“I know what is in your mind,” said the woman calmly. “Get it done.”
“I hope you will go,” said Northcote in a low tone.
“Get it done,” said the woman. “Tear my head from my body and I shall respect you.”
Northcote was barely able to point to the door. The woman looked at him with supreme effrontery. She was utterly divested of fear. Her nostrils seemed to be dilated in scorn, and her dark eyes were full of mockery.
“I never saw anything half so funny,” she said, “as the worthy old widow of the clergyman running back shamefaced to kiss her saint and hero. The three of you made a picture for an almanac, as my dear father would have said. You reminded me of nothing so much as a stuck pig. The dear old hymnologist and psalm-singer, who had spoken such brave nonsense, looked just like a poor silly old cow with a red face; and that stupid little baby-face sticking up the holly, well, she was just like one of those silly dolls with wax cheeks, which has a button which you press and it changes its color.”
Northcote was faint already with the dreadful struggle he was waging. Suddenly, as if touched by inspiration, he turned in the direction of the door. Yet the woman was too quick for him. She leaped before him and barred his course.
“I am asking you to pluck my throat out with your great hands,” she cried with fury. “Don’t you understand, you fool? Don’t you understand, I say? I cannot, I will not go back to the gutter; yet I cannot go anywhere else. Why don’t you do as you are told?”
“Do go!” he cried weakly, piteously. The veins were swelling in his neck.
He strove to thrust her aside, but she resisted him; and when he tried again she fixed her strong teeth in his hand ferociously.
“Do it now!” she cried, watching his eyes with the baleful hunger of a she-wolf.