A frequently recurring doubt, whether Mr Pancks's desire to collect

information relative to the Dorrit family could have any possible

bearing on the misgivings he had imparted to his mother on his return

from his long exile, caused Arthur Clennam much uneasiness at this

period.

What Mr Pancks already knew about the Dorrit family, what more

he really wanted to find out, and why he should trouble his busy head

about them at all, were questions that often perplexed him. Mr Pancks

was not a man to waste his time and trouble in researches prompted by

idle curiosity.

That he had a specific object Clennam could not doubt.

And whether the attainment of that object by Mr Pancks's industry might

bring to light, in some untimely way, secret reasons which had induced

his mother to take Little Dorrit by the hand, was a serious speculation.

Not that he ever wavered either in his desire or his determination to

repair a wrong that had been done in his father's time, should a

wrong come to light, and be reparable. The shadow of a supposed act

of injustice, which had hung over him since his father's death, was

so vague and formless that it might be the result of a reality widely

remote from his idea of it. But, if his apprehensions should prove to

be well founded, he was ready at any moment to lay down all he had, and

begin the world anew. As the fierce dark teaching of his childhood had

never sunk into his heart, so that first article in his code of morals

was, that he must begin, in practical humility, with looking well to

his feet on Earth, and that he could never mount on wings of words to

Heaven.

Duty on earth, restitution on earth, action on earth; these

first, as the first steep steps upward. Strait was the gate and narrow

was the way; far straiter and narrower than the broad high road paved

with vain professions and vain repetitions, motes from other men's eyes

and liberal delivery of others to the judgment--all cheap materials

costing absolutely nothing. No.

It was not a selfish fear or hesitation that rendered him

uneasy, but a mistrust lest Pancks might not observe his part of the

understanding between them, and, making any discovery, might take some

course upon it without imparting it to him. On the other hand, when he

recalled his conversation with Pancks, and the little reason he had to

suppose that there was any likelihood of that strange personage being

on that track at all, there were times when he wondered that he made so

much of it. Labouring in this sea, as all barks labour in cross seas, he

tossed about and came to no haven.




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