“Speaking seriously though, Kit,” said his mother taking up the theme afresh, after a time, “for of course I was only in joke just now, it’s very good and thoughtful, and like you, to do this, and never let anybody know it, though some day I hope she may come to know it, for I’m sure she would be very grateful to you and feel it very much. It’s a cruel thing to keep the dear child shut up there. I don’t wonder that the old gentleman wants to keep it from you.”
“He don’t think it’s cruel, bless you,” said Kit, “and don’t mean it to be so, or he wouldn’t do it—I do consider, mother, that he wouldn’t do it for all the gold and silver in the world. No no, that he wouldn’t. I know him better than that.”
“Then what does he do it for, and why does he keep it so close from you?” said Mrs. Nubbles.
“That I don’t know” returned her son. “If he hadn’t tried to keep it so close though, I should never have found it out, for it was his getting me away at night and sending me off so much earlier than he used to, that first made me curious to know what was going on. Hark! what’s that?”
“It’s only somebody outside.”
“It’s somebody crossing over here”—said Kit, standing up to listen, “and coming very fast too. He can’t have gone out after I left, and the house caught fire, mother!”
The boy stood for a moment, really bereft, by the apprehension he had conjured up, of the power to move. The footsteps drew nearer, the door was opened with a hasty hand, and the child herself, pale and breathless, and hastily wrapped in a few disordered garments, hurried into the room.
“Miss Nelly! What is the matter!” cried mother and son together.
“I must not stay a moment,” she returned, “grandfather has been taken very ill, I found him in a fit upon the floor—”
“I’ll run for a doctor”—said Kit, seizing his brimless hat. “I’ll be there directly, I’ll—”
“No, no,” cried Nell, “there is one there, you’re not wanted, you—you—must never come near us any more!”
“What!” roared Kit.
“Never again,” said the child. “Don’t ask me why, for I don’t know. Pray don’t ask me why, pray don’t be sorry, pray don’t be vexed with me, I have nothing to do with it indeed!”
Kit looked at her with his eyes stretched wide, and opened and shut his mouth a great many times, but couldn’t get out one word.
“He complains and raves of you,” said the child, “I don’t know what you have done, but I hope it’s nothing very bad.”
“I done!” roared Kit.
“He cries that you’re the cause of all his misery,” returned the child with tearful eyes; “he screamed and called for you, they say you must not come near him or he will die. You must not return to us any more. I came to tell you. I thought it would be better that I should come than somebody quite strange. Oh, Kit, what have you done? you, in whom I trusted so much, and who were almost the only friend I had!”
The unfortunate Kit looked at his young mistress harder and harder, and with eyes growing wider and wider, but was perfectly motionless and silent.
“I have brought his money for the week,” said the child, looking to the woman and laying it on the table—“and—and—a little more, for he was always good and kind to me. I hope he will be sorry and do well somewhere else and not take this to heart too much. It grieves me very much to part with him like this, but there is no help. It must be done. Good night!”
With the tears streaming down her face, and her slight figure trembling with the agitation of the scene she had left, the shock she had received, the errand she had just discharged, and a thousand painful and affectionate feelings, the child hastened to the door, and disappeared as rapidly as she had come.
The poor woman, who had no cause to doubt her son but every reason for relying on his honesty and truth, was staggered notwithstanding by his not having advanced one word in his defence. Visions of gallantry, knavery, robbery; and of the nightly absences from home for which he had accounted so strangely, having been occasioned by some unlawful pursuit; flocked into her brain and rendered her afraid to question him. She rocked herself upon a chair wringing her hands and weeping bitterly, but Kit made no attempt to comfort her and remained quite bewildered. The baby in the cradle woke up and cried, the boy in the clothes-basket fell over on his back with the basket upon him and was seen no more, the mother wept louder yet and rocked faster, but Kit, insensible to all the din and tumult, remained in a state of utter stupefaction.
XI
Quiet and solitude were destined to hold uninterrupted rule no longer, beneath the roof that sheltered the child. Next morning the old man was in a raging fever accompanied with delirium, and sinking under the influence of this disorder he lay for many weeks in imminent peril of his life. There was watching enough now, but it was the watching of strangers who made of it a greedy trade, and who, in the intervals of their attendance upon the sick man huddled together with a ghastly good-fellowship, and eat and drunk and made merry; for disease and death were their ordinary household gods.
Yet in all the hurry and crowding of such a time, the child was more alone than she had ever been before; alone in spirit, alone in her devotion to him who was wasting away upon his burning bed, alone in her unfeigned
