d  taking note  of  every  change in  his  face. 'Aha!  I know it was that
night.'
     'Well, if you know it was that night, you know, Misses  Brown,' replied
Rob, 'it's no use putting pinchers into a cove to make him say so.
     'Where did  they go  that night, Rob?  Straight  away? How did they go?
Where did you see her? Did she  laugh? Did she cry? Tell  me  all about it,'
cried the  old hag, holding him closer yet, patting the hand that was  drawn
through his arm against her other hand, and searching every line in his face
with her  bleared eyes. 'Come! Begin!  I want to be told all about it. What,
Rob, boy!  You and  me can keep a secret together, eh? We've done so  before
now. Where did they go first, Rob?'
     The wretched Grinder made a gasp, and a pause.
     'Are you dumb?' said the old woman, angrily.
     'Lord, Misses  Brown, no! You expect a cove to be a flash of lightning.
I wish I was  the electric fluency,' muttered  the bewildered Grinder.  'I'd
have a shock at somebody, that would settle their business.'
     'What do you say?' asked the old woman, with a grin.
     'I'm  wishing my  love  to you, Misses  Brown,' returned the false Rob,
seeking consolation in  the glass. 'Where did they go to  first was  it? Him
and her, do you mean?'
     'Ah!' said the old woman, eagerly. 'Them two.'
     'Why, they didn't go nowhere - not together, I mean,' answered Rob.
     The old woman looked at  him, as though she had  a strong  impulse upon
her to make  another clutch at his  head and throat, but was restrained by a
certain dogged mystery in his face.
     'That was the  art of it,' said the reluctant Grinder;  'that's the way
nobody  saw  'em  go, or has been  able  to say  how they did  go. They went
different ways, I tell you Misses Brown.
     'Ay, ay, ay! To meet at an  appointed place,'  chuckled the  old woman,
after a moment's silent and keen scrutiny of his face.
     'Why, if they weren't a going to meet somewhere, I  suppose  they might
as well  have stayed at home, mightn't they, Brown?' returned the  unwilling
Grinder.
     'Well, Rob?  Well?'  said the  old woman,  drawing his  arm yet tighter
through her own,  as if, in  her eagerness,  she were afraid of his slipping
away.
     'What, haven't  we  talked  enough  yet,  Misses  Brown?'  returned the
Grinder, who, between his  sense of injury, his sense  of  liquor,  and  his
sense  of being  on the rack, had become so lachrymose, that at almost every
answer he scooped his coats into one or  other  of his eyes, and  uttered an
unavailing whine  of remonstrance. 'Did she laugh that night, was it? Didn't
you ask if she laughed, Misses Brown?'
     'Or cried?' added the old woman, nodding assent.
     'Neither,' said the Grinder. 'She kept as steady when  she and me - oh,
I see you  will have it  out of me, Misses Brown!  But take your solemn oath
now, that you'll never tell anybody.'
     This Mrs Brown very readily did: being naturally Jesuitical; and having
no other intention in the matter than that her concealed visitor should hear
for himself.
     'She kept  as steady, then, when she and me went down  to Southampton,'
said the Grinder, 'as a image. In the morning she  was just the same, Misses
Brown. And when she went away in the packet before daylight, by herself - me
pretending to be her servant, and seeing her safe aboard -  she was just the
same. Now, are you contented, Misses Brown?'
     'No, Rob. Not yet,' answered Mrs Brown, decisively.
     'Oh, here's a woman for you!' cried the unfortunate Rob, in an outburst
of feeble lamentation over his own helplessness.
     'What did you wish to know next, Misses Brown?'
     'What became of Master? Where did  he go?' she  inquired, still holding
hIm tight, and looking close into his face, with her sharp eyes.
     'Upon my soul, I don't know, Misses Brown,' answered Rob.
     'Upon my soul I don't know what he did, nor where he went, nor anything
about  him I only know what  he said to me as  a caution  to hold my tongue,
when we parted; and I tell you this, Misses  Brown, as a friend, that sooner
than ever repeat  a word of what we're saying now,  you had  better take and
shoot yourself, or shut  yourself up in this house, and  set it  a-fire, for
there's nothing he wouldn't do, to be revenged  upon you. You don't know him
half as well as I do, Misses Brown. You're never safe from him, I tell you.'
     'Haven't I taken  an  oath,' retorted the  old woman, 'and won't I keep
it?'
