Cast Adrift Part 17

"I'm indebted to you for the trouble," replied. Mrs. Dinneford, with considerable asperity of manner. "You ought to have known something about the woman before employing her in a delicate affair of this kind."

"Saints don't hire themselves to put away new-born babies," retorted Mrs. Bray, with an ugly gurgle in her throat. "I told you at the time that she was a bad woman, and have not forgotten your answer."

"What did I answer?"

"That she might be the devil for all you cared!"

"You are mistaken."

"No; I repeat your very words. They surprised and shocked me at the time, and I have not forgotten them. People who deal with the devil usually have the devil to pay; and your case, it seems, is not to be an exception."

Mrs. Bray had a.s.sumed an air of entire equality with her visitor.

A long silence followed, during which Mrs. Dinneford walked the floor with the quick, restless motions of a caged animal.

"How long do you think two hundred dollars will satisfy her?" she asked, at length, pausing and turning to her companion.

"It is impossible for me to say," was answered; "not long, unless you can manage to frighten her off; you must threaten hard."

Another silence followed.

"I did not expect to be called on for so large a sum," Mrs. Dinneford said at length, in a husky voice, taking out her pocket-book as she spoke. "I have only a hundred dollars with me. Give her that, and put her off until to-morrow."

"I will do the best I can with her," replied Mrs. Bray, reaching out her hand for the money, "but I think it will be safer for you to let me have the balance to-day. She will, most likely, take it into her head that I have received the whole sum from you, and think I am trying to cheat her. In that case she will be as good as her word, and come down on you."

"Mrs. Bray!" exclaimed Mrs. Dinneford, suspicion blazing from her eyes.

"Mrs. Bray!"--and she turned upon her and caught her by the arms with a fierce grip--"as I live, you are deceiving me. There is no woman but yourself. You are the vampire!"

She held the unresisting little woman in her vigorous grasp for some moments, gazing at her in stern and angry accusation.

Mrs. Bray stood very quit and with scarcely a change of countenance until this outburst of pa.s.sion had subsided. She was still holding the money she had taken from Mrs. Dinneford. As the latter released her she extended her hand, saying, in a low resolute voice, in which not the faintest thrill of anger could be detected,

"Take your money." She waited for a moment, and then let the little roll of bank-bills fall at Mrs. Dinneford's feet and turned away.

Mrs. Dinneford had made a mistake, and she saw it--saw that she was now more than ever in the power of this woman, whether she was true or false. If false, more fatally in her power.

At this dead-lock in the interview between these women there came a diversion. The sound of feet was heard on the stairs, then a hurrying along the narrow pa.s.sage; a hand was on the door, but the key had been prudently turned on the inside.

With a quick motion, Mrs. Bray waved her hand toward the adjoining chamber. Mrs. Dinneford did not hesitate, but glided in noiselessly, shutting and locking the door behind her.

"Pinky Swett!" exclaimed Mrs. Bray, in a low voice, putting her finger to her lips, as she admitted her visitor, at the same time giving a warning glance toward the other room. Eyeing her from head to foot, she added, "Well, you are an object!"

Pinky had drawn aside a close veil, exhibiting a bruised and swollen face. A dark band lay under one of her eyes, and there was a cut with red, angry margins on the cheek.

"You are an object," repeated Mrs. Bray as Pinky moved forward into the room.

"Well, I am, and no mistake," answered Pinky, with a light laugh. She had been drinking enough to overcome the depression and discomfort of her feelings consequent on the hard usage she had received and a night in one of the city station-houses. "Who's in there?"

Mrs. Bray's finger went again to her lips. "No matter," was replied.

"You must go away until the coast is clear. Come back in half an hour."

And she hurried Pinky out of the door, locking it as the girl retired.

When Mrs. Dinneford came out of the room into which he had gone so hastily, the roll of bank-notes still lay upon the floor. Mrs. Bray had prudently slipped them into her pocket before admitting Pinky, but as soon as she was alone had thrown them down again.

The face of Mrs. Dinneford was pale, and exhibited no ordinary signs of discomfiture and anxiety.

"Who was that?" she asked.

"A friend," replied Mrs. Bray, in a cold, self-possessed manner.

A few moments of embarra.s.sed silence followed. Mrs. Bray crossed the room, touching with her foot the bank-bills, as if they were of no account to her.

"I am half beside myself," said Mrs. Dinneford.

Mrs. Bray made no response, did not even turn toward her visitor.

"I spoke hastily."

"A vampire!" Mrs. Bray swept round upon her fiercely. "A blood-sucker!"

and she ground her teeth in well-feigned pa.s.sion.

Mrs. Dinneford sat down trembling.

"Take your money and go," said Mrs. Bray, and she lifted the bills from the floor and tossed them into her visitor's lap. "I am served right. It was evil work, and good never comes of evil."

But Mrs. Dinneford did not stir. To go away at enmity with this woman was, so far as she could see, to meet exposure and unutterable disgrace.

Anything but that.

"I shall leave this money, trusting still to your good offices," she said, at length, rising. Her manner was much subdued. "I spoke hastily, in a sort of blind desperation. We should not weigh too carefully the words that are extorted by pain or fear. In less than an hour I will send you a hundred dollars more."

Mrs. Dinneford laid the bank-bills on a table, and then moved to the door, but she dared not leave in this uncertainty. Looking back, she said, with an appealing humility of voice and manner foreign to her character,

"Let us be friends still, Mrs. Bray; we shall gain nothing by being enemies. I can serve you, and you can serve me. My suspicions were ill founded. I felt wild and desperate, and hardly knew what I was saying."

She stood anxiously regarding the little dark-eyed woman, who did not respond by word or movement.

Taking her hand from the door she was about opening, Mrs. Dinneford came back into the room, and stood close to Mrs. Bray:

"Shall I send you the money?"

"You can do as you please," was replied, with chilling indifference.

"Are you implacable?"

"I am not used to suspicion, much less denunciation and a.s.sault. A vampire! Do you know what that means?"

"It meant, as used by me, only madness. I did not know what I was saying. It was a cry of pain--nothing more. Consider how I stand, how much I have at stake, in what a wretched affair I have become involved.

It is all new to me, and I am bewildered and at fault. Do not desert me in this crisis. I must have some one to stand between me and this woman; and if you step aside, to whom can I go?"