Page:Her Benny - Silas K Hocking (Warne, 1890).djvu/218

194 a hardened offender. The case was also proved against him, and he was sentenced to be kept in prison for three calendar months. Perks heard the sentence unmoved. He liked liberty best, it is true, but the only thing that grieved him was that it was summer-time. If it had been winter, he would not have cared a straw; but as it was he was determined to make the best of it, and get as much enjoyment out of it as he possibly could.

So Perks and Benny drifted apart, and Benny wondered if they would ever meet again. Life before him lay dark and cheerless. He seemed to have drifted away from everything: no friend was left to him in all the world. There were granny and Joe, but he could not see them, for he felt that if a shade of suspicion crept into their manner, it would break his heart. No, he would keep away. Then there was Mr. Lawrence; he could expect nothing further from him. He believed him to be a thief, of that there could be no doubt, and so doubtless did Morgan and all the other clerks. And then there was little Eva, the angel that had brightened his life for six brief months, and whose bright shilling nothing could induce him to part with. Did she believe him guilty too? Of course she did. His guilt must seem so clear to every one of them. And so he was alone in the world, without a friend to help, unless God would help him; but of that he did not feel quite sure. Sometimes he thought that the Lord would surely provide, but at other times he doubted.

He was at liberty, it was true, and ought he not to be