"Are you better now?" he asked as he took her plate.
She looked up at him in speechless adoration, and her eyes filled with
tears.
"How good you are to me," she said. "I never dreamt there could be such
a beautiful place as this. Do you often bring people in out of the
cold?"
His face became grave.
"No," he said evasively--"not as often as I should, I'm afraid. And now,
suppose you tell me your name."
"Jessica," she replied simply.
"And have you no relatives--no friends to help you?" he continued.
She shook her head sadly.
"Only Martha and Johann," was the hopeless reply.
"You poor child! And what does friend Johann do for a living?"
Again she shook her head.
"I don't know. He gets drunk."
"An overfilled profession that," said Leroy, with a sigh. "And now, what
are we to do with you, little Jessica?"
She looked up with frightened eyes.
"Oh," she cried breathlessly, "are you going to turn me out into the
cold again? Must I go? Oh, I knew it was too good to last!"
In her terror she had started up; but Leroy put her back gently into the
chair.
"No, little one, we won't turn you out to-night," he promised.
"To-morrow, we will see what can be done to make your road softer in
future."
She did not understand half his words; but as with an almost womanly
tenderness he placed a silken cushion beneath her head, she nestled
down, smiling into his eyes with the gratitude of a child that neither
questions nor doubts. To her he appeared like a being from another
world--a world or which she had scarcely dared to dream, and her eyes
were eloquent.
Adrien Leroy stood for a little while watching her, till her gentle
breathing showed him she had fallen asleep.
"A beautiful child," he said under his breath. "She will be a still more
beautiful woman." He sighed. "Poor little thing! Rich and poor, young
and old, how soon the world's poison reaches us!" Then, throwing a
tiger-skin over the slender body, he turned out the lights and left the
room. Summoning Norgate, he gave instructions that his nocturnal visitor
should not be disturbed in the morning by the housekeeper, but should be
allowed to sleep on. Then he made his way to his own room, not long
before the dawn broke.
He had befriended this young human thing as he would have rescued a
wounded bird, and with as little thought for the consequences; yet the
day was to come when he should look back on this action as one inspired,
in very truth, by his guardian angel.