'Well!' said Clennam, abiding by the feeling that had fallen on him in

the avenue on the night of the roses, the feeling that he was an

older man, who had done with that tender part of life, 'I found out my

mistake, and I thought about it a little--in short, a good deal--and got

wiser. Being wiser, I counted up my years and considered what I am, and

looked back, and looked forward, and found that I should soon be grey. I

found that I had climbed the hill, and passed the level ground upon the

top, and was descending quickly.'

If he had known the sharpness of the pain he caused the patient heart,

in speaking thus! While doing it, too, with the purpose of easing and

serving her. 'I found that the day when any such thing would have been graceful in

me, or good in me, or hopeful or happy for me or any one in connection

with me, was gone, and would never shine again.' O! If he had known, if he had known! If he could have seen the dagger in

his hand, and the cruel wounds it struck in the faithful bleeding breast

of his Little Dorrit! 'All that is over, and I have turned my face from it. Why do I speak of

this to Little Dorrit? Why do I show you, my child, the space of years

that there is between us, and recall to you that I have passed, by the

amount of your whole life, the time that is present to you?'

'Because you trust me, I hope. Because you know that nothing can touch

you without touching me; that nothing can make you happy or unhappy, but

it must make me, who am so grateful to you, the same.'

He heard the thrill in her voice, he saw her earnest face, he saw her

clear true eyes, he saw the quickened bosom that would have joyfully

thrown itself before him to receive a mortal wound directed at his

breast, with the dying cry, 'I love him!' and the remotest suspicion

of the truth never dawned upon his mind. No. He saw the devoted little

creature with her worn shoes, in her common dress, in her jail-home; a

slender child in body, a strong heroine in soul; and the light of her

domestic story made all else dark to him.

'For those reasons assuredly, Little Dorrit, but for another too. So

far removed, so different, and so much older, I am the better fitted for

your friend and adviser. I mean, I am the more easily to be trusted;

and any little constraint that you might feel with another, may vanish

before me. Why have you kept so retired from me? Tell me.'




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