"You know everybody about here?"
"Pretty much."
"The black sheep as well as the white?"
"As customers."
"Of course; that"s all I mean," was returned. "I"d be sorry if you knew them in any other way--some of them, at least." Then, after a pause, "Do you know a girl they call Pinky?"
"I may know her, but not by that name. What kind of a looking person is she?"
"A tall, bold-faced, dashing, dare-devil sort of a girl, with a snaky look in her eyes. She wears a pink hat with a white feather."
"Yes, I think I have seen some one like that, but she"s not been around here long."
"When did you see her last?"
"If it"s the same one you mean, I saw her go by here not ten minutes ago. She lives somewhere down the alley."
"Do you know the house?"
"I do not; but it can be found, no doubt. You called her Pinky."
"Yes. Her name is Pinky Swett."
"O-h! o-h!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the shop-woman, lifting her eyebrows in a surprised way. "Why, that"s the girl the police were after. They said she"d run off with somebody"s child."
"Did they arrest her?" asked Mrs. Bray, repressing, as far as possible, all excitement.
"They took her off once or twice, I believe, but didn"t make anything out of her. At any rate, the child was not found. It belonged, they said, to a rich up-town family that the girl was trying to black-mail.
But I don"t see how that could be."
"The child isn"t about here?"
"Oh dear, no! If it was, it would have been found long before this, for the police are hunting around sharp. If it"s all as they say, she"s got it hid somewhere else."
While Mrs. Bray talked with the shop-woman, Pinky, who had made a hurried call at her room, only a hundred yards away, was going as fast as a street-car could take her to a distant part of the city. On leaving the car at the corner of a narrow, half-deserted street, in which the only sign of life was a child or two at play in the snow and a couple of goats lying on a cellar-door, she walked for half the distance of a block, and then turned into a court lined on both sides with small, ill-conditioned houses, not half of them tenanted. Snow and ice blocked the little road-way, except where a narrow path had been cut along close to the houses.
Without knocking, Pinky entered one of these poor tenements. As she pushed open the door, a woman who was crouching down before a small stove, on which something was cooking, started up with a look of surprise that changed to one of anxiety and fear the moment she recognized her visitor.
"Is Andy all right?" cried Pinky, alarm in her face.
The woman tried to stammer out something, but did not make herself understood. At this, Pinky, into whose eyes flashed a fierce light, caught her by the wrists in a grip that almost crushed the bones.
"Out with it! where is Andy?"
Still the frightened woman could not speak.
"If that child isn"t here, I"ll murder you!" said Pinky, now white with anger, tightening her grasp.
At this, with a desperate effort, the woman flung her off, and catching up a long wooden bench, raised it over her head.
"If there"s to be any murder going on," she said, recovering her powers of speech, "I"ll take the first hand! As for the troublesome brat, he"s gone. Got out of the window and climbed down the spout. Wonder he wasn"t killed. Did fall--I don"t know how far--and must have hurt himself, for I heard a noise as if something heavy had dropped in the yard, but thought it was next door. Half an hour afterward, in going up stairs and opening the door of the room where I kept him locked in, I found it empty and the window open. That"s the whole story. I ran out and looked everywhere, but he was off. And now, if the murder is to come, I"m going to be in first."
And she still kept the long wooden bench poised above her head.
Pinky saw a dangerous look in the woman"s eyes.
"Put that thing down," she cried, "and don"t be a fool. Let me see;"
and she darted past the woman and ran up stairs. She found the window of Andy"s prison open and the print of his little fingers on the snow-covered sill outside, where he had held on before dropping to the ground, a distance of many feet. There was no doubt now in her mind as to the truth of the woman"s story. The child had made his escape.
"Have you been into all the neighbors" houses?" asked Pinky as she came down hastily.
"Into some, but not all," she replied.
"How long is it since he got away?"
"More than two hours."
"And you"ve been sticking down here, instead of ransacking every hole and corner in the neighborhood. I can hardly keep my hands off of you."
