The third stroke made him certain.
He was near Addler's Hall without knowing it. The tone of the church clock was as familiar to him as the voice of his father. Scores of times during the years of his childhood he had listened to that clang, waking up the midnight silence when all the others were asleep.
"I wonder if father's comed home yet?" he said to himself; "I'll go and see, anyhow."
Bowker's Row was as silent as the grave, and, as usual, wrapped in darkness. But the darkness was no difficulty to Benny, as he made his way cautiously up the dingy street and into the dingier court that was once his home. It seemed very strange to him that he should be there alone in the silent night, and that Nelly should be alone in her little grave miles away from where he stood.
What a lot had been crowded into his lonely life since last he stood in Addler's Hall, holding his little sister by the hand! And he wondered if ever Nelly left her beautiful home in the sky to pay a visit to the dreary haunts of her childhood.
Before him the door of his old home stood open—the night was not so dark but he could see that—and he could see also that the place wore even a more forsaken appearance than in former days.
Pausing for a moment on the threshold, he plunged into the darkness, then stood still in the middle of the room and listened; but no sound of breathing or noise of any kind broke the oppressive stillness.
He soon discovered also that the house was destitute of furniture; a few shavings under the stairs alone remained.
"The bobbies'll not find me 'ere, I reckon," he said to himself, "though Nelly may."
And he stretched himself on the shavings in the corner where he and his little sister used to sleep in the days that had gone for ever.