 nod with their mysterious acquaintance, the married couple
emerged into the wet and darkness outside.
    They were no sooner gone, than Monks, who appeared to entertain an
invincible repugnance to being left alone, called to a boy who had been hidden
somewhere below. Bidding him go first, and bear the light, he returned to the
chamber he had just quitted.
 

                                 Chapter XXXIX

     Introduces Some Respectable Characters with Whom the Reader Is Already
  Acquainted, and Shows How Monks and the Jew Laid Their Worthy Heads Together

On the evening following that upon which the three worthies mentioned in the
last chapter, disposed of their little matter of business as therein narrated,
Mr. William Sikes, awakening from a nap, drowsily growled forth an inquiry what
time of night it was.
    The room in which Mr. Sikes propounded this question, was not one of those
he had tenanted, previous to the Chertsey expedition, although it was in the
same quarter of the town, and was situated at no great distance from his former
lodgings. It was not, in appearance, so desirable a habitation as his old
quarters: being a mean and badly-furnished apartment, of very limited size;
lighted only by one small window in the shelving roof, and abutting on a close
and dirty lane. Nor were there wanting other indications of the good gentleman's
having gone down in the world of late; for a great scarcity of furniture, and
total absence of comfort, together with the disappearance of all such small
moveables as spare clothes and linen, bespoke a state of extreme poverty; while
the meagre and attenuated condition of Mr. Sikes himself would have fully
confirmed these symptoms, if they had stood in any need of corroboration.
    The house-breaker was lying on the bed, wrapped in his white great-coat, by
way of dressing-gown, and displaying a set of features in no degree improved by
the cadaverous hue of illness, and the addition of a soiled nightcap, and a
stiff, black beard of a week's growth. The dog sat at the bedside: now eyeing
his master with a wistful look, and now pricking his ears, and uttering a low
growl as some noise in the street, or in the lower part of the house, attracted
his attention. Seated by the window, busily engaged in patching an old waistcoat
which formed a portion of the robber's ordinary dress, was a female: so pale and
reduced with watching and privation, that there would have been considerable
difficulty in recognising her as the same Nancy who has already figured in this
tale, but for the voice
