CHAPTER XLI
JINNIE'S PLEA
Jinnie sprang up, unable at first to remember where she was. Then itall came to her. She was locked away from the world in a big houseoverlooking the gorge. However, the morning brought a clear sun,dissipating some of her fear--filling her with greater hope.
The dreadful dreams during the night had been but dreams of fear andpain--of eternal separation from her loved ones. Such dreams, suchfears, were foolish! No one could take her away from Peggy. Shewouldn't go! Ah, the man would return very soon with Molly the Merry.
The clock struck eight. What would Blind Bobbie think--and Peggy? Thewoman might decide she had left her forever; but no, no, Peg couldn'tthink that!
Childlike, she was hungry. If some one had intentionally imprisonedher, they must have left her something to eat. Investigation broughtforth some cold meat, a bottle of milk, and some bread. Jinnie ate allshe could swallow. Then for an hour and a half she paced up and down,wishing something would happen, some one would come. Anything would bebetter than such deadly uncertainty.
Perhaps it was the overwhelming stillness of the building, possibly anatural alertness indicative of her fear, that allowed Jinnie to catchthe echoes of footsteps at the farther end of the corridor. But beforeshe got to the door, a key grated in the lock, and the man who hadbrought her there was standing beside her. Their eyes met in aclinging, challenging glance--the blue of the one clashing with thesinister grey, as steel strikes fire from steel. An insolent smilebroke over his face and he asked nonchalantly:
"Did you find the food?"
Jinnie did not answer. She stood contemplating his face. How she hatedhis smile, his white teeth, and his easy, suave manner. Their glancesbattled again for a moment across the distance.
"Why did you bring me here?" she demanded abruptly.
He spread his feet outward and hummed, toying the while with a smoothwhite chin.
"Sit down," said he, with assumed politeness.
Jinnie stared at him with contemptuous dread in her eyes.
"I don't want to; I want to know why I'm here."
"Can't you guess?" asked the stranger with an easy shrug.
"No," said Jinnie. "Why?"
"And you can't guess who I am?"
"No," repeated Jinnie once more, passionately, "and I want to know whyI'm here."
He came toward her, piercing her face with a pair of compelling,mesmeric eyes that made her stagger back to the wall. Then he advanceda step nearer, covering the space Jinnie had yielded.
"I'm Jordan Morse," he then said, clipping his words off shortly.
If a gun had burst in Jinnie's face, she could have been no morealarmed. She was frozen to silence, and every former fear her fatherhad given life to almost three years before, beset her once more, onlywith many times the amount of vigor. Nevertheless, she gave back lookfor look, challenge for challenge, while her fingers locked andinterlocked. Her uncle, who had sent her father to his grave, the manwho wanted her money, who desired her own death!
Then her eyes slowly took on a tragic expression. She knew then shewas destined to encounter the tragedy of Morse's terrific vengeance,and no longer wondered why her father had succumbed to his force. Hestood looking at her, his gaze taking in the young form avidiously.
"You're the most beautiful girl in the world," he averred presently.
Jinnie's blue eyes narrowed angrily. However, in spite of her rage,she was terribly frightened. An instinct of self-preservation told herto put on a bold, aggressive front.
"Give me that key and let me go," she insisted, with an upward toss ofher head.
She walked to the door and shook it vigorously. Morse followed her andbrought her brutally back to the center of the room.
"Not so fast," he grated. "Don't ever do that again! I've been huntingyou for almost three years.... Sit down, I said."
"I won't!" cried Jinnie, recklessly. "I won't! You can't keep me here.My friends'll find me."
The man hazarded a laugh.
"What friends?" he queried.
Jinnie thought quickly. What friends? She had no friends just then,and because she knew she was dependent upon him for her very life, shelistened in despair as he threw a truth at her.
"The only friends you have're out of business! Lafe Grandoken will beelectrocuted for murder----"
The hateful thing he had just said and the insistence in it maddenedher. She covered her face with her hands and uttered a low cry.
"And Theodore King is in the hospital," went on Morse, mercilessly."It'll do no good for you to remember him."
She was too normally alive not to express the loving heart outragedwithin her.
"I shall love him as long as I live," she shivered between herfingers.
"Hell of a lot of good it'll do you," grunted the man coarsely.
Keen anxiety empowered her to raise an anguished face.
"You want my money----" she hesitated. "Well, you can have it.... Youwant it, don't you?"
Her girlish helplessness made Morse feel that he was without heart ordignity, but he thought of his little boy and of how this girl waskeeping from him the means to institute a search for the child, andhis desire for vengeance kindled to glowing fires of hate. Heremembered that, steadily of late, he had grown to detest the wholechild-world because of his own sorrow, and nodded acquiescence,supplementing the nod with a harsh:
"And, by God, I'm going to have it, too!"
"Then let me go back to Lafe's shop. I'll give you every cent Ihave.... I won't even ask for a dollar."
It took some time for Morse to digest this idea; then he slowly shookhis head.
"You wouldn't be allowed to give me what would be mine----"
"If I die," breathed Jinnie, shocked. She had read his thought andblurted it forth.
"Yes, if you die. But I haven't any desire to kill you.... I haveanother way."
"What way? Oh, tell me!"
"Not now," drawled Morse. "Later perhaps."
The man contemplated the tips of his boots a minute. Then he looked ather, the meditative expression still in his eyes.
"To save your friends," he said at length, "you've got to do what Iwant you to."
"You mean--to save Lafe?" gasped Jinnie, eagerly.
Morse gave a negative gesture.
"No, not him. The cobbler's got to go. _He knows too much about me._"
Jinnie thought of Lafe, who loved and helped everybody within helpingdistance, of his wonderful faith and patience, of the day they hadarrested him, and his last words.
