“What are you thinking of?” the other woman remonstrated. “When he finds she don’t come home, our place will be the first place he looks for her in.”
Amelius settled the difficulty, in his own headlong way, “I’ll take care of her for the night,” he said. “Sally, will you trust yourself with me?”
She put her hand in his, with the air of a child who was ready to go home. Her wan face brightened for the first time. “Thank you, sir,” she said; “I’ll go anywhere along with you.”
The policeman smiled. The two women looked thunderstruck. Before they had recovered themselves, Amelius forced them to take some money from him, and cordially shook hands with them. “You’re good creatures,” he said, in his eager, hearty way; “I’m sincerely sorry for you. Now, Mr. Policeman, show me where to find a cab—and take that for the trouble I am giving you. You’re a humane man, and a credit to the force.”
In five minutes more, Amelius was on the way to his lodgings, with Simple Sally by his side. The act of reckless imprudence which he was committing was nothing but an act of Christian duty, to his mind. Not the slightest misgiving troubled him. “I shall provide for her in some way!” he thought to himself cheerfully. He looked at her. The weary outcast was asleep already in her corner of the cab. From time to time she still shivered, even in her sleep. Amelius took off his great-coat, and covered her with it. How some of his friends at the club would have laughed, if they had seen him at that moment!
He was obliged to wake her when the cab stopped. His key admitted them to the house. He lit his candle in the hall, and led her up the stairs. “You’ll soon be asleep again, Sally,” he whispered.
She looked round the little sitting-room with drowsy admiration. “What a pretty place to live in!” she said.
“Are you hungry again?” Amelius asked.
She shook her head, and took off her shabby bonnet; her pretty light-brown hair fell about her face and her shoulders. “I think I’m too tired, sir, to be hungry. Might I take the sofa-pillow, and lay down on the hearth-rug?”
Amelius opened the door of his bedroom. “You are to pass the night more comfortably than that,” he answered. “There is a bed for you here.”