Felix clenched his hands, quite instinctively.
"If he comes back," she sobbed, "he'll—he said he'd do worse than kill me. And you're not strong enough to fight him, are you?"
"Let's run away," said Felix, without an instant's reflection.
She sat up, propping herself upon her arms, while she stared at him. "Have you got any money?"
"Not a halfpenny." He sank back in despair. This hunger of his must be appeased, or he must die.
"I've got a shilling and three-halfpence," said the girl. "It would get us something to eat. But I won't go to those night refuges; I had much rather jump down on the railway lines. And I won't go to a reformatory, or any institution place; so it is no use to try and persuade me...." She reflected a while. "It would be no good to try and get more poison; they wouldn't sell any to me or to you."
Felix had in his pocket the doctor's prescription which had enabled him to purchase what he already had. But he did not say so. She should not know. His eyes had lit up at the bare mention of food.
"See," he said, "I am really, actually starving. I'm in such pain, I hardly know what I am saying just now. Let us go out together and get some food, and then think what we can do afterwards. Do you feel as if you could walk?"
She slipped off the bed and stood up. "I feel very bad," she said, hesitatingly; "but I can walk. Yes—let us get away from here and have something to eat; And then we can jump off a bridge to-night, if there seems nothing else to do."