‘Why not?’ he urged, when Dave demurred. ’I go right by the very place. It’s no trouble to me, y’see, an’ it’ll save you a bit—eh?’

He was so persistent that, satisfied he was in earnest, Dave gratefully availed himself of the offer.

And for the next eighteen months he did his daily travelling in perfect safety, the friendship between him and Bob Harris thriving apace. There were evenings when Dave was invited down to tea in the basement, and evenings when he shone as a host, and Bob Harris and his mother came up and sat on the reduced chairs about his undersized table. And on these latter occasions Nell Wyatt, the occupant of the adjoining room, was one of the party, having, as a matter of fact, with her own hands got the tea ready before she came to it.

For, you must know, there was not a girl in Filter’s Rents—no, not in all London, nor in all the world—more kindly hearted, truer, gentler, or more compassionate than was Nell. She was not beautiful; her dress was poor and coarse, her hands were rough with work, but the purity of her heart, the womanly sweetness of her whole nature so lit up her eyes and her quiet, homely features that the worst of men were softened by the influence of her presence, so that if there had been any incorrigible beast in the court who could have offered her an indignity, there would have been no lack of honester hands to break his head extemporaneously, and pitch him into the street.

Nell was no natural denizen of Filter’s Rents; she had come there from the country, some time before Dave knew her, a dainty maiden enough, with the roses in her cheeks, and in her eyes a light gathered from brighter skies and clearer air. The roses were faded now, but the light was still undimmed.

The aunt she came to live with died during Dave’s absence in hospital, and when he returned home he found her, as she had no other relation to go to, living on there by herself. A pleasant acquaintance had sprung up betwixt her and Dave during the six months preceding his accident, and now she was not long in proving herself the best and staunchest friend he had.

She had cried at first for very pity, seeing him so maimed and helpless; but her sympathies were eminently practical, and ever after she had met him with a cheerful face and voice and sought in every way she could to lighten the burden of his affliction.

It was Nell who kept his room so clean and neatly ordered. It was Nell who, every morning shortly before seven, knocked on his door to know if he was up, and carried in his breakfast all ready on a tray; and it was Nell—who else could it be?—that of an evening had his tea laid on the table, and, in winter weather, the fire lighted against his home coming.

If in the early days of his calamity Dave had fretted over some unspoken hope that was now become an impossible dream of the past, he had striven with himself so manfully that no word of his despair ever found its way to his lips until one memorable evening—the most memorable of any he had ever known.

There was nothing exceptional about the evening itself, as Dave sat by Dalston Station drumming tunes on his box with the blacking-brush, shouting the cry of his trade to passers-by, with an incessant jangle of tram-bells and rumble of traffic all around him, and the lantern he hung after dark on the end of the trolley-handle, a mere blot of yellow in the grey mist that had been thickening since sunset. Business had been slack, he was cold and hungry, and more than commonly thankful, at last, when Bob Harris attached himself to the handle and the trolley went rattling along homewards.

The kettle was singing on a ruddy fire in his room, the tea-things were on the table, and Bob Harris, who was as thoughtful as if he had something on his mind, invited himself to sit down and have a cup.

‘I want to hev a private chat with you, Dave,’ he began by and by. ‘I’ve been a-wanting to a long while. If you ain’t guessed it—an’ I shouldn’t wonder if you had—I’m a-goin’ to let you into a secret.’