     'Well, I'm sure I hope you will, Misses  Brown,' returned Rob, somewhat
doubtfully, and not without a  latent threatening in his  manner. 'For  your
own sake, quite as much as mine'
     He  looked at her as he gave her  this friendly caution, and emphasized
it with a nodding of his head; but finding it uncomfortable to encounter the
yellow face with its  grotesque action, and the ferret  eyes with their keen
old  wintry gaze, so close  to  his  own, he looked down  uneasily  and  sat
skulking  in  his chair,  as if he were  trying to bring hImself to a sullen
declaration  that he would answer  no more questions.  The old woman,  still
holding  him  as before, took this opportunity of raising the  forefinger of
her right hand, in  the air,  as a stealthy signal to the concealed observer
to give particular attention to what was about to follow.
     'Rob,' she said, in her most coaxing tone.
     'Good  gracious, Misses  Brown,  what's the  matter now?'  returned the
exasperated Grinder.
     'Rob! where did the lady and Master appoint to meet?'
     Rob shuffled more  and more, and looked up and looked down, and bit his
thumb, and dried it on his waistcoat, and finally said, eyeing his tormentor
askance, 'How should I know, Misses Brown?'
     The old woman held up her finger again, as before, and replying, 'Come,
lad! It's no use leading me to  that, and  there leaving me. I want to know'
waited for his  answer. Rob, after  a discomfited pause, suddenly broke  out
with, 'How can I pronounce the names of foreign places,  Mrs Brown?  What an
unreasonable woman you are!'
     'But you have heard it said, Robby,' she retorted firmly, 'and you know
what it sounded like. Come!'
     'I never heard it said, Misses Brown,' returned the Grinder.
     'Then,' retorted the old woman quickly,  'you have seen it written, and
you can spell it.'
     Rob, with a petulant exclamation between laughing  and crying - for  he
was  penetrated  with some admiration of Mrs  Brown's cunning,  even through
this persecution -  after  some reluctant  fumbling in his waistcoat pocket,
produced from it a little piece of chalk. The old woman's eyes sparkled when
she saw it between his thumb and finger, and hastily clearing a space on the
deal  table, that  he might  write the  word there, she once  more  made her
signal with a shaking hand.
     'Now I tell you beforehand what  it is, Misses Brown,' said  Rob, 'it's
no use asking me  anything else. I won't answer anything else; I  can't. How
long it was to be  before they met, or whose plan it was that they was to go
away  alone, I don't know no more than you do. I don't  know any  more about
it. If  I was to tell  you how I  found out  this word, you'd believe  that.
Shall I tell you, Misses Brown?'
     'Yes, Rob.'
     'Well then,  Misses Brown. The  way - now you won't  ask  any more, you
know?'  said Rob, turning  his eyes, which were now fast getting  drowsy and
stupid, upon her.
     'Not another word,' said Mrs Brown.
     'Well then, the way was this. When a certain person  left the lady with
me, he put  a piece of  paper with a direction written on  it in  the lady's
hand, saying  it was  in  case  she  should  forget.  She  wasn't  afraid of
forgetting, for she tore  it  up as soon as his back was turned, and when  I
put up the carriage steps, I shook out one of the pieces - she sprinkled the
rest  out of the window, I  suppose,  for there was none  there  afterwards,
though  I looked for  'em. There was only one word on it, and that was this,
if you  must and  will know. But remember! You're  upon  your  oath,  Misses
Brown!'
     Mrs Brown knew  that, she said. Rob, having nothing more  to say, began
to chalk, slowly and laboriously, on the table.
     '"D,"' the old woman read aloud, when he had formed the letter.
     'Will you hold your tongue, Misses  Brown?' he  exclaimed, covering  it
with his hand, and turning impatiently upon her. 'I won't  have it read out.
Be quiet, will you!'
     'Then write  large,  Rob,' she returned, repeating  her  secret signal;
'for my eyes are not good, even at print.'
     Muttering to  himself, and returning to his work with  an ill will, Rob
went  on with the  word.  As he bent his  head  down, the  person for  whose
information he so unconsciously laboured, moved from the door behind  him to
within a  short stride of  his  shoulder,  and  looked  eagerly  towards the
creeping track of his hand upon the table. At the same time, Alice, from her
opposite chair, watched it  narrowly as it  shaped the letters, and repeated
each one  on her lips as he made it,  without articulating  it aloud. At the
end of every letter  her eyes and Mr Dombey's met, as if each of them sought
to be confirmed by the other; and thus they both spelt D.I.J.O.N.
     'There!' said the Grinder, moistening the palm of his hand hastily,  to
obliterate  the word; and not  content  with  smearing it  out,  rubbing and
planing all trace of it away with his coat-sleeve,  until the very colour of
the chalk  was gone  from the table. 'Now,  I hope you're  contented, Misses
Brown!'
