When these letters were posted, the confederates, feeling themselves fairly embarked on their joint scheme, separated to advance each his own share of the contemplated enormity. Tom Ryfe jumped into a cab, and was off on a multiplicity of errands, while Jim, pondering deeply with his head down, and his hands thrust into his coat-pockets, slunk towards Holborn, revolving in his mind the least he could offer some dissipated cabman, whose licence was in danger at any rate, for the hire of horse and vehicle during the ensuing night.
Feeling his sleeve plucked feebly from behind, he broke off these meditations, to turn round with a savage oath.
What a dreary face was that which met his arm! Pale and gaunt, with the hollow eyes that denote bodily suffering, and the deep cruel lines that speak of mental care. What a thin wasted hand was laid on his burly arm, in its velveteen sleeve; and what a weak faint voice in trembling accents, urged its sad, wistful prayer.
"Speak to me, Jim--won't you speak to me, dear? I've looked for you day and night, and followed you mile after mile till I'm ready to lie down and die here on the cold stones."
"Bother!" replied Jim, shaking himself free. "I'm busy, I tell ye. What call had you, I should like to know, to be tracking, and hunting of me about, as if I was a--well--a fancy dog we'll say, as had strayed out of a parlour? Go home, I tell ye, or it'll be the worse for ye!"
"You don't love me no more, Jim!" said the woman. There was a calm sadness in her voice speaking of that resignation which is but the apathy of despair.
"Well--I don't. There!" replied Jim, acceding to this proposition with great promptitude.
"But you can't keep me off of loving you, Jim," she replied, with a wild stare; "nobody can't keep me off of that. Won't ye think better of it, old man? Give us one chance more, that's a good chap. It's for dear life I'm askin'!"
She had wound both hands round his arm, and was hanging to it with all her weight. How light a burden it seemed, to which those limp rags clung so shabbily, compared with the substantial frame he remembered in former days, when Dorothea was honest, hard-working, and happy.
"It ain't o' no use tryin' on of these here games," said he, unclasping the poor weak hands with brutal force. "Come! I can't stop all day. Shut up, I tell ye! you'll wish you had by and by."