Chapter XVII

Jack absolutely refused to be parted from Murph. He fell into a fury, and bit the men who tried to separate them on face and hands. He had to be dragged away and shut up in a cage. There he lived for three days, whimpering like an old man fallen into the imbecility of dotage, his haggard eyes looking out despairingly from between his wrinkled temples, his little face all shrivelled like a medlar, his lips as pale as wax, and an expression of utter life-weariness in every feature.

He would eat nothing, leaving untasted the carrots he was once so fond of, and refusing to touch either sugar or milk. All day long he cowered motionless in a corner, moaning, his eyes fixed on something invisible to others, outside the cage, far away.