‘Bill,’ cried the girl, striving to lay her head upon his breast, ’the gentleman and that dear lady, told me to-night of a home in some foreign country where I could end my days in solitude and peace.  Let me see them again, and beg them, on my knees, to show the same mercy and goodness to you; and let us both leave this dreadful place, and far apart lead better lives, and forget how we have lived, except in prayers, and never see each other more.  It is never too late to repent.  They told me so—­I feel it now—­but we must have time—­a little, little time!’

The housebreaker freed one arm, and grasped his pistol.  The certainty of immediate detection if he fired, flashed across his mind even in the midst of his fury; and he beat it twice with all the force he could summon, upon the upturned face that almost touched his own.

She staggered and fell:  nearly blinded with the blood that rained down from a deep gash in her forehead; but raising herself, with difficulty, on her knees, drew from her bosom a white handkerchief—­Rose Maylie’s own—­and holding it up, in her folded hands, as high towards Heaven as her feeble strength would allow, breathed one prayer for mercy to her Maker.

It was a ghastly figure to look upon.  The murderer staggering backward to the wall, and shutting out the sight with his hand, seized a heavy club and struck her down.

CHAPTER XLVIII

THE FLIGHT OF SIKES

Of all bad deeds that, under cover of the darkness, had been committed within wide London’s bounds since night hung over it, that was the worst.  Of all the horrors that rose with an ill scent upon the morning air, that was the foulest and most cruel.

The sun—­the bright sun, that brings back, not light alone, but new life, and hope, and freshness to man—­burst upon the crowded city in clear and radiant glory.  Through costly-coloured glass and paper-mended window, through cathedral dome and rotten crevice, it shed its equal ray.  It lighted up the room where the murdered woman lay.  It did.  He tried to shut it out, but it would stream in.  If the sight had been a ghastly one in the dull morning, what was it, now, in all that brilliant light!

He had not moved; he had been afraid to stir.  There had been a moan and motion of the hand; and, with terror added to rage, he had struck and struck again.  Once he threw a rug over it; but it was worse to fancy the eyes, and imagine them moving towards him, than to see them glaring upward, as if watching the reflection of the pool of gore that quivered and danced in the sunlight on the ceiling.  He had plucked it off again.  And there was the body—­mere flesh and blood, no more—­but such flesh, and so much blood!

He struck a light, kindled a fire, and thrust the club into it.  There was hair upon the end, which blazed and shrunk into a light cinder, and, caught by the air, whirled up the chimney.  Even that frightened him, sturdy as he was; but he held the weapon till it broke, and then piled it on the coals to burn away, and smoulder into ashes.  He washed himself, and rubbed his clothes; there were spots that would not be removed, but he cut the pieces out, and burnt them.  How those stains were dispersed about the room!  The very feet of the dog were bloody.