“That’s a lie!” answered Jane, sternly.
“On my soul, on my life!”
“Bah! your soul! your life! Why all the life in your miserable body is mine, if I choose to go away as other people would, and let you starve it out. A little masterly inactivity, and where is your life or soul either? If I let one go, it’ll take something more than a gold crucifix to save the other, let me tell you.”
“Don’t be wicked, don’t be sacrilegious,” pleaded the poor woman, thrusting her hand under the pillow, and holding fast to the crucifix she had concealed there. “Don’t talk about letting me starve more than I have! If you only knew how horrible it is to call, and call, and call, with nothing but your own voice to come back from the empty rooms; all night long, without a living soul within hearing, and all day long, with people moving about under your room, filling the building with life, and yet too far off for screams to reach them—oh! Miss Kelly, dear, dear Miss Kelly, don’t talk of leaving me to suffer all that over again!”
“Then tell me where the box of gold is!”
“I have told you. It is in the bank.”
“Give me an order to take it out then!”
“I can’t. My hand is so feeble I can’t write. Give me something to eat. Nurse me up a little, and I’ll do it for you in a minute. You know I would, Miss Jane!”
Jane looked at the old creature with bitter scrutiny, and at last broke out,—
“I don’t believe you!”