So
there was no banker in the world for Cuckoo. The dead-wall faced her.
The horizon was shut out. She lay there and tried to think--and tried to
think. How to get some money? Something--the devil perhaps--prompted the
sleeping Jessie to stir again at the bottom of the bed. Cuckoo felt the
little dog's back shift against her stretched-out toes, and suddenly a
bitter flood of red ran over her thin, half-starved face, and she hid it
in the tumbled pillow, pressing it down. The movement was the attempted
physical negation of an abominable, treacherous thought which had just
stabbed her mind. How could it have come to her, when she hated it so?
She burrowed further into the pillow, at the same time caressing the back
of Jessie with little movements of her toes. Horrible, horrible thought!
It brought tears which stained the pillow. It brought a hard beating of
the heart. And these manifestations showed plainly that Cuckoo had not
dismissed it yet. She tried to dismiss it, shutting her eyes up tightly,
shaking her head at the black, venomous thing. But it stayed and grew
larger and more dominant. Then she took her head from the pillow, faced
it, and examined it. It was a clear-cut, definite thought now, perfectly
finished, coldly complete.
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