The woman was on the alert. Pinky saw this, and did not attempt to put her threat into execution. After pouring out her wrath in a flood of angry invectives, she went out and began a thorough search of the neighborhood, going into every house for a distance of three or four blocks in all directions. But she could neither find the child nor get the smallest trace of him. He had dropped out of sight, so far as she was concerned, as completely as if he had fallen into the sea.
CHAPTER XXVI.
_DAY_ after day Mr. Dinneford waited for the woman who was to restore the child of Edith, but she did not come. Over a week elapsed, but she neither called nor sent him a sign or a word. He dared not speak about this to Edith. She was too weak in body and mind for any further suspense or strain.
Drew Hall had been nearly thrown down again by the events of that Christmas day. The hand of a little child was holding him fast to a better life; but when that hand was torn suddenly away from his grasp, he felt the pull of evil habits, the downward drift of old currents. His steps grew weak, his knees trembled. But G.o.d did not mean that he should be left alone. He had reached down to him through the hand of a little child, had lifted him up and led him into a way of safety; and now that this small hand, the soft, touch of which had gone to his heart and stirred him with old memories, sad and sweet and holy, had dropped away from him, and he seemed to be losing his hold of heaven, G.o.d sent him, in Mr. Dinneford, an angel with a stronger hand. There were old a.s.sociations that held these men together. They had been early and attached friends, and this meeting, after many years of separation, under such strange circ.u.mstances, and with a common fear and anxiety at heart, could not but have the effect of arousing in the mind of Mr.
Dinneford the deepest concern for the unhappy man. He saw the new peril into which he was thrown by the loss of Andy, and made it his first business to surround him with all possible good and strengthening influences. So the old memories awakened by the coming of Andy did not fade out and lose their power over the man. He had taken hold of the good past again, and still held to it with the tight grasp of one conscious of danger.
"We shall find the child--no fear of that," Mr. Dinneford would say to him over and over again, trying to comfort his own heart as well, as the days went by and no little Andy could be found. "The police have the girl under the sharpest surveillance, and she cannot baffle them much longer."
George Granger left the asylum with his friends, and dropped out of sight. He did not show himself in the old places nor renew old a.s.sociations. He was too deeply hurt. The disaster had been too great for any attempt on his part at repairing the old dwelling-places of his life. His was not what we call a strong nature, but he was susceptible of very deep impressions. He was fine and sensitive, rather than strong.
Rejected by his wife and family without a single interview with her or even an opportunity to a.s.sert his innocence, he felt the wrong so deeply that he could not get over it. His love for his wife had been profound and tender, and when it became known to him that she had accepted the appearances of guilt as conclusive, and broken with her own hands the tie that bound them, it was more than he had strength to bear, and a long time pa.s.sed before he rallied from this hardest blow of all.
Edith knew that her father had seen Granger after securing his pardon, and she had learned from him only, particulars of the interview. Beyond this nothing came to her. She stilled her heart, aching with the old love that crowded all its chambers, and tried to be patient and submissive. It was very hard. But she was helpless. Sometimes, in the anguish and wild agitation of soul that seized her, she would resolve to put in a letter all she thought and felt, and have it conveyed to Granger; but fear and womanly delicacy drove her back from this. What hope had she that he would not reject her with hatred and scorn? It was a venture she dared not make, for she felt that such a rejection would kill her. But for her work among the dest.i.tute and the neglected, Edith would have shut herself up at home. Christian charity drew her forth daily, and in offices of kindness and mercy she found a peace and rest to which she would otherwise have been stranger.
She was on her way home one afternoon from a visit to the mission-school where she had first heard of the poor baby in Grubb"s court. All that day thoughts of little Andy kept crowding into her mind. She could not push aside his image as she saw it on Christmas, when he sat among the children, his large eyes resting in such a wistful look upon her face.
Her eyes often grew dim and her heart full as she looked upon that tender face, pictured for her as distinctly as if photographed to natural sight.
"Oh my baby, my baby!" came almost audibly from her lips, in a burst of irrepressible feeling, for ever since she had seen this child, the thought of him linked itself with that of her lost baby.
Up to this time her father had carefully concealed his interview with Mrs. Bray. He was in so much doubt as to the effect that woman"s communication might produce while yet the child was missing that he deemed it best to maintain the strictest silence until it could be found.