“My crucifix, my crucifix, oh! she has carried off my soul. My strength is gone. The blessed mother of God has seen them carry off her son. I am nothing, I am crushed here in my own bed. She has given me over to purgatory, while there is breath in my body. I cannot live, and without the blessed crucifix I cannot die! Woe, woe, they have left me at last, a poor, miserable, weak old woman.” Here the cracked voice broke into moans and unequal sobs, between which came forth the plaint of “My crucifix—my crucifix!” CHAPTER LXII. BEGGING FOR FOOD. In about half an hour, Jane Kelly returned with a basket of food upon her arm, and full of malicious cheerfulness. “There, old woman, do you see this? plenty to eat and a sharp appetite. When would that miserable old image have brought so much in your hands, I should like to know?” “But where is my crucifix? You have not sold it?” “No—no—spouted it, that’s all.” “What do you mean? Who has got my crucifix?” shouted Madame, wild with terror and grief. “A nice old Jew, who turned up his nose at your image, as if it had been a leg of pork; wouldn’t believe it was genuine gold at first, and made a reduction of twenty-five per cent. extra on the value, because of the insult I had offered in bringing the image to him. I told him you would redeem it with a thousand dollars, rather than lose it. A thousand dollars, you hear, old lady!” “A thousand dollars,” muttered Madame De Marke, turning to the wall with a stifled moan, “a thousand dollars. This wicked wretch has ruined me!” “Why, you old hypocrite, I couldn’t take less. Did you expect me to make a Judas Iscariot of myself, and ask only thirty pieces of silver. I a’n’t so irreverent a creature as that, anyhow.” “A thousand dollars!” moaned the old woman. “Don’t fret about that, mother. The Jews a’n’t going to give more now than they did in old times; the ticket says ten dollars; the heathen wouldn’t raise another sixpence.” “Ten dollars—ten dollars—and all in her hands,” muttered the old woman,—“why, ten dollars will last me two months, and she’ll use it up in a meal almost. Oh, if I were but strong and well!” “But you a’n’t strong nor well either, so just make the best of it and stop whining. I’m tired of it, let me tell you!” said Jane, peremptorily. “Hush up, now, and not another whimper.” The old woman turned her face upon the pillow, and wept out her grief in silence; she dared not disobey her hard task-mistress. With a good deal of clatter and noise, Jane went about the room, kindling a fire from some charcoal she had brought in her basket, and setting out the broken dishes on the bottom of an old chair that had lost its back. An expression of almost fiendish satisfaction was on her face, adding to the repulsion which hardship and wickedness had already left there. She was evidently planning some new torture for the woman, who had so justly earned her vengeance.