     The old woman,  in token of  her being so,  released his arm and patted
his back; and the Grinder, overcome with  mortification,  cross-examination,
and  liquor, folded his arms on the table, laid his head upon them, and fell
asleep.
     Not  until  he  had  been heavily asleep  some  time,  and was  snoring
roundly, did  the old woman turn  towards the  door  where Mr  Dombey  stood
concealed, and beckon him to come through the room, and pass out. Even then,
she hovered over Rob, ready  to blind him with her hands, or strike his head
down,  if he should raise it while the secret step was crossing to the door.
But though her glance took sharp cognizance of the sleeper, it was sharp too
for the waking man; and when he  touched her hand with his, and in  spite of
all his caution, made a chinking,  golden sound, it was as bright and greedy
as a raven's.
     The  daughter's dark gaze followed him  to the door, and noted well how
pale he was, and how his hurried tread indicated that the least delay was an
insupportable  restraint upon him, and how he  was burning to be active  and
away. As  he closed the door behind him, she looked round at her mother. The
old woman  trotted  to her; opened her hand to  show  what was within;  and,
tightly closing it again in her jealousy and avarice, whispered:
     'What will he do, Ally?'
     'Mischief,' said the daughter.
     'Murder?' asked the old woman.
     'He's a madman,  in his wounded pride, and may do that, for anything we
can say, or he either.'
     Her glance was brighter  than her  mother's, and the fire that shone in
it was fiercer; but her face was colourless, even to her lips
     They  said no more, but sat apart; the mother communing with her money;
the daughter with her thoughts; the  glance of each, shining in the gloom of
the  feebly lighted room. Rob  slept and snored. The disregarded parrot only
was in  action.  It  twisted and pulled  at the wires of its  cage, with its
crooked beak, and crawled up to the dome, and along its roof like a fly, and
down again head foremost,  and shook, and  bit, and rattled at every slender
bar, as if it knew its master's danger, and was wild to force a passage out,
and fly away to warn him of it.

        CHAPTER 53.
     More Intelligence

     There were two of  the traitor's own blood - his renounced  brother and
sister - on whom the weight of his guilt rested almost more heavily, at this
time, than on the man whom  he had so deeply  injured. Prying and tormenting
as the world was, it did Mr Dombey the service of nerving him to pursuit and
revenge. It roused his passion, stung his pride, twisted the one idea of his
life into a new shape, and made some gratification of  his wrath, the object
into which  his  whole  intellectual  existence  resolved  itself.  All  the
stubbornness and implacability  of his  nature,  all its  hard  impenetrable
quality, all its gloom and moroseness, all its exaggerated sense of personal
importance, all its jealous  disposition  to resent  the  least flaw in  the
ample recognition  of  his importance by  others,  set this  way  like  many
streams  united  into  one,  and bore  him on  upon  their  tide.  The  most
impetuously  passionate and violently impulsive of mankind would have been a
milder  enemy to encounter than the sullen Mr Dombey wrought to this. A wild
beast  would have been  easier  turned or  soothed than the  grave gentleman
without a wrinkle in his starched cravat.
     But  the very intensity of  his purpose became  almost a substitute for
action in it.  While  he  was yet  uninformed of the  traitor's  retreat, it
served to  divert his mind from  his own calamity, and to  entertain it with
another prospect. The  brother and sister of his false favourite had no such
relief; everything in their history, past and present, gave  his delinquency
a more afflicting meaning to them.
     The sister may have  sometimes sadly thought that if  she had  remained
with him, the companion and friend she had been once,  he might have escaped
the  crime into which he had fallen. If she ever  thought so,  it  was still
without regret for what she had done, without the least  doubt of her  duty,
without  any  pricing  or enhancing  of  her  self-devotion.  But  when this
possibility  presented itself to  the erring and  repentant  brother,  as it
sometimes did, it  smote upon his heart with such a keen,  reproachful touch
as he could hardly bear. No idea of retort upon his  cruel brother came into
his  mind. New accusation of himself,  fresh inward lamentings over  his own
unworthiness,  and the ruin in which it was at once his  consolation and his
self-reproach that he did not stand alone, were the sole kind of reflections
to which the discovery gave rise in him.
     It  was on the very same  day whose evening set upon the last  chapter,
and when Mr Dombey's world was busiest  with the elopement of his wife, that
the window  of the room in  which the brother and  sister sat at their early
breakfast, was darkened by  the  unexpected shadow of a man  coming  to  the
little porch: which man was Perch the Messenger.
