Giovanni crept over to his side and began to play, hesitatingly at first, but gradually gaining strength as the spell of the music possessed him. Dalziel looked from time to time at the boy's pathetic face with a questioning, almost frightened glance, but played steadily to the end.
"Thank you so much, sir," said Giovanni, when they had finished.
"You are a wonderful player, child. Who taught you?"
"Mother," he replied; then he burst into tears, crying, "Oh! I must go--I must go; poor mother will be wearied to death for me. I am selfish to stay, but I was so happy with the lovely music that I'd forgotten her. I must go; poor mother is so ill."
"Come back, Giovanni; you can't go out in the rain. Tell me where mother lives and I'll go to see her at once, and let her know you're safe."
With difficulty he persuaded the child to stay indoors, and taking the address Giovanni gave him he left the house, first directing Mrs. Johnson to put his _protégé_ to bed.
Ere he had gone half way on his mission the worn-out little brain had for a season forgotten its troubles in sleep.
Arthur Dalziel took his way to 5, Sparrow Alley, the address Giovanni had given him, and after sundry ineffectual attempts, succeeded in discovering it. The house was a wretched, tumble-down tenement in a shabby quarter, one of those quarters that seem never far removed from fashionable neighbourhoods, as if set there by Providence to keep the children of fortune ever in mind of the seamy side of life.
The visitor was admitted by a dirty old woman, half idiotic with sleep and gin combined, who conducted him to the room where "the furrin laidy" lived, mumbling the while maudlin compliments to Dalziel with unmistakable intent.
In a miserable den, upon a still more miserable bed, Arthur Dalziel found the wreck of a lovely woman. He was a novice at visitation of the sick, but a glance showed him that the end could not be far away. The patient was speechless, but as he approached her, her eyes dwelt on him with a yearning, pleading look which his rapid intuitions interpreted rightly.
"Your little boy, your Giovanni, is safe," he said, "and will be well cared for always."
The worn but still lovely face lighted up with a gleam of satisfaction as her mute lips strove to thank him. Feebly she drew a sealed packet from beneath the pillow and gave it into Dalziel's hand. After another effort she contrived to whisper, "This will tell all. You are good, kind; so like _him_, too. My love to Giovannino--oh, so dark, so cold----"