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350 THE HAUNTED MAN
clenching his teeth. " I've done nothing to you. Let me go, will you, to the woman ! "
"That is not the way. There is a nearer one," said Redlaw, detaining him, in the same blank effort to remember some association that ought, of right, to bear upon this monstrous object. " What is your name ?"
"Got none."
" Where do you live ?"
"Live ! What's that?"
The boy shook his hair from his eyes to look at him for a moment, and then, twisting round his legs and wrestling with him, broke again into his repetition of "You let me go, will you? I want to find the woman."
The Chemist led him to the door. " This way," he said, looking at him still confusedly, but with repugnance and avoidance, growing out of his coldness. " I'll take you to her."
The sharp eyes in the child's head, wandering round the room, lighted on the table where the remnants of the dinner were.
" Give me some of that! " he said, covetously.
" Has she not fed you ?"
" I shall be hungry again to-morrow, sha'n't I ? Ain't I hungry every day ?"
Finding himself released, he bounded at the table like some small animal of prey, and hugging to his breast bread and meat, and his own rags, all together, said:
" There ! Now take me to the woman ! "
As the Chemist, with a new-born dislike to touch him, sternly motioned him to follow, and was going out of the door, he trembled and stopped.
" The gift that I have given, you shall give again, go where you will !"
The Phantom's words were blowing in the wind, and the wind blew chill upon him.
" I'll not go there, to-night," he murmured faintly. " I'll go nowhere to-night. Boy ! straight down this long-arched passage, and past the great dark door into the yard,—you see the fire shining on the window there."
" The woman's fire ?" inquired the boy.
He nodded, and the naked feet had sprung away. He came back with his lamp, locked his door hastily, and sat down in his chair, covering his face like one who was frightened at himself.
For now he was, indeed, alone. Alone, alone. |
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