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The return of Mr Casby with his daughter Flora, put an end to these

meditations Clennam's eyes no sooner fell upon the subject of his old

passion than it shivered and broke to pieces

Most men will be found sufficiently true to themselves to be true to

an old idea It is no proof of an inconstant mind, but exactly the

opposite, when the idea will not bear close comparison with the reality,

and the contrast is a fatal shock to it Such was Clennam's case In his

youth he had ardently loved this woman, and had heaped upon her all the

locked-up wealth of his affection and iination That wealth had been,

in his desert hoeable with no

one, lying idle in the dark to rust, until he poured it out for her

Ever since that ht of his

arrival, as completely dismissed her from any association with his

Present or Future as if she had been dead (which shehe knew), he had kept the old fancy of the Past