"Why don't you go home to him?" asked Old Flick, in a voice which he strove to make gentle.
"Home!" she exclaimed. "Home! As I am! What would they say of me, I wonder? No; thank God, they think me dead. But there! I don't want to think of them, and they still keep coming up;" and she passed her hands over her face, confusedly.
"What's the matter, Milly?" Old Flick said, soothingly. "What's made you like this?"
"Drink!" she cried. "Drink and thought. And the more I think, the more my head is filled with awful fancies. Why did Jim go away from me? What right had he to leave me alone by myself?" and here she began to cry. But, seeing that Flick was about to speak, she said, "Stop a minute. I haven't done yet. I must work myself out first, and then I shall be all right. How long is it since you were a boy, Flick?"
"I don't remember," he muttered.
"What happiness! Not to be able to remember! But if you could remember, you would have to go a long way back, Flick; you're old enough to be my grandfather. It isn't so long ago since I was a little girl, and I can't help remembering. Oh, if I could forget! if I could forget!" And throwing herself upon the ground, she sighed, and trembled, and sobbed; and then, as if angry with herself, she bit her white lips, and tried to suppress her passion.
"Now, then, you are more quiet," said Old Flick, after a little while. "Get up, Milly, like a good girl, and go home."
"I'm not a good girl--I'm a bad woman; and," she said, folding her arms resolutely, "I'm not going to stir until you give me what I want, and tell me what I want to know."
"I haven't any money, Milly," whined Old Flick, "and I can't tell you anything you don't know."
"Didn't Jim say, before he left, that you were to give me money when I wanted it?"