He said nothing but “Oh!” and stood for a moment uncertain, not knowing what to say. But what could a stranger say? He was obliged to turn again and go away, after a great many fumblings with the door.

Next morning they began, sadly, the necessary work of putting away their father’s papers and his little personal possessions. In his writing-book there was a letter half written to their mother, which they put aside carefully as a sacred thing, not looking, for love, at his last words. But on one of the pages of the blotting-book they found once more the address which had excited their curiosity before, “3 Grove Road, Hampstead,” written obliquely across the page. It was repeated on a scrap of paper which marked his place in the book which they remembered he had been reading, and on which, besides, there were some jottings of dates and names which they did not understand. These were—“Left July ’45—— U. A. died ’55—— due with interest for 20 years——.” The word “interest” discouraged the girls; it must be something about business, they thought. This perpetually recurring address, however, bewildered them. They went on with their sad occupation without saying much to each other, but when they sat down to rest and to take the food which their youthful appetites began to demand, notwithstanding their trouble, Grace suddenly broke the silence.

“It must be some old friend, who lives there,” she said.

Milly made no reply in words, but she looked up with instant response and comprehension.

“I think,” said Grace, “we ought to go and see who it is. It might be a relation. It might be some one who would stand by us: we are so very lonely here. It might be some—lady. I think we should go—directly—as soon as you are ready, Milly.”

“Oh, I am ready,” Milly said, starting up. The new idea gave them a little spring and energy. They almost ran to put on their little crape bonnets and their out-door jackets—which had been made for them at the pleasure of the dressmaker, hastily summoned and allowed to work her will—and which were heavy and laden with crape. They were like monuments of woe, from head to foot, in these garments; their two little pale faces, so white and so small, looking out with increased pallor from their heavy black. Milly had a good deal of gold and a good deal of curl in her light brown hair, which shone out with double force from these gloomy surroundings, like a protest of nature. Grace’s locks were darker and smoother. She was the least pretty of the two, but her eyes were larger and more expressive than those fawn eyes of Milly’s, which at present wore but one look, that of startled wistfulness and pleading—an entreaty to all the world to be pitiful. They went off upon their new mission, however, with a little consolation in the relief of the novelty, stealing quietly downstairs that nobody might come out upon them to ask questions or offer help.

[CHAPTER VI]

IT did not occur to the girls in their inexperience to make any attempt to find out who lived at No. 3, Grove Road. They got out of their cab at the door of the house with a flutter of anxious and excited feeling, but still without any thought that the stranger or strangers they were about to see were anonymous, and that their only warrant in thus invading an unknown house was the scrap of paper which they had brought with them as their credentials. The house was a kind of villa, such as abound in the suburbs, with shrubberies around it, and high hedges, and a green door, between two smooth green lines of privet. They stood for a moment and looked round them at the bare tree-tops rising all round against the chilly blue sky; and the unfrequented road all overgrown with grass; and the houses nearly hidden by these jealous hedges. The girls did not understand this jealous privacy of suburban life, and they shivered a little as they looked round, hearing nothing and seeing nothing. In the morning Grove Road was alive with tradesmen’s carts, with nursery-maids and children setting out for their walk on the heath, but in the afternoon a dead silence fell upon it. The rooms in which the inmates lived were on the other side, and here nothing was visible except a blank range of windows over those green lines of hedge, broken only by the still more absolute enclosure of the shut door. They looked at each other, and thought of their father coming out here into the dark, into the rain on that fatal night. They understood now how impossible it would be for him to get either shelter or a carriage to bring him back.

“You would think there was spite in those dreadful doors,” said Grace, “wouldn’t you, Milly? As if it would give them pleasure to shut themselves tight and refuse all shelter; not a porch that any one could stand under. Oh, when we used to hear of the English liking to be private, we never thought of this!”

Milly looked at them mournfully too, and they both thought of the different scenes they had been used to, with that comparison which it is almost impossible for strangers not to make. Then Grace turned round with a sudden impulse and pulled the bell, which they could hear make a long but subdued tinkle just over the green door. But they had to wait still for some minutes before there was any response. The moment the deed was done, the bell rung and entrance demanded, Milly turned to her sister with her usual “Oh!” of appeal.