     'I've  stepped over  from Balls Pond at a early hour,'  said  Mr Perch,
confidentially looking in  at the room door, and stopping on the mat to wipe
his  shoes  all  round,  which  had  no  mud  upon  them,  'agreeable to  my
instructions  last night. They was, to be  sure and bring  a note to you, Mr
Carker, before  you went out in the morning. I should have been  here a good
hour and a half ago,' said Mr Perch, meekly, 'but fOr the state of health of
Mrs P., who I thought I should have lost in the night, I do assure you, five
distinct times.'
     'Is your wife so ill?' asked Harriet.
     'Why, you see,' said Mr Perch, first turning  round to  shut  the  door
carefully, 'she takes what has happened in our House so much to heart, Miss.
Her nerves is so very delicate, you see, and soon unstrung. Not but what the
strongest nerves  had good need to be shook, I'm sure. You feel it very much
yourself, no doubts.
     Harriet repressed a sigh, and glanced at her brother.
     'I'm sure I feel it myself, in my humble way,' Mr Perch went on to say,
with  a shake of his head, 'in a manner I couldn't have believed if I hadn't
been called upon to  undergo. It has almost the  effect of drink upon  me. I
literally feels every morning as if I had been taking more than was good for
me over-night.'
     Mr Perch's appearance corroborated this recital of his symptoms.  There
was an air  of feverish  lassitude about it, that seemed referable to drams;
and, which,  in fact,  might  no doubt  have been traced  to  those numerous
discoveries of  himself in  the  bars of public-houses,  being  treated  and
questioned, which he was in the daily habit of making.
     'Therefore I  can judge,' said Mr Perch, shaking his  head and speaking
in  a  silvery murmur,  'of  the  feelings of such  as is at  all peculiarly
sitiwated in this most painful rewelation.'
     Here Mr Perch  waited to be confided in;  and receiving no  confidence,
coughed behind his hand. This leading to nothing, he coughed behind his hat;
and that leading to nothing, he put his hat on the ground and  sought in his
breast pocket for the letter.
     'If I rightly recollect, there was no  answer,' said  Mr Perch, with an
affable  smile; 'but  perhaps you'll  be so good  as cast your eye  over it,
Sir.'
     John Carker broke the  seal,  which  was  Mr Dombey's,  and  possessing
himself of the contents, which were very brief, replied,
     'No. No answer is expected.'
     'Then I shall  wish you good morning,  Miss,' said Perch, taking a step
toward the door, and hoping, I'm sure, that you'll not permit yourself to be
more reduced in  mind than you can help, by the late painful rewelation. The
Papers,'  said Mr  Perch, taking two  steps back again,  and comprehensively
addressing both the  brother and  sister in  a whisper of increased mystery,
'is more eager for news of it than you'd suppose possible. One of the Sunday
ones,  in a blue cloak  and a white hat, that had previously offered for  to
bribe me - need I  say with what success? - was dodging about our court last
night as late as twenty minutes after eight  o'clock. I see him myself, with
his  eye at the counting-house  keyhole,  which being patent  is impervious.
Another one,' said Mr  Perch, 'with military frogs, is in the parlour of the
King's  Arms all  the blessed day.  I  happened, last week, to let  a little
obserwation fall there, and next morning, which was Sunday, I see  it worked
up in print, in a most surprising manner.'
     Mr Perch resorted to his  breast pocket, as if to produce the paragraph
but receiving no encouragement, pulled out his beaver gloves,  picked up his
hat, and took his  leave; and before it was high noon, Mr Perch  had related
to  several select  audiences at  the  King's Arms and  elsewhere,  how Miss
Carker, bursting into tears, had  caught him by  both hands,  and said, 'Oh!
dear dear Perch, the sight of  you is all the comfort I have left!' and  how
Mr John Carker had said, in an awful voice, 'Perch, I disown him. Never  let
me hear hIm mentioned as a brother more!'
     'Dear John,' said  Harriet, when they were left alone, and had remained
silent for some few moments. 'There are bad tidings in that letter.'
     'Yes. But nothing unexpected,' he replied. 'I saw the writer
     yesterday.'
     'The writer?'
     'Mr  Dombey. He passed  twice through  the Counting House  while I  was
there. I had been able to avoid him before,  but of course could not hope to
do that long. I know how natural it was that he should regard my presence as
something offensive; I felt it must be so, myself.'
     'He did not say so?'
     'No; he  said nothing: but I saw that  his  glance  rested on me  for a
moment, and I was prepared for  what would happen - for what has happened. I
am dismissed!'
     She looked as  little shocked  and as  hopeful as she could, but it was
distressing news, for many reasons.
