Page:Her Benny - Silas K Hocking (Warne, 1890).djvu/139

Rh and rest satisfied that your little sister will be well taken care of."

"Oh, please," said Benny, making a last appeal, the great tears running down his cheeks the while.

"I cannot let you see her, however willing I might be," said the man. "Now run away, there's a good lad."

"Oh, dear," groaned Benny, as he stepped out into the darkening street. "What shall I do? what shall I do?"

He had tasted no food since noon, but he never thought of hunger. He had been on the tramp all the day, but he felt no weariness. There was one great pain in his heart, and that banished every other feeling. Nelly was in that great house suffering, perhaps dying; and he could not speak to her—not even look at her. What right had these people to keep his Nelly from him? Was not she his own little Nell, all that he had in the wide, wide world? How dared they, then, to turn him away? Hour after hour he wandered up and down in front of the huge building, watching the twinkling lights in its many windows. How could he go away while Nelly was suffering there? Could he sleep in his snug corner while his own little Nell was suffering amongst strangers? It could not be.

So when the great town grew silent around him, he sat down on a doorstep nearly opposite the entrance, and waited for the morning.

The night was chilly, but he felt not the cold; his heart felt as if it would burn through his body. How long the