Bessie laughed.

“I’d do worse than that if I thought I could help Zara, Mr. Jamieson,” she said.  “Do you know I’ve got the strangest feeling that she’s in trouble?  It’s just as if I could hear her calling me and as if she were sorry for leaving us, and wanted to be back.”

Jamieson smiled grimly.

“I think the chances are that she’s feeling just about that way,” he said.  “She certainly ought to be—­if we’re at all near to guessing the people she’s gone with.  They won’t treat her as well as the Mercers, I’ll be bound.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of, too,” said Bessie.

Then thanking him for his promise she made her way to the street, and started to go back to the store where she had left Eleanor.  But she was intercepted.  And, to her amazement, the person who checked her, as she was walking swiftly along the crowded street, was Jake Hoover.

“’Lo, Bessie,” he said shamefacedly, as she started with surprise at the sight of him.  “Say, you’re pretty in them new clothes of your’n.  I’d never ‘a’ known you.”

“I wish you hadn’t, then,” said Bessie, with spirit.  “I’m through with you, Jake Hoover!  You won’t have me around home any more, to take the blame for all your wickedness.  When things happen now they’ll know whose fault it is—­and maybe they’ll begin to think that you may have done some of the things I used to get punished for, too.”

“Aw, now, don’t get mad, Bessie,” he said, trying to pacify her.  “This here’s the city—­’tain’t Hedgeville!  Maybe I was mean to you sometimes back home, Bessie, but I was jest jokin’.  Say, Bess, here’s a gentleman wants to talk to you.  He’s a lawyer an’ a mighty smart man.  An’ he thinks he knows somethin’ about your father and mother.”

Another figure had loomed up beside that of Jake, and Bessie was hardly surprised to find that it was Brack who was leering at her.

“He’s right.  I know something about them,” he said.  “There’s precious little old Brack don’t know, my dear—­an’ that’s a fact you can bet your last dollar on.”

He chuckled, and made a movement as if he intended to take Bessie’s hand, but she brushed his claw-like hand away with a motion of disgust.

“I haven’t got time to be talking to you now,” she said, decisively.  “If you know anything you think I ought to be told, tell it to Mr. Jamieson.”

“Oh, ho, tell it to him, eh!” he said.  “Maybe you’d better be careful, girl!  Maybe you wouldn’t like everyone to know why your parents had to run away and leave you in such a hurry.  Maybe they’re in prison, and deserve to be.  How’d you like to have people hear that, eh!”

“I wouldn’t like it, but I don’t believe it’s true!” said Bessie, scornfully.  “Not for a minute!” And she pressed on, but Brack followed and walked close beside her.

“Remember this—­you’ll never see them again, except through me,” he said, malevolently.