The child’s lip quivered. A wave of desolation was sweeping over the lonely little heart. With the greater clearness of perception that was coming to him by degrees, was coming also a clearer understanding of the peculiar isolation of his position. He had less and less hope of remembering the past—its fleeting memories grew rather less than more defined, and eluded his grasp with even greater pertinacity than at first. He was not old enough to realize to the full the curious position he occupied; but he did begin to understand something of the situation, and to feel his loneliness and friendlessness with the acute sensibility peculiar to childhood.
“Nobody wants me,” he said, slowly; “I don’t belong to anybody in the world; I haven’t even got a name. The Squire is very kind; but he doesn’t want me. He would rather I was somewhere else.”
A tear rolled slowly down each of the child’s cheeks and fell upon his little thin hands. Bertie looked meditatively at them as they sparkled in the sunshine, and then he slowly wiped his eyes.
“I mustn’t be a baby,” he said, shaking his head. “That won’t do any good, and people will think I am naughty and ungrateful. I wish I could be happy like Queenie; but she has a papa and mamma and a home of her own, and I have nobody.” He put his hands up to his head again with the old perplexed look, but that faded in time, as the blank of the present closed him in.
“I think I’ll go and see David,” he said, slowly; and, rising to his feet, he wandered down to the shore.
David was always more or less on the look-out for his beloved companion. His tender admiration for Bertie had in no wise diminished; indeed, it seemed rather to increase as time passed by, though he gave it little expression.
He ran up eagerly to meet Bertie as he approached, but all he said was,—
“I do be glad thee’s come.”
Still these simple words of welcome were sweet to Bertie at this minute.
“David,” he said, as they wandered down to the margin of the waves, hand in hand and with slow, lingering steps, “I’m afraid He’s forgotten me—I am indeed.”