“Heaven forbid!” cried the conscience-stricken teacher, and his huge hand trembled on the lock of the door.
“Go in first,” said he to Arthur, giving him the lantern. “She will be less afraid of you than of me.”
Arthur opened the door, and shading the lantern, so as to soften its glare, he went in with cautious steps. A little black figure, with white hands and white face, was kneeling between the desk and the stove. The hands were clasped so tightly, they looked as if they had grown together, and the face had a still, marble look—but life, intensely burning life was in the large, wild eyes uplifted to his own.
“Helen, my child!” said he, setting the lantern on the stove, and stooping till his hair, silvered with the night-frost, touched her cheek.
With a faint but thrilling cry, she sprang forward, and threw her arms round his neck; and there she clung, sobbing one moment, and laughing the next, in an ecstasy of joy and gratitude.
“I thought you’d come, if you knew it,” she cried.
This implicit confidence in his protection, touched the young man, and he wrapped his arms more closely round her shivering frame.
“How cold you are!” he exclaimed. “Let me fold my cloak about you, and put both your hands in mine, they are like pieces of ice.”
“Helen, you poor little forlorn lamb,” cried a rough, husky voice—and the sudden eclipse of a great shadow passed over her. “Helen, I did not mean to leave you here—on my soul I did not. I forgot all about you. As I hope to be forgiven for my cruelty, it is true. I only meant to keep you here till school was dismissed—and I have let you stay till you are starved, and frozen, and almost dead.”
“It was my fault,” replied Helen, in a meek, subdued tone, “but I’ll try and study better, if you won’t shut me up here any more.”