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Left alone, with the expressive looks and gestures of Mr Baptist,

otherwise Giovanni Baptista Cavalletto, vividly before him, Clennam

entered on a weary day It was in vain that he tried to control his

attention by directing it to any business occupation or train of

thought; it rode at anchor by the haunting topic, and would hold to no

other idea

As though a criminal should be chained in a stationary boat

on a deep clear river, condeues of water

flowed past him, always to see the body of the fellow-creature he had

drowned lying at the bottoeable, except as

the eddies

its terrible linea current of

transparent thoughts and fancies which were gone and succeeded by others

as soon as come, saw, steady and dark, and not to be stirred from its

place, the one subject that he endeavoured with all his ht to rid

himself of, and that he could not fly from

The assurance he now

had, that Blandois, whatever his right nah the

disappearance should be accounted for to-morrow, the fact that

his mother had been in communication with such a man, would remain

unalterable

That the communication had been of a secret kind, and that

she had been subht be

known to no one beyond hi it, how could he separate

it fro evil

in such relations? Her resolution not to enter on the question with hie of her indomitable character, enhanced his sense of

helplessness

It was like the oppression of a drea over her and his father's memory, and

to be shut out, as by a brazen wall, fro to

their aid The purpose he had brought home to his native country, and

had ever since kept in vieith her greatest determination,

defeated by his mother herself, at the time of all others when he feared

that it pressed y, activity, money, credit,

all his resources whatsoever, were all made useless If she had been

possessed of the old fabled influence, and had turned those who looked

upon her into stone, she could not have rendered him more completely

powerless (so it seemed to him in his distress offace to his in her gloo on these considerations,

roused him to take a more decided course of action

Confident in the rectitude of his purpose, and i in around, he resolved, if his mother would

still admit of no approach, to ht to become communicative, and to do what lay in her to

break the spell of secrecy that enshrouded the house, he ht shake

off the paralysis of which every hour that passed over his head made

him more acutely sensible This was the result of his day's anxiety, and

this was the decision he put in practice when the day closed in

His first disappoint at the house, was to find the door

open, and Mr Flintwinch s a pipe on the steps If circumstances

had been commonly favourable, Mistress Affery would have opened the

door to his knock Circu uncommonly unfavourable, the door

stood open, and Mr Flintwinch was s,' said Arthur

'Good evening,' said Mr Flintwinch

The smoke came crookedly out of Mr Flintwinch's ure and cale with the smoke from the crooked

chimneys and the mists from the crooked river

'Have you any news?' said Arthur

'We have no news,' said Jeren n rim, as he stood askeith the knot of his cravat under

his ear, that the thought passed into Clennam's mind, and not for the

first tiot

rid of Blandois? Could it have been his secret, and his safety, that

were at issue? He was s;

yet he was as tough as an old yew-tree, and as crusty as an old jackdaw

Such a orousthe will to put an end to hiht do it

pretty surely in that solitary place at a late hour

While, in the hts drifted

over the main one that was always in Clenna the opposite house over the gateith his neck twisted and

one eye shut up, stood s with a vicious expression upon hi to bite off the ste it Yet he was enjoying it in his oay

'You'll be able to take my likeness, the next time you call, Arthur,

I should think,' said Mr Flintwinch, drily, as he stooped to knock the

ashes out

Rather conscious and confused, Arthur asked his pardon, if he had stared

at him unpolitely 'But my mind runs so much upon this matter,' he said,

'that I lose myself'

'Hah! Yet I don't see,' returned Mr Flintwinch, quite at his leisure,

'why it should trouble YOU, Arthur'

'No?'

'No,' said Mr Flintwinch, very shortly and decidedly: much as if he were

of the canine race, and snapped at Arthur's hand

'Is it nothing to see those placards about? Is it nothing to me to

see my mother's name and residence hawked up and down in such an

association?'

'I don't see,' returned Mr Flintwinch, scraping his horny cheek, 'that

it need signify lancing up at the s; 'I see the light of fire and candle in your

mother's room!'

'And what has that to do with it?'

'Why, sir, I read by it,' said Mr Flintwinch, screwing himself at him,

'that if it's advisable (as the proverb says it is) to let sleeping dogs

lie, it's just as advisable, perhaps, to let enerally turn up soon enough'

Mr Flintwinch turned short round when he had made this remark, and went

into the dark hall Clenna hiht in the phosphorus-box in the little roohted the di the probabilities--rather

as if they were being shown to hi the that darker deed, and re its traces by any of the black

avenues of shadow that lay around thereeable to walk

up-stairs?'

