in,
this time more actively.

The crippled knife-grinder Pierre had entered. His mother was again
busied with her potations. Under the half-lifted rags showed the
tear-stained face of Louise. The heavy fatigue of street mendicancy
had wrapped her in deep sleep, from which she woke with a start to her
wretched surroundings. The misery of it all overwhelmed her. She
sobbed, and the big tears descended from her blind eyes.

"Don't cry, Louise!" begged the almost equally wretched Pierre. "There
may yet be escape and the finding of your sister. Oh!" he said to
himself. "If I had but the courage to lay down my life that I might
make her happy!"

* * * * *

The ruffian Jacques Frochard was exhibiting a sinister interest in the
blind girl. He had forbidden Pierre to speak to her or come near her,
and now as he entered, the crippled brother shrank away. "Get up and
go to work!" said Mother Frochard to the girl roughly, yanking her to
her feet.

"I'll find a way to make her work!" laughed Jacques with fiendish
coarseness. "You'll slave for me, eh, my pretty? Yes, for you, no one
but Jacques!"

He leered at her as he appropriated the coins of her singing.

Huddled in the corner, the silent cripple bit his finger knuckles
until they bled....

* * * * *

Inflamed with liquor and lust, Jacques soon decided to carry out his
purpose.

"Come with me, my little beauty!"

Mother Frochard chuckled at the sight of him mastering her. Struggle
wildly as the poor blind creature would to avoid his grip, he was
dragging her slowly to the stair while her screams were stifled by one
rough hand over her mouth.

But as he was doing this, the huddled figure rose. "I have been a
coward long enough," said Pierre. "Don't touch her!" laying a
restraining hand on Jacques' arm.

Astonished, Jacques turned. "Who'll stop me?" He flung his brother
prostrate half way across the room.

The cripple had risen again. A dirk gleamed in his extended hand. His
eyes blazed like coals. Fury distorted his features which were craned
forward in hideous ugliness parallel with the knife.

"I will!"

"You misbegotten hunchback!" roared Jacques, letting loose of the girl
and drawing his own knife. "She is mine. I tell you I will kill anyone
who interferes with me!"

La Frochard tried to throw herself between the brothers. Louise groped
away, and as by instinct found re