“You see, Mrs. Acton—I’ve been struck ever since we sailed by the courage you showed in crossing the world like this, at the word from a stranger——”
“Stranger,” she repeated.
“I wanted you to take me up on that, but the fact is, you came at my word.”
“’Twas not much I had to leave——”
“I liked it better than the hotel.”
“Do you know, Mr. Bellair, I never gave up the hope of travel—a bit of travel before I passed? But I thought it would be alone from Davy——” Her eyes glistened.
Bellair was wondering if there were others in that tenement-house who had kept a hope.
“You know,” he said, “when I decided to ask you to come—because I was far from finished with our lad—I anticipated that it would be somewhat of a struggle. I saw how hard it was for you at first—the night we told you about his loss of a place——”
“We were on the edge so long—the least bump ready to push us over,” she murmured.
“I made a little arrangement with the express company to furnish you with a return ticket—you and Davy, or cheques to secure them, and enough beside to get you back to New York at any time——”