His companion looked as if she neither understood or heeded his last words.
"No man can serve two masters!" said she. "It's in the book you told me of just now. I used to read it years ago when I was a child;—but I have forgotten it, for the most part, since then,—and I don't want to remember!"
She passed the corner of her thin shawl over her eyes as she spoke, and ran hastily up the wide staircase before Marshall could utter a word in reply, pausing a moment at the first landing to point out the room in which the Reardons lived.
"You may hear the children singing," said she, "if you like to listen. I often do as I go past at night. They are locked in now. They are a proud set—those Reardons—but it's my belief that they want a friend, bad enough, poor things!"
She passed on quickly as she spoke, and disappeared in the darkness beyond, while the old clerk, after lingering a moment to listen to the children singing their little hymns, retraced his steps somewhat wearily, and prepared to return home.
No one who saw Peter Marshall that night with his hat bent down over his eyes, and his coat collar turned up to keep out the cold, walking with slow and feeble steps, hesitating when he came to a crossing, and praying, doubtless, like Polly and Bessie, before he attempted to go over, and pushed, and jostled by the busy crowd, would have taken him to be the messenger of a great King.
The old clerk never thought to notice as he stood outside, on the cold landing, listening to Polly and Bessie, singing their simple hymns, that their young voices were low and tremulous. The poor children, although they knew that the door was safely locked, so that nothing could get in to hurt them, did not like to be left alone. They were afraid, and then, as children have a habit of doing at such times, they began to sing, somewhat faintly at first, until the sound of their own voices, or, it may be, the sweet words of the hymn, gave them courage, and they never left off until they had sung all they knew.
Bessie was the first to break the silence that followed. "Isn't it time father and mother came home?" asked she.
"I should think it was," replied Polly. "They are sure not to be longer than they can help, on account of father's cough. You are not tired, are you, Bessie?"
"No," answered the child; "but I wish they'd come. I don't like being left alone—I don't mind it so much since teacher told us about the Good Shepherd and the hired shepherd."