"The thief was to?"
"Yes, the thief," repeated Esther. "And he hadn't done more than that bit of a prayer, neither."
"Maybe I wouldn't be heard if I was to ask too," muttered Jem.
Esther looked round involuntarily round at the dark abode of misery. This dreary cellar—was it possible that a dying prayer, uttered in such a place, could by any possibility ascend upwards—could escape through all the damp, and dirt, and oppression which weighed upon the very air—could pass onwards, higher and higher, to the pure blue sky far above the great city's wretchedness—could rise yet farther upwards till it reached the throne of God Himself? Esther did not put the question in words, but she felt something like it, and shook her head.
"Maybe not. We haven't much to do with prayin' hereabouts," she said bitterly. "I've nigh forgotten the meanin' o' the word."
Seemingly passing into stupor, Jem Carter lay, his hand flung out on the torn carpet which formed his covering. Presently the old woman came back, and, seeing that there was nothing more to be done, Esther took her departure. The old woman settled herself down on a little heap of rags in one corner, and was soon nodding and rocking drowsily. Ailie crept to her habitual resting-place at the foot of the flock-bed, and there, wearied out, she dropped asleep.
Was it night when she awoke? She sat up, and rubbed her eyes. Yes, darkness still, except for the fitful flashes of the half-expiring candle, with its unsnuffed wick. The broken back of the chair, on which it stood, was reflected in huge bars of shadow against the walls. Ailie watched them as they moved to and fro, and then she glanced at her father's face. How ghastly it looked, lying back on the bundle of rags which served for a pillow, while one bony hand was folded over the other. Ailie sat more upright.
"Father, father," she whispered. Was he living still?
She did not venture to speak aloud. The midnight silence was broken sharply by the step and voice of a drunken man, reeling along outside the window. Ailie shivered at the sound. She could see the old woman across the cellar, not nodding now, but fast asleep, her gray head leaning against the damp wall. Ailie dared not rouse her, but watched her father's face in aching fear; and all at once, he opened his eyes.
Dull eyes they were, yet they recognized his little girl, and she whispered "Father!"