a light, without saying what you want to say, whatever that may be;" 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 be taken money? Is it that?" "Yes." "He has not." "For the sake of John." "I thank Heaven!" said Harriet. "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. "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. There may be difficulty, unless unless, indeed Danger to the House's credit? No; none. greater or less difficulty, but no danger, 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 any one, 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 Dombey and Son. III. 15 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. Не 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; and she had no more power to divest herself of these vague impressions of dread, than if they had been stone giants, rooted in the solid earth. -- It was almost dark, and she was sitting near the window, with her head upon her hand, looking down, when, sensible of a sudden increase in the gloom of the apartment, she raised her eyes, and uttered an involuntary cry. Close to the glass, a pale scared face gazed in; vacantly, for an instant, as searching for an object; then the eyes rested on herself, and lighted up. "Let me in! Let me in! I want to speak to you!" and the hand rattled on the glass. She recognised immediately the woman with the long dark hair, to whom she had given warmth, food, and shelter, one wet night. Naturally afraid of her, remembering her violent behaviour, Harriet, retreating a little from the window, stood undecided and alarmed. "Let me in! Let me speak to you! I am thankful humble anything you like. But let me speak to you." quiet The vehement manner of the entreaty, the earnest expression of the face, the trembling of the two hands that were raised imploringly, a certain dread and terror in the voice akin to her own condition at the moment, prevailed with Harriet. She hastened to the door and opened it. “May I come in, or shall I speak here?" said the woman, catching at her hand. "What is it that you want? What is it that you have to Say?" "Not much, but let me say it out, or I shall never say it. I am tempted now to go away. There seem to be hands dragging me from the door. Let me come in, if you can trust me for this once!" Her energy again prevailed, and they passed into the fire-light of the little kitchen, where she had before sat, and ate, and dried her clothes. "Sit there," said Alice, kneeling down beside her, "and look at me. You remember me?" "I do." "You remember what I told you I had been, and where I came from, ragged and lame, with the fierce wind and weather beating on my head?" "Yes." "You know how I came back that night, and threw your money in the dirt, and cursed you and your race. here, upon my knees. Am I less earnest now, then?" Now, see me than I was "If what you ask,” said Harriet, gently, "is forgiveness—” "But it's not!" returned the other, with a proud, fierce look, "What I ask is, to be believed. Now you shall judge if I am worthy of belief, both as I was, and as I am." Still upon her knees, and with her eyes upon the fire, and the fire shining on her ruined beauty and her wild black hair, one long tress of which she pulled over her shoulder, and wound about her hand, and thoughtfully bit and tore while speaking, she went on: "When I was young and pretty, and this," plucking contemptuously at the hair she held, "was only handled delicately, and couldn't be admired enough, my mother, who had not been very mindful of me as a child, found out my merits, and was fond of me, and proud of me. She was covetous and poor, and thought to make a sort of property of me. No great lady ever thought that of a daughter yet, I'm sure, or acted as if she did — it's never done, we all know and that shows that the only instances of mothers bringing up their daughters wrong, and evil coming of it, are among such miserable folks as us." Looking at the fire; as if she were forgetful, for the moment, of having any auditor, she continued in a dreamy way, as she wound the long tress of hair tight round and round her hand. "What came of that, I needn't say. Wretched marriages don't come of such things, in our degree; only wretchedness and ruin. Wretchedness and ruin came on me came on me." Raising her eyes swiftly from their moody gaze upon the fire, to Harriet's face, she said "I am wasting time, and there is none to spare; yet if I hadn't thought of all, I shouldn't be here now. Wretchedness and ruin came on me, I say. I was made a short-lived toy, and flung aside more cruelly and carelessly than even such things are. By whose hand do you think?" "Why do you ask me?" said Harriet. "Why do you tremble?" rejoined Alice, with an eager look. "His usage made a Devil of me. I sunk in wretchedness and ruin, lower and lower yet. I was concerned in a robbery — in every part of it but the gains and was found out, and sent to be tried, without a friend, without a penny. Though I was but a |