     '"I need not  tell you"' said John Carker,  reading the  letter,  '"why
your  name would  henceforth have an  unnatural  sound, in however remote  a
connexion with mine, or why the daily sight of anyone who bears it, would be
unendurable to me. I have to notify the cessation of all engagements between
us, from this date, and to request that no renewal of any communication with
me,  or  my  establishment,  be ever  attempted by you."  - Enclosed  is  an
equivalent in money to a generously  long notice, and this is my discharge."
Heaven knows, Harriet, it is a lenient and considerate one, when we remember
all!'
     'If it be lenient and considerate to punish you  at all, John, for  the
misdeed of another,' she replied gently, 'yes.'
     'We have been an ill-omened race  to  him,' said  John  Carker. 'He has
reason  to shrink from the sound of our name,  and  to  think  that there is
something cursed  and wicked in  our blood.  I  should  almost think it too,
Harriet, but for you.'
     'Brother, don't speak like this. If you have any special reason, as you
say you have, and  think  you have - though I say, No!- to love me, spare me
the hearing of such wild mad words!'
     He covered his face with both his hands; but soon permitted her, coming
near him, to take one in her own.
     'After so many years, this parting is a melancholy thing, I know,' said
his sister, 'and the cause  of  it is dreadful to us both. We  have to live,
too,  and must look  about  us  for  the  means. Well, well!  We can  do so,
undismayed. It is our pride, not our trouble, to strive, John, and to strive
together!'
     A  smile played on her lips, as she kissed his cheek, and entreated him
to be of of good cheer.
     'Oh, dearest sister! Tied,  of  your own  noble will, to a  ruined man!
whose reputation  is blighted; who  has no friend himself,  and  has  driven
every friend of yours away!'
     'John!' she  laid  her  hand hastily  upon his lips,  'for my sake!  In
remembrance of our long companionship!' He was silent 'Now, let me tell you,
dear,' quietly sitting by his side, 'I have, as you have, expected this; and
when  I  have been  thinking of it, and fearing that  it would  happen,  and
preparing myself for it, as well as I could, I have resolved to tell you, if
it  should be  so, that I have kept a  secret from you,  and  that we have a
friend.'
     'What's our friend's name, Harriet?' he answered with a sorrowful
     smile.
     'Indeed,  I don't know, but he once made a very earnest protestation to
me  of  his friendship and his wish to serve us: and to  this day I  believe
'him.'
     'Harriet!' exclaimed her wondering brother, 'where does this friend
     live?'
     'Neither do I know that,'  she returned. 'But he knows us both, and our
history - all our little history, John. That is  the  reason why, at his own
suggestion, I have kept  the secret of his coming, here,  from you, lest his
acquaintance with it should distress you.
     'Here! Has he been here, Harriet?'
     'Here, in this room. Once.'
     'What kind of man?'
     'Not young. "Grey-headed," as he said, "and fast  growing greyer."  But
generous, and frank, and good, I am sure.'
     'And only seen once, Harriet?'
     'In this room only once,' said his  sister, with the slightest and most
transient glow upon her cheek; 'but when here, he entreated me to suffer him
to see  me  once a week as  he passed  by, in token of  our being well,  and
continuing  to need nothing at his hands. For I told him, when he  proffered
us any service he could render - which was the object of his visit - that we
needed nothing.'
     'And once a week - '
     'Once every  week since  then,  and always on  the same day, and at the
same hour, he  his  gone past;  always on  foot;  always  going in  the same
direction  - towards London; and never pausing longer than to bow to me, and
wave  his  hand cheerfully, as a kind guardian might.  He made that  promise
when he proposed these curious interviews, and has kept it so faithfully and
pleasantly, that if I ever felt any  trifling uneasiness  about them  in the
beginning (which  I don't think I  did, John; his  manner was  so plain  and
true) It very soon vanished, and left me quite glad when the day was coming.
Last Monday - the first since this terrible event - he did not go by;  and I
have  wondered whether his absence  can have been in any  way connected with
what has happened.'
     'How?' inquired her brother.
     'I  don't know how. I  have only speculated  on the coincidence; I have
not tried to account for it. I feel sure he will return.  When he does, dear
John,  let me tell him that I have at last spoken to you,  and let  me bring
you together. He will certainly help  us  to a new livelihood. His  entreaty
was  that he might  do something to smooth my life and yours; and I gave him
my promise that if we ever wanted a friend, I would remember him.'
     'Then  his name was  to be no secret, 'Harriet,'  said her brother, who
had listened with close attention, 'describe this  gentleman to me. I surely
ought to know one who knows me so well.'
     His sister painted, as vividly as she could, the features, stature, and
dress  of her visitor; but John Carker, either from  having  no knowledge of
the  original,  or  from  some  fault  in  her  description,  or  from  some
abstraction  of his thoughts as he walked  to and fro, pondering, could  not
recognise the portrait she presented to him.
