With steps more faltering and unsteady than those with which she had approached the room, the child withdrew from the door, and groped her way back to her own chamber.The terror she had lately felt was nothing compared with that which now oppressed her.No strange robber, no treacherous host conniving at the plunder of his guests, or stealing to their beds to kill them in their sleep, no nightly prowler, however terrible and cruel, could have awakened in her bosom half the dread which the recognition of her silent visitor inspired.The grey-headed old man gliding like a ghost into her room and acting the thief while he supposed her fast asleep, then bearing off his prize and hanging over it with the ghastly exultation she had witnessed, was worse--immeasurably worse, and far more dreadful, for the moment, to reflect upon--than anything her wildest fancy could have suggested.If he should return--there was no lock or bolt upon the door, and if, distrustful of having left some money yet behind, he should come back to seek for more--a vague awe and horror surrounded the idea of his slinking in again with stealthy tread, and turning his face toward the empty bed, while she shrank down close at his feet to avoid his touch, which was almost insupportable.She sat and listened.Hark! A footstep on the stairs, and now the door was slowly opening.It was but imagination, yet imagination had all the terrors of reality; nay, it was worse, for the reality would have come and gone, and there an end, but in imagination it was always coming, and never went away.
The feeling which beset the child was one of dim uncertain horror.
She had no fear of the dear old grandfather, in whose love for her this disease of the brain had been engendered; but the man she had seen that night, wrapt in the game of chance, lurking in her room, and counting the money by the glimmering light, seemed like another creature in his shape, a monstrous distortion of his image, a something to recoil from, and be the more afraid of, because it bore a likeness to him, and kept close about her, as he did.She could scarcely connect her own affectionate companion, save by his loss, with this old man, so like yet so unlike him.
She had wept to see him dull and quiet.How much greater cause she had for weeping now!
The child sat watching and thinking of these things, until the phantom in her mind so increased in gloom and terror, that she felt it would be a relief to hear the old man's voice, or, if he were asleep, even to see him, and banish some of the fears that clustered round his image.She stole down the stairs and passage again.The door was still ajar as she had left it, and the candle burning as before.
She had her own candle in her hand, prepared to say, if he were waking, that she was uneasy and could not rest, and had come to see if his were still alight.Looking into the room, she saw him lying calmly on his bed, and so took courage to enter.
Fast asleep.No passion in the face, no avarice, no anxiety, no wild desire; all gentle, tranquil, and at peace.This was not the gambler, or the shadow in her room; this was not even the worn and jaded man whose face had so often met her own in the grey morning light; this was her dear old friend, her harmless fellow-traveller, her good, kind grandfather.
She had no fear as she looked upon his slumbering features, but she had a deep and weighty sorrow, and it found its relief in tears.
'God bless him!' said the child, stooping softly to kiss his placid cheek.'I see too well now, that they would indeed part us if they found us out, and shut him up from the light of the sun and sky.
He has only me to help him.God bless us both!'
Lighting her candle, she retreated as silently as she had come, and, gaining her own room once more, sat up during the remainder of that long, long, miserable night.
At last the day turned her waning candle pale, and she fell asleep.
She was quickly roused by the girl who had shown her up to bed;and, as soon as she was dressed, prepared to go down to her grandfather.But first she searched her pocket and found that her money was all gone--not a sixpence remained.
The old man was ready, and in a few seconds they were on their road.The child thought he rather avoided her eye, and appeared to expect that she would tell him of her loss.She felt she must do that, or he might suspect the truth.
'Grandfather,' she said in a tremulous voice, after they had walked about a mile in silence, 'do you think they are honest people at the house yonder?'
'Why?' returned the old man trembling.'Do I think them honest--yes, they played honestly.'
'I'll tell you why I ask,' rejoined Nell.'I lost some money last night--out of my bedroom, I am sure.Unless it was taken by somebody in jest--only in jest, dear grandfather, which would make me laugh heartily if I could but know it--'
'Who would take money in jest?' returned the old man in a hurried manner.
'Those who take money, take it to keep.Don't talk of jest.'
'Then it was stolen out of my room, dear,' said the child, whose last hope was destroyed by the manner of this reply.
'But is there no more, Nell?' said the old man; 'no more anywhere?
Was it all taken--every farthing of it--was there nothing left?'
'Nothing,' replied the child.
'We must get more,' said the old man, 'we must earn it, Nell, hoard it up, scrape it together, come by it somehow.Never mind this loss.Tell nobody of it, and perhaps we may regain it.Don't ask how;--we may regain it, and a great deal more;--but tell nobody, or trouble may come of it.And so they took it out of thy room, when thou wert asleep!' he added in a compassionate tone, very different from the secret, cunning way in which he had spoken until now.'Poor Nell, poor little Nell!'
The child hung down her head and wept.The sympathising tone in which he spoke, was quite sincere; she was sure of that.It was not the lightest part of her sorrow to know that this was done for her.
