"Cutts, that Griffin does not scold: she preaches. She wants to make me spoony, Cutts: she talks of my young days, Cutts; she wants to blight me into what she calls an honest man, Cutts,--the virtuous dodge! She snubs and cows me, and frightens me out of my wits, Cutts; for I do believe that the witch is determined to have me, body and soul, and to marry me some day in spite of myself, Cutts; and if ever you see me about to be clutched in those horrible paws, poison me with ratsbane, or knock me on the head, Cutts." The little man laughed a little laugh, sharp and eldrich, at the strange cowardice of the stalwart dare-devil. But Jasper did not echo the laugh. "Hush!" he said timidly, "and let me have a bed, if you can; I have not slept in one for a week, and my nerves are shaky." The imp lighted a candle-end at the gas-lamp, and conducted Losely up the stairs to his own sleeping-room, which was less comfortless than might be supposed. He resigned his bed to the wanderer, who flung himself on it, rags and all. But sleep was no more at his command than it is at a king's. "Why the ---- did you talk of that witch?" he cried peevishly to Cutts, who was composing himself to rest on the floor. "I swear I fancy I feel her sitting on my chest like a nightmare." He turned with a vehemence which shook the walls, and wrapped the coverlet round him, plunging his head into its folds. Strange though it seem to the novice in human nature, to Jasper Losely the woman who had so long lived but for one object--namely, to save him from the gibbet--was as his evil genius, his haunting fiend. He had conceived a profound terror of her from the moment he perceived that she was resolutely bent upon making him honest. He had broken from her years ago, fled, resumed his evil courses, hid himself from her,--in vain. Wherever he went, there went she. He might baffle the police, not her. Hunger had often forced him to accept her aid. As soon as he received it, he hid from her again, burying himself deeper and deeper in the mud, like a persecuted tench. He associated her idea with all the ill-luck that had befallen him. Several times some villanous scheme on which he had counted to make his fortune had been baffled in the most mysterious way; and just when baffled, and there seemed no choice but to cut his own throat or some one else's, up turned grim Arabella Crane, in the iron-gray gown, and with the iron-gray ringlets,--hatefully, awfully beneficent,--offering food, shelter, gold,--and some demoniacal, honourable work. Often had he been in imminent peril from watchful law or treacherous accomplice. She had warned and saved him, as she had saved him from the fell Gabrielle Desmarets, who, unable to bear the sentence of penal servitude, after a long process, defended with astonishing skill and enlisting the romantic sympathies of young France, had contrived to escape into another world by