'Who buried her? Why the parish, in course.'
Despair then again seemed to send a torrent of ice-water through my veins. But after a time the passionate desire to see her body leapt up within my heart.
At this moment Wilderspin, who had evidently followed me with remarkable expedition, came upstairs and stood by my side.
'I must go and see the grave,' I said to him. 'I must see her face once more. I must petition the Home Secretary. Nothing can and nothing shall prevent my seeing her—no, not if I have to dig down to her with my nails.'
'An' who the dickens are you as takes on so about my darter?' said the woman, holding the candle to my face.
'Drunken brute!' said I. 'Where is she buried?'
'Well, I'm sure!' said the woman in a mincing, sarcastic voice. 'How werry unperlite you is all at wonst! how werry rude you speaks to such a werry 'spectable party as I am! You seem to forgit who I am. Ain't I the goddess as likes to 'ave 'er little joke, an' likes to wet both eyes, and as plays sich larks with her flummeringeroes and drumming-dairies an' ring-tailed monkeys an' men?'
When I saw the creature whip up the quilt from the mattress, and, holding it over her head like a veil, leer hideously in imitation of Cyril's caricature, a shudder went again through my frame—a strange kind of dementia came upon me; my soul again seemed to leave my body—seemed to be lifted through the air and beyond the stars, crying, in agony, 'Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?' Yet all the while, though my soul seemed fleeing through infinite space, where a pitiless universe was waltzing madly round a ball of cruel fire—all the while I was acutely conscious of looking down upon the dreadful dream-world below, looking down into a frightful garret where a dialogue between two dream-figures was going on—a dialogue between Wilderspin and the woman, each word of which struck upon my ears like a sharp-edged flint, though it seemed millions of miles away.
* * * * *
'What made you trick me like this? Where is the money I gave you for the funeral?'