Part 17 (1/2)
”Oh, yes, I see,” he said. ”Well, good-night. I'll be round early to-morrow to make arrangements.”
Peg shut the door after him, and went back to Faith. The girl was awake, and sitting up in bed with feverish eyes.
”Has he gone?” she asked in a whisper.
”Yes.” Peg sat down beside the bed. ”Here, have you two been and had a real row?” she demanded.
”Yes,” Faith whispered.
Peg said ”Humph! You mean a proper old glory-row like they have in novelettes, eh? Don't mean to make it up till the last chapter, if ever, eh?”
”I never mean to make it up.”
There was a little silence; then Peg said:
”With all his money, it might be worth while.”
Faith hid her face.
”I don't want his money. I only want my mother,” she sobbed.
”You poor chicken!” Peg took her into motherly arms.
”You shan't ever see him again if you don't want,” she promised rashly.
”He shan't come in here except over my dead body,” she added, with tragic emphasis, and a sudden memory of a pink-backed novelette still lying at home unfinished....
But she found the Beggar Man more difficult to manage than she had imagined. He demanded to see Faith, and being determinedly repulsed, asked reasons.
Peg hesitated; then she said with evident enjoyment:
”Well, you'll have to know in the end, so I may as well tell you now!
She's found out something about you.”
Forrester changed colour a little.
”What the deuce do you mean?” he demanded.
Peg shrugged her shoulders.
”I only mean that she told me so last night. Of course, she's sick and ill, and everything looks its blackest, and I told her she was making too much of it, but she wouldn't listen! I'm not sensitive myself, but she seems to think you're responsible for her father's death. Her father was a gentleman, you know,” she added in emphatic parenthesis.
The Beggar Man laughed.
”I never knew her father. I never saw him in my life to the best of my knowledge.”
Peg regarded him with her handsome head on one side, and her arms akimbo.
”Have you ever read a book called 'Revenge is Sweet'?” she asked.