     However, it  was agreed between  them  that he  should see the original
when he next appeared. This concluded, the sister  applied herself,  with  a
less anxious breast, to her domestic  occupations; and the grey-haired  man,
late  Junior  of Dombey's, devoted the first day of  his unwonted liberty to
working in the garden.
     It was quite late at night, and the brother was reading aloud while the
sister  plied  her needle, when they  were  interrupted by a knocking at the
door. In the atmosphere of vague anxiety and dread  that lowered  about them
in connexion with their fugitive brother, this sound,  unusual there, became
almost alarming. The brother  going to the door, the sister sat and listened
timidly. Someone spoke  to  him,  and he replied and  seemed surprised;  and
after a few words, the two approached together.
     'Harriet,'  said  her brother,  lighting  in their  late  visitor,  and
speaking in a low  voice,  'Mr Morfin  - the gentleman  so long  in Dombey's
House with James.'
     His  sister started  back,  as if a  ghost had  entered. In the doorway
stood the  unknown friend, with the dark hair sprinkled with grey, the ruddy
face, the broad  clear brow, and hazel eyes, whose secret  she had  kept  so
long!
     'John!' she said, half-breathless. 'It is the gentleman I told you  of,
today!'
     'The gentleman, Miss Harriet,' said the visitor, coming in - for he had
stopped a moment in the doorway - 'is greatly relieved to hear you say that:
he  has been devising  ways  and  means, all  the  way  here,  of explaining
himself, and has  been satisfied  with  none. Mr  John, I  am  not  quite  a
stranger here. You were  stricken  with astonishment when you saw me at your
door just  now. I observe you are more  astonished at present. Well!  That's
reasonable  enough  under  existing  circumstances.  If  we  were  not  such
creatures of habit as we are, we shouldn't have reason to be astonished half
so often.'
     By  this  time, he  had greeted Harriet  with  that  able  mingling  of
cordiality and respect which she recollected so  well, and had sat down near
her, pulled off his gloves, and thrown them into his hat upon the table.
     'There's  nothing  astonishing,'  he  said, 'in  my  having conceived a
desire to see your sister,  Mr John,  or in my having gratified it in my own
way. As  to  the regularity of my visits since (which she may have mentioned
to you),  there is nothing  extraordinary  in  that. They  soon grew into  a
habit; and we are creatures of habit - creatures of habit!'
     Putting his hands  into his  pockets, and leaning back in his chair, he
looked  at  the brother and sister as if it were interesting to  him to  see
them together; and went on to say, with a kind of irritable thoughtfulness:
     'It's this same  habit  that confirms some  of us, who  are  capable of
better things, in Lucifer's own pride and stubbornness -  that confirms  and
deepens others of us in villainy - more of us in indifference - that hardens
us from day to day, according to  the temper of  our  clay, like images, and
leaves us as susceptible  as  images to new impressions and convictions. You
shall judge of its influence on me, John. For more years than I need name, I
had  my  small,  and  exactly defined  share, in the management  of Dombey's
House, and saw your brother (who has proved himself a scoundrel! Your sister
will forgive my being  obliged to mention it)  extending  and  extending his
influence, until the  business and its owner were  his football; and saw you
toiling  at  your obscure  desk  every day; and  was quite content  to be as
little troubled  as  I  might  be,  out of my own strip of  duty, and to let
everything about me go on, day by day, unquestioned, like a great machine  -
that was its habit and mine  - and to take it all  for granted, and consider
it  all  right.  My Wednesday nights  came  regularly round,  our  quartette
parties came regularly  off, my violoncello was  in good tune, and there was
nothing wrong in my  world - or if anything not much - or little or much, it
was no affair of mine.'
     'I can answer for your being more respected and beloved during all that
time than anybody in the House, Sir,' said John Carker.
     'Pooh! Good-natured and easy enough, I daresay,'returned the  other, 'a
habit I had. It suited the Manager;  it suited the man he managed: it suited
me best of all. I did what was allotted to me to do, made no court to either
of  them, and was glad to occupy a station in which  none was required. So I
should have gone on till now, but that my room had a thin wall. You can tell
your  sister  that  it was  divided  from the Manager's  room  by a wainscot
partition.'
     'They were adjoining rooms; had been one, Perhaps, originally; and were
separated, as Mr Morfin says,' said her brother, looking back to him for the
resumption of his explanation.
