“Was it Munday?” inquires the old man. Scarce has he lisped the name
before she catches it up and repeats it, incoherently, “Munday! Monday!
Munday!” her eyes flash with anxiety. “Ah, I remember now. I was called
Anna Munday by Mother Bridges. I lived with her before I got to the den
of Hag Zogbaum. And Mother Bridges sold apples at a stand at the corner
of a street, on West street. It seems like a dream to me now. I do not
want to recall those dark days of my childhood. Have you not some
revelation to make respecting my parents?” The old man says the signs
will not aid him further. “On my arm,” she pursues, baring her white,
polished arm, “there is a mark. I know not who imprinted it there. See,
old man.” The old man sees high up on her right arm two hearts and a
broken anchor, impressed with India ink blue and red. “Yes,” repeats
the antiquary, viewing it studiously, “but it gives out no history. If
you could remember who put it there.” Of that she has no recollection.
The old man cannot relieve her anxiety, and arranging her hood she bids
him good night, forces a piece of gold into his hand, and seeks her
home, disappointed.
The antiquary’s predictions were founded on what Mr. Soloman Snivel had
told him, and that gentleman got what he knew of Anna’s history from
George Mullholland. To this, however, he added what suggestions his
suspicions gave rise to. The similarity of likeness between Anna and
Madame Montford was striking; Madame Montford’s mysterious searches and
inquiries for the woman Monday had something of deep import in them.
Mag Munday’s strange disappearance from Charleston, and her previous
importuning for the old dress left in pawn with McArthur, were not to
be overlooked. These things taken together, and Mr. Snivel saw a case
there could be no mistaking. That case became stronger when his
fashionable friend engaged his services to trace out what had become of
the woman Mag Munday, and to further ascertain what the girl Anna
Bonard knew of her own history.
CHAPTER XIX.
A SECRET INTERVIEW.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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