“Well, I suppose it is,” growled Sikes. “I thought I had tamed her, but she’s as bad as ever.” “Worse,” said the Jew thoughtfully. “I never knew her like this, for such a little cause.” “Nor I,” said Sikes. “I think she’s got a touch of that fever in her blood yet, and it won’t come out—eh?” “Like enough,” replied the Jew. “I’ll let her a little blood without troubling the doctor, if she’s took that way again,” said Sikes. The Jew nodded an expressive approval of this mode of treatment. “She was hanging about me all day and night too when I was stretched on my back; and you, like a black-hearted wolf as you are, kept yourself aloof,” said Sikes. “We was very poor too all the time, and I think one way or other it’s worried and fretted her, and that being shut up here so long has made her restless—eh?” “That’s it, my dear,” replied the Jew in a whisper.—“Hush!” As he uttered these words, the girl herself appeared and resumed her former seat. Her eyes were swollen and red; she rocked herself to and fro, tossed her head, and after a little time, burst out laughing. “Why, now she’s on the other tack!” exclaimed Sikes, turning a look of excessive surprise upon his companion. The Jew nodded to him to take no further notice just then, and in a few minutes the girl subsided into her accustomed demeanour. Whispering Sikes that there was no fear of her relapsing, Fagin took up his hat and bade him good-night. He paused when he reached the door, and looking round, asked if somebody would light him down the dark stairs. “Light him down,” said Sikes, who was filling his pipe. “It’s a pity he should break his neck himself, and disappoint the sightseers. There; show him a light.” Nancy followed the old man down stairs with the candle. When they reached the passage he laid his finger on his lip, and drawing close to the girl, said in a whisper, “What is it, Nancy, dear?” “What do you mean?” replied the girl in the same tone. “The reason of all this,” replied Fagin. “If _he_”—he pointed with his skinny forefinger up the stairs—“is so hard with you, (he’s a brute, Nance, a brute-beast) why don’t you——” “Well!” said the girl, as Fagin paused, with his mouth almost touching her ear, and his eyes looking into hers. “No matter just now,” said the Jew; “we’ll talk of this again. You have a friend in me, Nance; a staunch friend. I have the means at hand, quiet and close. If you want revenge on those that treat you like a dog—like a dog! worse than his dog, for he humours him sometimes—come to me. I say; come to me. He is the mere hound of a day, but you know me of old, Nance—of old.” “I know you well,” replied the girl, without manifesting the least emotion. “Good night.” She shrunk back as Fagin offered to lay his hand on hers, but said good night again in a steady voice, and, answering his parting look with a nod of intelligence, closed the door between them.