"What were you to Christ?" asked the still small voice that haunted him. "What were you to Him, that He should seek after you? Was it any benefit to Him that you should be found and brought back to God? Did He leave nothing, give up nothing, to save you? Was all the world pleasant and smooth to Him whilst He sought you? Go home to your own ease and comfort, if you will; but do not think He will own you as one of His. Remember what He said, 'Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord! Lord! shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.'"
Mr. Shafto plodded on through the noisy and dirty streets, in spite of his weary limbs and aching head. He pursued his way resolutely amid the throngs of people and conveyances, looking carefully through his short-sighted, dim eyes at every boy who was selling fusees, and asking one now and then if he knew anything of Sandy Carroll. None of them knew Sandy Carroll, though, if he had enquired for "Carrots," many could have given him the information he wanted. There seemed to him a vast army of fusee boys and newspaper boys, who quickly caught his eye turned upon them, and pursued him instantly as a possible customer. He felt badgered and worried, but he would not give up his search.
He turned at last towards the neighbourhood where Sandy had lived, and wound his way in and out among the back slums and alleys, asking many a question of the terrible-looking women dawdling about them. There was something in his solemn face and voice which impressed them, as if they thought him some important personage going about in disguise, and they were mostly eager to tell him all they knew and suspected of Nancy Carroll. There was not very much doubt among them that she had made away with Gipsy, perhaps in a drunken fit, scarcely knowing what she was about. But she had quite disappeared from her old haunts, and Sandy had not been seen since Sunday evening.
The policeman on that beat knew nothing more than the neighbours; for since Sandy had positively sworn that the murdered child was not his sister, the enquiry after his mother had ceased. "There was no chance," he said, "of finding the missing child now that more than a week had passed by with no news of her. She was dead, without doubt, by this time, whether she was murdered or no."
It was quite late in the afternoon when Mr. Shafto reached home again, so worn-out with his unusual exertions that he could scarcely drag one foot after the other. Heart sore, as well as foot sore, he was. He had seen strange sights that day—women lying drunk upon the pavement, unable to reach their own miserable homes, and hide there; children shivering with cold, and starved almost to skeletons. Once when he had sat down on a doorstep, too weary to go farther without resting a few minutes, a child had called to him through a broken cellar window, begging for a morsel of bread. He had made a pilgrimage through some of the dreariest places in the great city; and he went home forgetting himself in the thought of the sin and misery seething about him.
He was very quiet as he sat in his arm-chair, watching Mrs. Shafto get ready the tea. Both she and John guessed he had no good news about Sandy; and they did not venture to ask him where he had been looking for him, lest he should answer in a vexed and angry manner. But he did not stretch out his tired legs so as to take up all the hearth; and he smiled faintly, as if it were a difficult thing to smile, at his wife's attention to him.
"Johnny," he said, "don't you hear a little noise in the chapel yard?"
John Shafto had heard a slight, very slight sound about the shop window, as if a dog were prowling round it. But, until his father spoke, he had not liked to move, lest it should disturb him. Now he drew his crutches to him with readiness, and started off to see what this unusual noise might mean.
He returned in a few minutes, his face glowing with pleasure, but with a little hesitation in his manner. Mr. Shafto had just begun his tea; but he put down his knife and fork, as though he would not listen to John's intelligence whilst he was eating. His wife could not understand what this change might mean.
"It's Sandy, father," said John; "he won't come in."