'Cut my limbs off one by one!' cried Sikes, seizing her roughly by the arm, 'If I don't think the gal's stark raving mad. Get up.'
'Not till you let me go--not till you let me go--Never--never!'
screamed the girl. Sikes looked on, for a minute, watching his opportunity, and suddenly pinioning her hands dragged her, struggling and wrestling with him by the way, into a small room adjoining, where he sat himself on a bench, and thrusting her into a chair, held her down by force. She struggled and implored by turns until twelve o'clock had struck, and then, wearied and exhausted, ceased to contest the point any further. With a caution, backed by many oaths, to make no more efforts to go out that night, Sikes left her to recover at leisure and rejoined ***in.
'Whew!' said the housebreaker wiping the perspiration from his face. 'Wot a precious strange gal that is!'
'You may say that, Bill,' replied ***in thoughtfully. 'You may say that.'
'Wot did she take it into her head to go out to-night for, do you think?' asked Sikes. 'Come; you should know her better than me.
Wot does is mean?'
'Obstinacy; woman's obstinacy, I suppose, my dear.'
'Well, I suppose it is,' growled Sikes. 'I thought I had tamed her, but she's as bad as ever.'
'Worse,' said ***in thoughtfully. 'I never knew her like this, for such a little cause.'
'Nor I,' said Sikes. 'I think she's got a touch of that fever in her blood yet, and it won't come out--eh?'
'Like enough.'
'I'll let her a little blood, without troubling the doctor, if she's took that way again,' said Sikes.
***in nodded an expressive approval of this mode of treatment.
'She was hanging about me all day, and night too, when I was stretched on my back; and you, like a blackhearted wolf as you are, kept yourself aloof,' said Sikes. 'We was poor too, all the time, and I think, one way or other, it's worried and fretted her; and that being shut up here so long has made her restless--eh?'
'That's it, my dear,' replied the Jew in a whisper. 'Hush!'
As he uttered these words, the girl herself appeared and resumed her former seat. Her eyes were swollen and red; she rocked herself to and fro; tossed her head; and, after a little time, burst out laughing.
'Why, now she's on the other tack!' exclaimed Sikes, turning a look of excessive surprise on his companion.
***in nodded to him to take no further notice just then; and, in a few minutes, the girl subsided into her accustomed demeanour.
Whispering Sikes that there was no fear of her relapsing, ***in took up his hat and bade him good-night. He paused when he reached the room-door, and looking round, asked if somebody would light him down the dark stairs.
'Light him down,' said Sikes, who was filling his pipe. 'It's a pity he should break his neck himself, and disappoint the sight-seers. Show him a light.'
Nancy followed the old man downstairs, with a candle. When they reached the passage, he laid his finger on his lip, and drawing close to the girl, said, in a whisper.
'What is it, Nancy, dear?'
'What do you mean?' replied the girl, in the same tone.
'The reason of all this,' replied ***in. 'If HE'--he pointed with his skinny fore-finger up the stairs--'is so hard with you (he's a brute, Nance, a brute-beast), why don't you--'
'Well?' said the girl, as ***in paused, with his mouth almost touching her ear, and his eyes looking into hers.