CHAPTER IX

AN UNEXPECTED ALLY


Bessie's heart leaped at the sight of the man who had given her her wild
tramp through the night, and it was all she could do to resist her
impulse to rush out, accuse him of the crime she knew he had committed,
and demand that he give Dolly up to her at once. It was hard to believe
that he was really dangerous.

Here, in the early morning light, his clothes soaked by the wet woods,
as were Bessie's for that matter, he looked very cheap and tawdry, and
not at all like a man to be feared. But a moment's reflection convinced
Bessie that, for the time at least, it would be far wiser to leave
matters in the hands of Lolla, the gypsy girl, who understood this man,
and, if she feared him, and with cause, did so from reasons very
different from Bessie's.

For a moment after he came in sight John did not see Lolla. Bessie
watched the pair, so different from any people she had ever seen at
close range before, narrowly. She was intensely interested in Lolla, and
wondered mightily what the gypsy girl intended to do. But she did not
have long to wait.

Lolla, with a little cry, rushed forward, and, casting herself on the
ground at her lover's feet, seized his hand and kissed it. At first she
said not a word; only looked up at him with her black, brilliant eyes,
in which Bessie could see that a tear was glistening.