'My mother is alone, I suppose?'

'Not alone,' said Mr Flintwinch 'Mr Casby and his daughter are with

her They ca, and I stayed behind to have my

smoke out'

This was the second disappointment Arthur made no remark upon it, and

repaired to histea, anchovy paste, and hot buttered toast The relics of those

delicacies were not yet removed, either from the table or from the

scorched countenance of Affery, ith the kitchen toasting-fork

still in her hand, looked like a sort of allegorical personage; except

that she had a considerable advantage over the general run of such

personages in point of significant emblematical purpose

Flora had spread her bonnet and shawl upon the bed, with a care

indicative of an intention to stay so

near the hob, with his benevolent knobs shining as if the warh the patriarchal skull, and with his face

as ruddy as if the colouring

in the patriarchal visage Seeing this, as he exchanged the

usual salutations, Clennam decided to speak to hisbeen custoed her roo to say to her apart, to wheel her to her desk; where she

sat, usually with the back of her chair turned towards the rest of the

room, and the person who talked with her seated in a corner, on a stool

which was always set in that place for that purpose Except that it

was long since the ether without the

intervention of a third person, it was an ordinary matter of course

within the experience of visitors for Mrs Clennay for the interruption, if she could be spoken with on

ain the affirmative, to be

wheeled into the position described

Therefore, when Arthur now y, and such a request,

and moved her to her desk and seated hian to talk louder and faster, as a delicate hint that she

could overhear nothing, and Mr Casby stroked his long white locks with

sleepy cal to-day which I feel persuaded you don't

know, and which I think you should know, of the antecedents of thatof the antecedents of the man you saw here, Arthur'

She spoke aloud He had lowered his own voice; but she rejected that

advance towards confidence as she rejected every other, and spoke in her

usual key and in her usual stern voice

'I have received it on no circuitous information; it has come to me

direct' She asked him, exactly as before, if he were there to tell her

what it was?

'I thought it right that you should know it'

'And what is it?'

'He has been a prisoner in a French gaol'

She answered with coaol for criminals, mother On an accusation of murder'

She started at the word, and her looks expressed her natural horror Yet

she still spoke aloud, when she demanded:--

'Who told you so?'

'A man as his fellow-prisoner'

'That man's antecedents, I suppose, were not known to you, before he

told you?'

'No'

'Though the man himself was?'

'Yes'

'My case and Flintwinch's, in respect of this other h, as that your inforh a letter from a correspondent hom he had deposited

money? How does that part of the parallel stand?'

Arthur had no choice but to say that his inforency of any such credentials, or indeed of any

credentials at all Mrs Clennarees

into a severe look of triue others, then I say to you, Arthur, for your good,

take care how you judge!' Her emphasis had been derived from her eyes

quite as much as from the stress she laid upon her words She continued

to look at him; and if, when he entered the house, he had had any latent

hope of prevailing in the least with her, she now looked it out of his

heart

'Mother, shall I do nothing to assist you?'

'Nothing'

'Will you entrust e, no explanation?

Will you take no counsel with me? Will you not let me come near you?'

'How can you ask me? You separated yourself from my affairs It was not

my act; it was yours How can you consistently ask me such a question?

You know that you left me to Flintwinch, and that he occupies your

place'

Glancing at Jereaiters that his attention

was closely directed to the his jaw, and pretended to listen to Flora as she held forth in

amanner on a chaos of subjects, in which led with cockchafers and the

wine trade

'A prisoner, in a French gaol, on an accusation ofover what her son had said 'That is all you

know of him from the fellow-prisoner?'

'In substance, all'

'And was the fellow-prisoner his accoives a better account of himself than of his friend; it is

needless to ask This will supply the rest of the

new to talk about Casby, Arthur tells me--'

'Stay, mother! Stay, stay!' He interrupted her hastily, for it had not

entered his iination that she would openly proclaim what he had told

her

'What now?' she said with displeasure 'Whatyou to excuse --for one

other moment with my mother--'

He had laid his hand upon her chair, or she would otherwise have wheeled

it round with the touch of her foot upon the ground They were still

face to face She looked at him, as he ran over the possibilities of

so influenced

by Cavalletto's disclosure beco a matter of notoriety, and hurriedly

arrived at the conclusion that it had best not be talked about; though

perhaps he was guided by no ranted that his mother would reserve it to herself and her

partner

'What now?' she said again, impatiently 'What is it?'

'I did not mean, mother, that you should repeat what I have