Page:Dombey and Son.djvu/638

Rh say. I was made a short-lived toy, and flung aside more cruelly and carelessly than even such things are. By whose hand do you think?"

"Why do you ask me?" said Harriet.

"Why do you tremble?" rejoined Alice, with an eager look. "His usage made a Devil of me. I sunk in wretchedness and ruin, lower and lower yet. I was concerned in a robbery—in every part of it but the gains—and was found out, and sent to be tried, without a friend, without a penny. Though I was but a girl, I would have gone to Death, sooner than ask him for a word, if a word of his could have saved me. I would! To any death that could have been invented. But my mother, covetous always, sent to him in my name, told the true story of my case, and humbly prayed and petitioned for a small last gift—for not so many pounds as I have fingers on this hand. Who was it, do you think, who snapped his fingers at me in my misery, lying, as he believed, at his feet, and left me without even this poor sign of remembrance; well satisfied that I should be sent abroad, beyond the reach of farther trouble to him, and should die, and rot there? Who was this, do you think?"

"Why do you ask me?" repeated Harriet.

"Why do you tremble?" said Alice, laying her hand upon her arm, and looking in her face, "but that the answer is on your lips! It was your brother James."

Harriet trembled more and more, but did not avert her eyes from the eager look that rested on them.

"When I knew you were his sister—which was on that night—I came back, weary and lame, to spurn your gift. I felt that night as if I could have travelled, weary and lame, over the whole world, to stab him, if I could have found him in a lonely place with no one near. Do you believe that I was earnest in all that?"

"I do! Good Heaven, why are you come again?"

"Since then," said Alice, with the same grasp of her arm, and the same look in her face, "I have seen him! I have followed him with my eyes, In the broad day. If any spark of my resentment slumbered in my bosom, it sprung into a blaze when my eyes rested on him. You know he has wronged a proud man, and made him his deadly enemy. What if I had given information of him to that man?"

"Information!" repeated Harriet.

"What if I had found out one who knew your brother’s secret; who knew the manner of his flight, who knew where he and the companion of his flight were gone? What if I had made him utter all his knowledge, word by word, before his enemy, concealed to hear it? What if I had sat by at the time, looking into this enemy’s face, and seeing it change till it was scarcely human? What if I had seen him rush away, mad, in pursuit? What if I knew, now, that he was on his road, more fiend than man, and must, in so many hours, come up with him?"

"Remove your hand!" said Harriet, recoiling. "Go away! Your touch is dreadful to me!"

"I have done this," pursued the other, with her eager look, regardless of the interruption. "Do I speak and look as if I really had? Do you believe what I am saying?"