"Jinnie, ain't we ever goin' back to Peggy?" Bobbie asked one day, his eyes rolling upward. His small face was seamed with questioning anxiety.
The girl drew him to her lap.
How many times Jinnie had asked that question of herself! How she longed for Paradise Road, with its row of shacks, Peggy and the baby! Bobby knew how she felt by the way she squeezed his hand.
"Ain't we?" he asked again.
"Some time," answered Jinnie limply.
"Did the black man say we could go, Jinnie?" the boy demanded.
Jinnie patted his head comfortingly.
"I hope he'll take us home soon," she remarked, trying to put full assurance into her tones.
Bobbie zigzagged back to the divan, drew himself upon it, and Jinnie knew by his abstracted manner that he was turning the matter over in his busy little brain.
Two hours later, when Jordan Morse came in, the child was still sitting in the same position, and the man beckoned the girl into the other room.
"Grandoken's trial is to start this afternoon within an hour," he informed her. "You'll be here to-day and to-morrow. You see the court won't be long in proving the cobbler's guilt."
If he had expected her to cry, he was mistaken. She was past crying, seemingly having shed all of her tears.
"He didn't do it," she averred stubbornly. "I know he didn't."
In justice to Lafe, she always reiterated this.
Morse gave a sinister laugh.
"What you know or don't know won't matter," he responded, and looking at the angry, beautiful face, he ejaculated, "Thank God for that!"
Jinnie turned her back, but he requested her sharply to look at him.
"Have you told the boy where I'm going to take you?" he demanded, when she was eyeing him disdainfully.
"No."
"I never knew a woman before who could hold her tongue," he commented in sarcasm.
Jinnie didn't heed the compliment.
"When he asks you questions, what do you tell him?"
"That you will come for us soon."
"I will, all right."
Jinnie went nearer him.
"Where are you going to take him?"
Morse shrugged his shoulders.
"You'll know in time," said he.
How ominous his words were, and how his eyes narrowed as he looked at her! She was thoroughly afraid of that tone in his voice. Her own fate she was sure of, but Bobbie--desperation filled her soul. She would beg Morse to let him go back to Peggy.
Lifting clasped hands, she walked very close to him.
"You're going to have all my money," she said with emphasis. "I've done everything I can, and I'll make Bobbie promise not to say a word to any one if you'll take him to Mrs. Grandoken."