"Oh! you could not—you would not do me a mischief!" she cried, clasping her hands together. "And if I obey you now, in what you have ordered me to do, shall you not hate and detest me ever afterwards?"
"Not a bit of it," returned Josh Pedler, softening a little as he perceived that his point was already well nigh gained: for the poor young woman found powerful incentives to yield to the commands of the ruffian—she herself being almost famished. "Not a bit of it!" he repeated. "You ought to have turned out when I was first taken ill; and then if I'd had common necessaries I should have got well by this time. So be a good girl, and see if you can't bring back something good to eat and drink, and a trifle to pay the landlord."
With a bursting heart, Matilda rose from her seat, and put on her bonnet and her scanty shawl—a poor rag which the pawnbroker had refused to advance a single penny upon.
"Give us a kiss afore you go, old gal," said Josh Pedler, by way of affording her some encouragement to begin the frightful course of prostitution to which he strove to urge her.
She bent down, and pressed her lips upon his forehead, murmuring, "Are you sure that you will not loathe me afterwards?"
"Don't have any more of that gammon, Tilda," he cried; "but cut along—or else I shall be tempted to bite a piece out of your face, I'm so thundering hungry."
Matilda shuddered from head to foot, and rushed from the room.
As she was about to quit the house, a door in the passage opened, and a stout ill-looking fellow, without a coat, and smoking a short pipe, came forth, exclaiming, "Ah! I know'd it was you by your sneaking step. Now I tell you what it is, Mrs. Pedler—if so be I don't have my rent, or a good part on't to-night, you and your man must tramp before I shuts up. I've got people as will be glad to have a airy and comfortable room like your'n and as will pay; leastways I'll get rid of you."
Matilda stayed to hear no more, but rushed wildly from the house, the threat of the landlord ringing like the knell of hope in her ears.
She observed not which direction she was pursuing;—she saw not the passengers who jostled her on either side:—her eyes were open—and yet the surrounding and the passing objects formed only one vast void—one tremendous blank to her.