"Yes, but that was different. If I had been a man I wouldn't. It is cowardly for a man to bolt. It is the only thing a girl can do--sometimes." He took a long look at her. There were so many things to say--such crushing replies to make to her artless philosophy. But he was too weak and shaken to make them. "Come," he said, "shall I take you to a hospital, or will you wait here while I go and see if I can find the parish doctor?" She waved her small frail hand to the mug on the table. "I'll share that stuff with you." Felix sat reflecting. He could not give her poison. Why could he not? Which was wrong--his former despair, or his new-found sentiment? He could not determine, but he was bracing himself up to resist her. "There's not enough to kill us both," he said, weakly, "and I am not going to let you throw yourself on those lines down there." She made no reply to this, but lay with her eyes closed. He ventured a question, "How far did you fall?" "Only from the room just above this. He locked me in." "Who did?" "The man who calls himself my uncle." She pushed up her sleeve, showing a livid bruise upon her arm. "Look," she said, "there are worse on my back and shoulders." 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." CHAPTER II FLIGHT In her utter helplessness Sent forth a sudden sharp and bitter cry, As of a wild thing, taken in a trap, Which sees the trapper coming through the wood. --TENNYSON.