     'I  have whistled, hummed  tunes,  gone accurately through the whole of
Beethoven's Sonata  in  B,' to let him know that I was within hearing,' said
Mr  Morfin; 'but  he never heeded me. It happened  seldom enough  that I was
within hearing of anything of a private nature, certainly.  But when I  was,
and couldn't otherwise avoid knowing something of it, I walked out. I walked
out once, John, during a conversation between two brothers, to which, in the
beginning, young Walter Gay was a party. But I overheard some of it before I
left the  room. You remember it  sufficiently,  perhaps, to tell your sister
what its nature was?'
     'It referred,  Harriet,' said her brother in a low voice, 'to the past,
and to our relative positions in the House.'
     'Its  matter was  not new to me, but was presented in  a new aspect. It
shook me in my habit - the habit of nine-tenths of the world -  of believing
that all  was right about me, because I was used to it,' said their visitor;
'and induced me to recall the history of the  two brothers, and to ponder on
it. I think  it was almost the first time  in  my life when I fell into this
train  of reflection  -  how will many things that  are  familiar, and quite
matters  of course  to us now, look, when  we come to see them from that new
and distant point of view which we must all take up, one day or other? I was
something  less good-natured, as the phrase goes,  after that  morning, less
easy and complacent altogether.'
     He  sat  for a  minute or so, drumming with one  hand on the table; and
resumed in a hurry, as if he were anxious to get rid of his confession.
     'Before I knew what to do, or  whether I could do anything, there was a
second conversation between the same two brothers, in which their sister was
mentioned. I had no scruples  of conscience in  suffering all  the waifs and
strays of  that  conversation  to float  to me  as freely  as they would.  I
considered them mine by right. After that, I came here to see the sister for
myself.  The first time  I stopped at the garden  gate, I made a  pretext of
inquiring into the character of a poor neighbour; but I wandered out of that
tract, and I think Miss Harriet mistrusted me. The second time I asked leave
to come  in; came  in; and said what I wished to  say. Your sister showed me
reasons which I dared not dispute, for receiving no assistance from me then;
but  I established  a  means  of  communication  between us,  which remained
unbroken until  within these  few days, when  I was prevented,  by important
matters that have lately devolved upon me, from maintaining them'
     'How little I have suspected this,' said John Carker, 'when I have seen
you every day, Sir! If Harriet could have guessed your name - '
     'Why, to tell you the truth,  John,' interposed the visitor, 'I kept it
to myself  for two  reasons. I don't know that  the  first might  have  been
binding alone; but one has no business to take credit  for  good intentions,
and I made up my mind, at all events, not to  disclose myself until I should
be able to do you some real  service or other.  My second reason was, that I
always  hoped there  might  be some lingering possibility  of your brother's
relenting towards you both; and in that case,  I felt  that where  there was
the chance of a man of his suspicious, watchful character, discovering  that
you had  been secretly  befriended  by me, there was the chance of a new and
fatal cause of division. I  resolved, to be sure, at the risk of turning his
displeasure against myself - which would have  been no  matter - to watch my
opportunity of serving you with the head of the House; but the  distractions
of death, courtship,  marriage, and  domestic unhappiness,  have left  us no
head but  your brother for  this  long,  long  time. And it would  have been
better  for  us,'  said the visitor,  dropping  his voice,  'to have been  a
lifeless trunk.'
     He seemed conscious that these latter words had escaped hIm against his
will,  and stretching out  a hand to the brother, and  a hand to the sister,
continued: 'All I could desire to say, and more, I have now said. All I mean
goes beyond words, as I hope  you understand and believe. The time has come,
John - though  most unfortunately and  unhappily come - when I may  help you
without interfering with that redeeming  struggle,  which has lasted through
so many  years;  since you were discharged from  it today by  no act of your
own. It is late;  I need say  no  more to-night. You will guard the treasure
you have here, without advice or reminder from me.'
     With these words he rose to go.
     'But  go you  first,  John,'  he  said goodhumouredly,  'with  a light,
without saying  what  you want to say,  whatever that maybe;'  John Carker's
heart was full, and he would  have relieved it in speech,' if he could; 'and
let me  have  a word  with your sister.  We have talked alone before, and in
this room too; though it looks more natural with you here.'
     Following  him out with his eyes, he turned kindly to Harriet, and said
in a lower voice, and with an altered and graver manner:
     'You  wish to ask me  something of  the man whose  sister  it  is  your
misfortune to be.'
     'I dread to ask,' said Harriet.
     'You have  looked so earnestly  at  me  more than once,'  rejoined  the
visitor, 'that I think I can divine your question. Has he taken money? Is it
that?'
     'Yes.'
     'He has not.'
     'I thank Heaven!' said Harriet. 'For the sake of John.'
