"Agnes," was the reply; whereupon Mrs. Warren opened the door a few inches, and Agnes squeezed in, immediately locking the door behind her.

She whispered something into Mrs. Warren's ear, which caused that good woman to turn deadly white and stagger against the wall.

"Yer've no time to faint, ma'am," said Agnes. "'Ere--let me slap yer on the back."

She gave two resounding whacks on Mrs. Warren's stout back, which caused that woman to heave a couple of profound sighs and then to recover her presence of mind.

She and Agnes then retired into her bedroom, where drawers were hastily opened, and much commotion was heard by the two prettily dressed and waiting children. In another minute or two Agnes came out alone.

"Wull," she said, "and 'ow be you, Connie?"

"I am all right," said Connie. "Where's Mammy Warren?"

"She's tuk bad, and won't want yer to go out a-walkin' with her to-day.

Oh my! oh my! how spry we be! It 'minds me o' the old song, 'As Willikins were a-walkin' wid his Dinah one day.'"

"Agnes," said Connie, "I'm certain sure as there's some'ut wrong."

"Be yer now?" said Agnes. "Wull then, ye're mistook. Wot could be wrong?

Ye're a very queer and suspicious gel, Connie Harris--the most suspicious as I hever see'd. Ye're just for all the world the most selfish gel as could be found in the whole o' Lunnun. Pore Mammy Warren was told of the sudden death of her sister, and that's all the sympathy you guvs her. Wery different she behaves to you and Ronald. 'Hagnes,'

says she, 'tike those pore children for a run,' says she, 'and bring them 'ome safe in time for dinner,' says she, 'an' give 'em some roast mutton for dinner, poor darlin's,' says Mammy Warren; and then she falls to cryin', and 'Oh, my sister!' she says, and 'Oh, poor Georgina!' she sobs. Now then, the pair of yer--out we goes, and I'll go wid yer."

Quick as thought Agnes accomplished her purpose, and the two prettily dressed children--Connie with her hair down her back, Ronald looking like a little prince--found themselves in the street. But if the two children thought that they had the slightest chance of running away they were terribly mistaken, for Agnes proved even a sharper taskmistress than Mrs. Warren. She seemed to Connie to have suddenly got quite old and very cruel and determined. She walked the children here, and she walked them there. They peered into shop windows and got into crowds, but they did no shopping that morning. Connie was rather glad of that, and now she was so accustomed to being stared at that she hardly took any notice; while as to Ronald, his sweet brown eyes looked full up into the face of every gentleman who pa.s.sed, in the faint hope of discovering his father again.

It seemed to Connie that they were out longer than usual; but at last they did come back. Then, to their great surprise, they found the door of Mammy Warren's sitting-room wide opened.

"My word! 'ow can this 'ave 'appened?" said Agnes.

They all went in, and Agnes went straight to the bedroom. She came out presently, wearing a very grave face, and told the children that she greatly feared poor Mammy Warren had gone off her head with grief--that there wasn't a sign of her in the bedroom, nor anywhere in the house.

"And she's took her things, too," said Agnes. "Wull, now--wull, I must go and search for her. Yer dinner's in the oven, children, and I'll come back to see 'ow yer be sometime to-night, p'rhaps."

"Wull Mammy Warren come back to-night?" asked Connie.

"I don't know--maybe the poor soul is in the river by now. She wor took wery bad, thinkin' of her sister, Georgina. I'll lock yer in, of course, children, and yer can eat yer dinner and think o' yer mercies."

CHAPTER XII.

LEFT ALONE.

When Agnes went out the two children stared at each other.

"Connie," said Ronald, "I wish you'd tell me the real, real truth."

But Connie was trembling very much. "Don't yer ax me," she said. She suddenly burst into tears. "I am so dreadfully frightened," she cried.

"I don't think I ever wor so frightened in all my life before. You're not half so frightened as I am, Ronald."

"Of course not," said Ronald, "for I am a boy, you see, and I'll be a man by-and-by. Besides, I have to think of father--father would have gone through anything. Once he was in a shipwreck. The ship was really wrecked, and a great many of the pa.s.sengers were drowned. Father told me all about it, but it was from a friend of father's that I learned afterwards how splendid he was, saving--oh, heaps of people! It was that night," continued Ronald, sitting down by the fire as he spoke, his eyes glowing with a great thought, and his little face all lit up by the fire-light--"it was that night that he first found out how much he loved mother; for mother was in a great big Atlantic liner, and it was father who saved her life. Afterwards they were married to each other, and afterwards I came to them--G.o.d sent me, you know."

"Yus," said Connie.

She dried her eyes.

"Go on talking, Ronald," she said. "I never met a boy like you. I thought there were no one like Giles, but it seems to me some'ow that you're a bit better--you're so wonnerful, wonnerful brave, and 'ave such a cunnin' way of talkin'. I s'pose that's 'cos you--you're a little gen'leman, Ronald."

Ronald made no answer to this. After a minute he said:

"There's no thanks to me to be brave--that is, when I'm brave it's all on account of father, and 'Like father, like son.' Mother used to teach me that proverb when I was very small. Shall I tell you other things that father did?"

"Oh yus, please," said Connie.

"He saved some people once in a great big fire. No one else had courage to go in, but he wasn't afraid of anything. And another time he saved a man on the field of battle. He got his V. C. for that."

"Wotever's a V. C.?" inquired Connie.

"Oh," said Ronald, "don't you even know that? How very ignorant you are, dear Connie. A V. C.--why, it's better to be a Victoria Cross man than to be the greatest n.o.ble in the land. Even the King couldn't be more than a Victoria Cross man."

"Still, I don't understand," said Connie.

"It's an honor," said Ronald, "that's given for a very, very brave deed.

Father had it; when he comes back he'll show you his Victoria Cross; then you'll know."

"Do yer think as he'll come soon?" asked Connie.

"He may come to-day," said Ronald--"or he may not," he added, with a profound sigh.

The little boy had been talking with great excitement, but now the color faded from his cheeks and he coughed a little. He had coughed more or less since that dreadful day when Mrs. Warren had taken him out in the snowstorm. He was always rather a delicate child, and after his bad fever he was not fit to encounter such misery and hardship.

"Connie," he said after a time, "it's the worst of all dreadful things, isn't it, to pretend that you are what you aren't?"

"What do yer mean by that?" asked Connie.

"Well, it's this way. You praise me for being brave. I am not brave always; I am very frightened sometimes. I am very terribly frightened now, dear Connie."

"Oh Ronald!" said Connie, "if you're frightened hall's hup."

"Let me tell you," said Ronald. He laid his little, thin hand on the girl's arm. "It's about father. Do you think, Connie, that Mammy Warren could have invented that story about him?"

"I dunno," said Connie.

"But what do you think, Connie? Tell me just what you think."

"Tell me what you think, Ronald."

"I am afraid to think," said the child. "At first I believed it, just as though father had spoken himself to me. I thought for sure and certain he'd be waiting for me here. I didn't think for a single moment that he'd be the sort of father that would come and stand outside in the landing and go away again just because I wasn't here. For, you see, I am his own little boy; I am all he has got. I know father so well, I don't believe he could do that kind of thing."