She could not plan for herself nor think of her danger, only of thecobbler, her friend,----the man who had taken her, a little forlornfugitive, when she had possessed no home of her own--he who had taughther about the angels and the tenderness of Jesus. From her uncle'slast statement she had received an impression that he knew who hadfired those shots. He could have Lafe released if he would. She wouldbeg for the cobbler's life, beg as she had never begged before.
"Please, please, listen," she implored, throwing out her hands. "Youmust! You must! Lafe's always been so good. Won't you let him live?...I'll tell him about your wanting the money.... You shall have it! I'llmake any promise for him you want me to, and he'll keep it.... Hedidn't kill Maudlin Bates, and I believe you know who did."
Morse lowered his lids until his eyes looked like grey slits acrosshis face.
"Supposing I do," he taunted. "As I've said, Grandoken knows too muchabout me. He won't be the first one I've put out of my way."
He said this emphatically; he would teach her he was not to bethwarted; that when he desired anything, Heaven and earth,figuratively speaking, would have to move. He frowned darkly at her asJinnie cut in swiftly:
"You killed my father. He told me you did."
Morse flicked an ash from a cigar he had lighted, and his eyes grewhard, like rocks in a cold, gray dawn.
"So you know all my little indiscretions, eh?" he gritted. "Then don'tyou see I can't give you--your liberty?"
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Liberty! What did he mean by taking her liberty away? She asked himwith beating heart.
"Just this, my dear child," he advanced mockingly. "There are placeswhere people're taken care of and--the world thinks them dead. Infact, your father had a taste of what I can do. Only he happenedto----"
"Did you put him somewhere?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
"Same kind of a place I'm going to put you----" He hesitated a momentand ended, "A mad house!"
"Did you let him come home to me?"
"Not I. Damn the careless keepers! He skipped out one day, and Ididn't know until he'd a good start of me. I followed as soon aspossible, but you were gone. Now--now--then, to find _such_ a placefor you!"
Jinnie's imagination called up the loathsome thing he mentioned andterrified her to numbness. At that moment she understood what herfather had written in that sealed letter to Lafe Grandoken.
But she couldn't allow her mind to dwell upon his threat againstherself.
"What'd you mean when you said I could save my friends?"
"You're fond of Mrs. Grandoken, aren't you?"
Jinnie nodded, trying to swallow a lump in her throat.
"And--and there's a--a--blind child too--who could be hurt easily."
Jinnie's living world reeled before her eyes. During this speech shehad lost every vestige of color. She sprang toward him and her fingerswent blue-white from the force of her grip on his arm.
"Oh, you couldn't, you wouldn't hurt poor little Bobbie?" she criedhysterically. "He can't see and he's sick, terribly ill all the time.I'll do anything you say--anything to help 'em."
Then she fell to the floor, groveling at his feet.
"Get up! You needn't cry; things'll be easy enough for you if you doexactly as I tell you. The first order I give you is to stay herequietly until I come again."
As he spoke, he lifted her up, and she stood swaying pitiably.
"Can't I let Peg know where I am?" she entreated when she could speak."Please! Please!"
"I should think not," scoffed Morse. Then, after a moment'sconsideration, he went on, "You might write her a note, if you saywhat I dictate. I'll have it mailed from another town. I don't wantany one to know you're still in Bellaire."
"Could I send her a little money, too?" she asked.
"Yes," replied Morse.
"Then tell me what to write, and I will."
After he had gone and Jinnie was once more alone, she sat at thewindow, her eyes roving over the landscape. Her gaze wandered inmelancholy sadness to the shadowy summit of the distant hills, inwhich the wild things of nature lived in freedom, as she herself hadlived with Lafe Grandoken in Paradise Road, long before her uncle'smenacing shadow had crossed her life. Then her eyes lowered to therock-rimmed gorge, majestic in its eternal solitude. She was on thebrink of some terrible disaster. She knew enough of her uncle'scharacter to realize that. She spent the entire day without evenlooking at her beloved fiddle, and after the night closed in, she laydown, thoroughly exhausted.
Peggy took a letter from the postman's hand mechanically, but when shesaw the well-known writing, she trembled so she nearly dropped themissive from her fingers. She went into the shop, where Bobbie layface downward on the floor. At her entrance, he lifted a white face.
"Has Jinnie come yet?" he asked faintly.
"No," said Peg, studying the postmark of the letter. Then she openedit. A five-dollar bill fell into her lap, and she thrust it into herbosom with a sigh.
* * * * *
"PEGGY DARLING," she read with misty eyes.
"I've had to go away for a little while. Don't worry. Here's somemoney. Use it and I'll send more. Kiss Bobbie for me and tell himJinnie'll come back soon. And the baby, oh, Peggy, hug him until hecan't be hugged any more. Don't tell Lafe I'm away.
"With all my love, "JINNIE."
* * * * *
Peggy put down the letter.
"Bobbie!" she said.
The boy looked up. "I ain't got any stars, Peggy," he wailedtragically. "I want Jinnie and Lafe."
"I've got a letter from Jinnie here," announced Peggy.
The boy got to his feet instantly.
"When she's comin' back?"
"She don't say, but she sends a lot of kisses and love to you. She hadto go away for a few days.... Now don't snivel!... Come here an' I'llgive you the kisses she sent."
He nestled contentedly in Peggy's arms.
"Let me feel the letter," came a faltering whisper presently.
Bobbie ran his fingers over the paper, trying with sensitive fingertips to follow the ink traces.
"Can I keep it a little while?" he begged.... "Please, Peggy!"
"Sure," said Peg, putting him down, and when the baby cried, Mrs.Grandoken left the blind child hugging Happy Pete, with Jinnie'sletter flattened across his chest between him and the dog.
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