe that you have just perused the only copy in circulation. Allow me to pick it up.”
Before he could touch the bill she snatched it from the pavement, tore it into fragments, and threw them over the wall.
“Bravo!” cried the captain. “You remind me of your poor dear mother. The family spirit, Miss Vanstone. We all inherit our hot blood from my maternal grandfather.”
“How did you come by it?” she asked, suddenly.
“My dear creature, I have just told you,” remonstrated the captain. “We all come by it from my maternal grandfather.”