She had managed to move her head so that her great black eyes, glittering now with fever, were fixed full upon me; and my heart beat fast, for I thought she must know me. But she repeated, still staring at me-- “Jim!” Then she added in a whisper, “They are after you, Jim! It’s about the check. You must be off to-night. Go to the old place. I’ll put ’em off, and I’ll let you know.” Then more mutterings and exclamations, and before long she began again to speak coherently-- “It’s too risky, Jim. I’ll do it, if you want me to; but it’s putting yourself in danger as well as me. All right, I’ll pass it.” Then she broke out passionately-- “It’s an ill thing you’re going to do, James Woodfall. What do you want of a lady for a wife? Her money’s none so much, and, as for her pretty face, it’s the face of a fool. I’m twice the woman to look at that she is, and I’m only twenty-five; and I’ve stuck to you through thick and thin. Why don’t you marry me, Jim?” And it flashed across me, as she went on addressing to me reproaches, coaxings, encouragement, and defiance, that she was living over again some long-past passages in her life--passages, I could not but gather, of a very questionable character. For it was plain that this Jim, or James Woodfall, who occupied all her thoughts had been a very bad man indeed, and that Sarah had assisted him in every way in his wicked deeds. “Don’t go for that, James,” she said once imploringly. “It’ll be a lifer if they catch you; and they’ve had their eye on you lately. There’s many a safer way of getting money than that.” Another pause, and then came a speech which chilled me with horror. “Dead men tell no tales, Jim,” said she, in another fearful whisper. “It’s easy done, and it’s safer. What’s an old man’s life that you’re so shy of touching him? You’ve done many a riskier thing. Why do you always turn coward at that?” I could scarcely sit and watch this woman-fiend after that. I seemed to see murder in her fierce fiery eyes; and I shuddered even as I moistened her dry lips and touched her burning forehead. She rambled on in the same style, mentioning other names I had never heard, and not a word of me or Mr. and Mrs. Rayner, or even of Tom Parkes, until she broke out angrily-- “Jim’s mad about that little Christie girl, Tom, and he says he’ll marry her in spite of everything, and I’ve got to bring it about,” she hissed between her teeth.