Then Roy spoke in a whisper, as if in his untutored mind he felt that in the presence of such sorrow a loud word would be a sacrilege—“Janet!”
She turned and looked him in the face. He was pale and trembling, and the words came painfully, as if he feared to hurt her any more.
“Janet—when they took your mother out of here, she was dead. I seed her face. I didn’t say nothin’, but I know she was dead, and I come now to tell you. But I wish I hadn’t—you look so white and scared.”
The only sound was a choking gasp from the poor child.
Roy took her hand in his. “Janet, I love you! Don’t look so white! It scares me. If anything happened to you it would kill me. You’re all I’ve got in the world. Don’t look so—I can’t stand it. I’ll take care of you. I earn a good bit of money some days. I’ll work hard, and then when we are older——”
“What?” said the girl simply.
“Why, then we’ll get the good Bishop to marry us. There now, Janet, be a good girl and come away, before the men come back, for I saw them goin’ out in the street, an’ if they catch us here when they come for the key, they’ll say we have it too, and they’ll take us away in that ugly black ambulance.”
So she let him lead her out of that garret so full of memories, down the dark rickety stairs, into the cold street. They were homeless, friendless orphans, starting out on life’s stormy sea, hungry, cold, forsaken.
They walked hand in hand until they were several blocks away, in another part of the slums, where Janet had never been. Then, standing in the shelter of a doorway, they looked at each other for some time in silence. At last Roy spoke:
“Janet, dear—I don’t know where to take you.”