"Were you all alone here last night?"
"Yes!"
Perhaps they saw the look of indignation and pity in the editor's face,
for the boy said quickly--
"She don't go out EVERY night; last night she went to"--
He stopped suddenly, and both children looked at each other with a half
laugh and half cry, and then repeated in hopeless unison, "She's dorn
out."
"When is she coming back again?"
"To-night. But we won't make any more noise."
"Who brings you your food?" continued the editor, looking at the tray.
"Woberts."
Evidently Roberts, the night watchman! The editor felt relieved; here
was a clue to some explanation. He instantly sat down on the floor
between them.
"So that was the dolly that slept in my bed," he said gayly, taking it
up.
God gives helplessness a wonderful intuition of its friends. The
children looked up at the face of their grown-up companion, giggled, and
then burst into a shrill fit of laughter. He felt that it was the first
one they had really indulged in for many days. Nevertheless he said,
"Hush!" confidentially; why he scarcely knew, except to intimate to them
that he had taken in their situation thoroughly. "Make no noise," he
added softly, "and come into my big room."
They hung back, however, with frightened yet longing eyes. "Mamma said
we mussent do out of this room," said the girl.
"Not ALONE," responded the editor quickly, "but with ME, you know;
that's different."
The logic sufficed them, poor as it was. Their hands slid quite
naturally into his. But at the door he stopped, and motioning to the
locked door of the other room, asked:--
"And is that mamma's room, too?"
Their little hands slipped from his and they were silent. Presently the
boy, as if acted upon by some occult influence of the girl, said in a
half whisper, "Yes."
The editor did not question further, but led them into his room. Here
they lost the slight restraint they had shown, and began, child fashion,
to become questioners themselves.
In a few moments they were in possession of his name, his business, the
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