"Are you coming out, old sinner?" she asked, looking vaguely about her. "I will have the letter--I will! I will! I will! You haven't burnt it. You're not half cunning enough; I saw your hand go to your pocket when you told me you'd burnt it. I'll tear your hair out of your head if you don't give it to me!"
She felt dizzy and confused, and seeing a bucket filled with water in the corner, she staggered instinctively towards it, and, tumbling down by its side, plunged her face into it. It was deliriously cool; she kept her face in it, until she almost lost her breath, and then raising the bucket, she poured the water over her head. It refreshed, if it did not sober her. A moment afterwards, as she seized her hair to wring the water from it, she shivered, and turned cold as ice; and then flashed into a burning heat. Wiping her face with her dress, Milly, for the first time, observed Old Flick lying upon the floor. Her eagerness to obtain possession of the letter appeared to desert her for a time. But presently she crept towards the prostrate man, and feeling in his pockets, found the letter. The old man murmured some almost incoherent words, among which she heard her own name. She laughed as she heard it, and said, "Oh, you old fox! Milly's done you, this time. Here's Jim's letter. What does he say in it?" She wiped her face again with her wet dress, and commenced to read the letter slowly. She read to herself until she came to the last page, when she cried, "What's this? 'After what you have told me about Milly, I never want to look at her face again. I didn't think she would turn informer against Jim Pizey. If ever I come across her, I'll mark her, by G--!'" She read these lines twice over, and then, letting her hands fall idly in her lap, looked before her, bewildered. "He never thought I would turn informer against him!" she exclaimed, a cold shuddering taking possession of her. "Oh, Lord! What's this feeling coming over me? Somebody's been telling lies to him about me. Who is it? Me split upon Jim! Who said so? She quite forgot the letter which she held tightly clutched in her hand. She threw the damp hair back from her forehead, and looked shudderingly round the room. Her skin was blazing, and there was an awful brilliancy in her eyes. She was burning hot, and she placed her hand upon her throbbing forehead, trying to press out the pain; in a little while her condition changed, and she sat still, shivering, and burst into a strange, wild laugh.
"What's the matter with me?" she murmured. "I never felt like this before. Get up, Old Flick!" she said, softly, to herself, and with no idea of addressing the old man. "Get up, Old Flick!"
She repeated the words almost in a whisper, twenty times at least, in a wondering kind of voice, and sang them over and over again, in a vacant manner.
"Oh, my head! my head!" she moaned, and then she commenced again singing softly to herself, her voice breaking occasionally into a kind of wail. She continued in this state for some time, and made no sign of recognition of Old Flick when, after a series of growls, he sat up on the floor. He gazed at her with stupified amazement, and he growled as he looked down at the pool of water in which he had been lying. As he raised his eyes, she caught his look, and introduced his name into the meaningless words she was singing.
"Milly!" he cried, half frightened; but she showed no consciousness of him. "She's going mad, I believe," he muttered. "Get up, Milly, there's a dear, and go home."
But she was deaf to all his entreaties, and presently she began to scream.
"There, Old Flick?" she cried. "Do you see the spiders creeping up the wall? There they go, creeping, creeping, creeping, and now they're on the ceiling, looking down upon us. Keep away--keep away!" she screamed, clutching at the old man, who, almost scared out of his senses, followed her gaze with fear. "They'll drop down upon us! That's right Jim. Crush 'm--smash 'em! Ugh! You can't kill 'em half quick enough. Do you see that big one leering down? That's Old Flick. Smash him, Jim. Ugh! keep off! They're dropping from the ceiling upon me!" and she writhed upon the floor, and plucked at her dress with her hands, and shuddered and moaned distressfully.
At this moment, Grif, with his boot-stand on his shoulder, and his brushes under his arm, entered the store. Receiving no answer to his taps upon the counter, he peeped into the back room, and saw Milly tearing madly at her dress, and Old Flick looking on helplessly, in an agony of terror.
"What's up?" inquired Grif.