     'That he has abused his trust in many  ways,' said Mr  Morfin; 'that he
has  oftener dealt  and speculated to advantage  for himself,  than  for the
House he represented; that he has led the House on, to prodigious  ventures,
often resulting  in enormous losses;  that he has always pampered the vanity
and ambition of his employer,  when  it was  his duty to have  held  them in
check, and shown, as it was in his power to do, to what they tended here  or
there; will not,  perhaps, surprise you now. Undertakings have been  entered
on, to swell the reputation of the  House for vast resources, and to exhibit
it in magnificent contrast to other merchants' Houses,  of which it requires
a  steady  head  to contemplate  the possibly  - a few disastrous changes of
affairs might render them the probably - ruinous consequences.  In the midst
of the many transactions  of the House, in most parts  of the world: a great
labyrinth  of which only he has held the  clue: he has had  the opportunity,
and  he seems to  have used it, of keeping the various  results afloat, when
ascertained,  and  substituting estimates  and  generalities for  facts. But
latterly - you follow me, Miss Harriet?'
     'Perfectly, perfectly,' she answered, with her frightened face fixed on
his. 'Pray tell me all the worst at once.
     'Latterly, he appears  to have  devoted  the greatest pains  to  making
these  results  so  plain and  clear,  that reference to  the private  books
enables  one  to  grasp  them,  numerous  and  varying  as  they  are,  with
extraordinary ease. As if he had resolved to show his  employer at one broad
view what has  been brought upon him by ministration to  his ruling passion!
That it has been his constant practice to minister  to  that passion basely,
and to flatter it corruptly, is indubitable. In that, his criminality, as it
is connected with the affairs of the House, chiefly consists.'
     'One other word before you leave me, dear Sir,' said Harriet. 'There is
no danger in all this?'
     'How danger?' he returned, with a little hesitation.
     'To the credit of the House?'
     'I cannot help  answering you  plainly, and  trusting you  completely,'
said Mr Morfin, after a moment's survey of her face.
     'You may. Indeed you may!'
     'I am sure I may. Danger to the House's  credit? No; none There may  be
difficulty,  greater or less difficulty,  but  no danger, unless  -  unless,
indeed - the head of the House, unable to bring his mind to the reduction of
its enterprises, and positively  refusing to believe that it is, or can  be,
in  any position but the position in which he has always  represented it  to
himself, should urge it beyond its strength. Then it would totter.'
     'But there is no apprehension of that?' said Harriet.
     'There  shall  be no  half-confidence,' he  replied, shaking her  hand,
'between us. Mr Dombey is unapproachable by anyone, and his state of mind is
haughty, rash, unreasonable, and ungovernable, now. But he  is disturbed and
agitated  now beyond all common bounds, and it may pass. You  now  know all,
both worst and best. No more to-night, and good-night!'
     With  that he kissed her hand,  and,  passing out to the door where her
brother stood awaiting his coming, put him cheerfully aside when  he essayed
to  speak; told  him that, as  they would see each other soon and often,  he
might  speak at another  time, if he would, but there was no  leisure for it
then; and  went  away at a round pace,  in order that  no  word of gratitude
might follow him.
     The brother and  sister  sat  conversing  by the fireside, until it was
almost day; made  sleepless by this glimpse of  the  new  world that  opened
before  them,  and  feeling  like two people shipwrecked  long ago,  upon  a
solitary  coast, to  whom a  ship had  come at  last, when they  were old in
resignation, and had lost  all  thought of any other  home. But another  and
different kind of disquietude kept them  waking too.  The  darkness  out  of
which this light had broken on them gathered around; and the shadow of their
guilty brother was in the house where his foot had never trod.
     Nor  was it  to be  driven out, nor  did it fade before the  sun.  Next
morning it was there; at noon; at night Darkest and most  distinct at night,
as is now to be told.
     John Carker had gone  out, in pursuance of a letter of appointment from
their friend,  and Harriet was  left  in the house alone. She had been alone
some  hours. A  dull,  grave  evening, and  a  deepening twilight,  were not
favourable to the removal of the oppression on her spirits. The idea of this
brother, long  unseen and unknown, flitted about her in frightful  shapes He
was  dead,  dying,  calling  to her, staring at her,  frowning on  her.  The
pictures in  her mind  were  so obtrusive  and  exact that, as  the twilight
deepened, she dreaded  to raise her head and look at the dark corners of the
room, lest his wraith, the offspring of her excited imagination,  should  be
waiting there, to startle her. Once she had such a fancy of his being in the
next room, hiding - though she  knew  quite well what a distempered fancy it
was, and had no belief in  it - that she forced herself to go there, for her
own  conviction.  But  in  vain. The room resumed its  shadowy  terrors, the
moment she  left it; a