paused a minute, a wan, sweet smile passing over her lips. “But I’ve got Milly Ann and her kittens, and they’re soft and warm and wriggley.”

What a strange child was this daughter of his! She spoke of cats as if they were babies; of loving as if it were universal. Each moment, in her presence, he realized more and more what he had missed in thus neglecting her. But he had hurried to Mottville from foreign lands to perform one duty, at least,—to save her, if possible. So he returned to his vital subject.

“Your Uncle Jordan’s coming, perhaps this week. He’s found out I’m here! That’s why you must go away.” 22

22

“Shall I—just go?” queried Virginia. “I don’t know of any special place—do you?” and she shivered again as the wind, in a fierce gust, blew out from the slumbering fire a wreath of smoke that encircled the room and hung grey-blue about the ceiling.

“I only know one man,” reflected Mr. Singleton, presently, “and you’ll have to find him yourself—after I’ve gone, of course; but if Jordan Morse should come, you’d have to go quickly.”

“I’d go faster’n anything,” decided the girl, throwing up her head.

“Your mother’s father used to have a family in his tenement house on this place, and they were all very fond of her when she was a girl. One of the sons moved to Bellaire. He’s the only one left, and would help you, I know.”

“Mebbe if you’d talk to my uncle––” Virginia cut in.

An emphatic negative gesture frightened her.

“You don’t know him,” said Singleton, biting his lips. “He’s nearer being a devil than any other human being.” It was a feeling of bitterness, of the deadly wrong done him, that forced him to sarcasm. “The great—the good Jordan Morse—bah!” he sneered. “If he’s ‘good,’ so are fiends from perdition.”

He sent the last words out between his teeth as if he loathed the idea expressed in them. If they brought a sombre red to the girl’s cheeks, it was not because she did not have sympathy with him.

Sudden leaping flames of passion yellowed the man’s eyes, and he staggered up.

“May God damn the best in him! May all he loves wither and blight! May black Heaven break his heart––”

Jinnie 

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