Bert's father had been that strange anomaly, a man of strong religious beliefs, yet a hopeless slave to drink. He had not succumbed to temptation without a struggle. Many times had he signed the pledge, and he had kept it for intervals, sometimes of weeks, sometimes of months. During these periods of sobriety, he had done his best to instil religious truth into the minds of his children. He had warned them against his own vice. He had besought them to be true, and honest, and sober.
He was wise enough to know that his intemperance would probably involve his children's ruin as well as his own, yet this consideration was powerless to restrain him in the moment of weakness. Living where the enemy met him at every turn, his destruction was sure and swift. He had loved his children to the end; and Bert remembered that almost the last words he had heard from his father's lips were the prayer,—
"Deliver them from the evil."
He had felt sure that the words referred to himself and the Princess, but he had never thought about their meaning. Only now did a vague notion of the evil from which their father had prayed that they might be delivered begin to form itself within his mind.
[CHAPTER IV]
The Princess's Letter
BERT found an early opportunity of pleading his own cause with the landlady. But in vain he begged her to let him remain longer in the miserable room he had called his home. He had no right to it. The poor furniture it contained was the property of the landlady, and she saw her way to letting the room to better advantage.
"What does a boy like you want with a room?" she asked. "You're always in the street. All you need is a place to sleep in. I'll put a shake-down for you in the corner under the stairs, and you'll be as cosy there as possible."
"But we shall want a room when Prin comes back," said Bert.
"Oh, well, it will be time enough to talk of that when she does come back," said the woman; and the words sent a chill to Bert's heart.