She
stared at Kate as though she were seeing a ghost.
"Not one day!" cried Kate. "And so you took in Terry, and you raised him
and loved him--not for a bet, but because he was Black Jack's son!"
Elizabeth Cornish had grown paler than before. "I mustn't listen to such
talk," she said.
"Ah," cried the girl, "don't you see that I have a right to talk? Because
I love him also, and I know that you love him, too."
Elizabeth Cornish came to her feet, and there was a faint flush in her
cheeks.
"You love Terry? Ah, I see. And he has sent you!"
"He'd die sooner than send me to you."
"And yet--you came?"
"Don't you see?" pleaded Kate. "He's in a corner. He's about to go--bad!"
"Miss Pollard, how do you know these things?"
"Because I'm the daughter of the leader of the gang!"
She said it without shame, proudly.
"I've tried to keep him from the life he intends leading," said Kate. "I
can't turn him. He laughs at me. I'm nothing to him, you see? And he
loves the new life. He loves the freedom. Besides, he thinks that there's
no hope. That he has to be what his father was before him.
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