Page:Oliver Twist (1838) vol. 3.djvu/63

 "'There ain't," said Sikes, fixing his eyes upon her, and muttering the words to himself, "there ain't a stauncher-hearted gal going, or I'd have cut her throat three months ago. She's got the fever coming on; that's it."

Fortifying himself with this assurance, Sikes drained the glass to the bottom, and then, with many grumbling oaths, called for his physic. The girl jumped up with great alacrity, poured it quickly out, but with her back towards him: and held the vessel to his lips, while he drank it off.

"Now," said the robber, "come and sit aside of me, and put on your own face, or I'll alter it so that you won't know it again when you do want it."

The girl obeyed, and Sikes, locking her hand in his, fell back upon the pillow, turning his eyes upon her face. They closed, opened again; closed once more, again opened; the house breaker shifted his position restlessly, and, after dozing again and again for two or three minutes, and as often springing up with a look of terror, and gazing vacantly about him, was