"Go on with the song!" Jack reiterated. "I'm tired of waiting."
Madame Fontaine looked wildly from one to the other of them. "Oh, God, I'm locked in with an idiot and a drunkard!" The thought of it maddened her as it crossed her mind. Once more, she fled from the room. Again, and again, in the outer darkness, she shrieked for help.
Schwartz advanced staggering towards the door, with Jack's empty chair in his hand. "Perhaps you'll be able to pipe a little higher, ma'am, if you come back, and sit down? Now for the song, Jack!"
He burst out with the second verse:
Backwards and forwards, with silent tread,
I walked on my watch by the doors of the dead.
And I said, It's hard, on this New Year,
While the rest are dancing to leave me here,
Alone with death and cold and fear—
Poor me!
"Chorus, Jack! Chorus, Mrs. Housekeeper! Ho! ho! look at her! She can't resist the music—she has come back to us already. What can we do for you, ma'am? The flask's not quite drained yet. Come and have a drink."
She had returned, recoiling from the outer darkness and silence, giddy with the sickening sense of faintness which was creeping over her again. When Schwartz spoke she advanced with tottering steps. "Water!" she exclaimed, gasping for breath. "I'm faint—water! water!"
"Not a drop in the place, ma'am! Brandy, if you like?"
"I forbid it!" cried Jack, with a peremptory sign of the hand. "Drinkable gold is for us—not for her!"
The glass of wine which Schwartz had prevented him from drinking caught his notice. To give Madame Fontaine her own "remedy," stolen from her own room, was just the sort of trick to please Jack in his present humor. He pointed to the glass, and winked at the watchman. After a momentary hesitation, Schwartz's muddled brain absorbed the new idea. "Here's a drop of wine left, ma'am," he said. "Suppose you try it?"