. She struggled and implored by turns until twelve
o'clock had struck, and then, wearied and exhausted, ceased to contest
the point any further. With a caution, backed by many oaths, to make
no more efforts to go out that night, Sikes left her to recover at
leisure and rejoined Fagin.

'Whew!' said the housebreaker wiping the perspiration from his face.
'Wot a precious strange gal that is!'

'You may say that, Bill,' replied Fagin thoughtfully. 'You may say
that.'

'Wot did she take it into her head to go out to-night for, do you
think?' asked Sikes. 'Come; you should know her better than me. Wot
does it mean?'

'Obstinacy; woman's obstinacy, I suppose, my dear.'

'Well, I suppose it is,' growled Sikes. 'I thought I had tamed her,
but she's as bad as ever.'

'Worse,' said Fagin thoughtfully. 'I never knew her like this, for
such a little cause.'

'Nor I,' said Sikes. 'I think she's got a touch of that fever in her
blood yet, and it won't come out--eh?'

'Like enough.'

'I'll let her a little blood, without troubling the doctor, if she's
took that way again,' said Sikes.

Fagin nodded an expressive approval of this mode of treatment.

'She was hanging about me all day, and night too, when I was stretched
on my back; and you, like a blackhearted wolf as you are, kept yourself
aloof,' said Sikes. 'We was poor too, all the time, and I think, one
way or other, it's worried and fretted her; and that being shut up here
so long has made her restless--eh?'

'That's it, my dear,' replied the Jew in a whisper. 'Hush!'

As he uttered these words, the girl herself appeared and resumed her
former seat. Her eyes were swollen and red; she rocked herself to and
fro; tossed her head; and, after a little time, burst out laughing.

'Why, now she's on the other tack!' exclaimed Sikes, turning a look of
excessive surprise on his companion.

Fagin nodded to him to take no further notice just then; and, in a few
minutes, the girl subsided into her accustomed demeanour. Whispering
Sikes that there was no fear of her relapsing, Fagin took up his hat
and bade him good-night. He paused when he reached the room-door, and
looking round, asked if somebody would light him down the dark stairs.

'Light him down,' said Sikes, who was filling his pipe. 'It's a pity he
should break his neck himself, and disappoint the sight-seers. Show
him a light.'

Nancy followed the old man downstairs, with a candle. When they
reache