'The saints help and preserve us!' she exclaimed in a loud whisper, holding her side, 'what next? Ah! how it startled me. The helpless, sick child in the arms of that ogre! Go away, John Paqualin, go away. How on earth did you get here? I've only been downstairs three minutes giving some necessary instructions to Gustavus.—He really is beside himself with joy, poor fellow.—Go away, I say; if Peter woke up suddenly he would have a fit at seeing you. Look at yourself in the looking-glass, and you'll understand why, fast enough. A rush of blood to the head from fright and the child would be dead. And if half the stories one hears of you are true, there is enough down on the wrong side of your account already without adding wilful murder. Go along with you.—Ah! I am so weak—my poor heart, how it beats.'
Eliza advanced, creaking across the boarded floor, towards the charcoal-burner. He had risen to his feet.
'There is no answer,' he said, in a low voice. 'You fool, learn your lesson. God doesn't want your wretched, worthless soul, John Paqualin. Who are you, indeed, that you should try to strike a bargain with the Almighty, and offer such miserable refuse and offscourings as your life in place of that of the pure and sinless child there?'
He looked back towards the bed.
'Good-bye,' he said, 'dear, little Peter. When you are gone there will be nothing left on earth to love me; and in heaven it's clear they can do very well without me yet awhile.'
Then, as Eliza came close to him, whispering, pointing towards the door, and signing to him, he turned upon her with a terrible face.
'Woman, leave me alone,' he said. 'Have not I enough to bear already, without the maddening gnat-bites of your spiteful ignorance and cruel folly?'
And the grasshopper man went out of the room, and down the stairs, and into the dark frosty night.