'So John Harmon died, and Julius Handford disappeared, and John Rokesmith was born. John Rokesmith's intent to-night has been to repair a wrong that he could never have imagined possible, coming to his ears through the Lightwood talk related to him, and which he is bound by every consideration to remedy. In that intent John Rokesmith will persevere, as his duty is.

'When he finds himself here, you know,' Bob explains. 'Cause Miss Abbey forbid him the house and ordered him out of it. But what you may call the Fates ordered him into it again. Which is rumness; ain't it?'

'Don't call me Shipmate,' said the man.

'Explain, god-daughter.'澳洲幸运5_首页_澳洲幸运5官网'That's what I say,' observed Pleasant. 'Where's the reason for it? Bless the sailors, it ain't as if they ever could keep what they have, without it.'

'That seaman was well beknown to me.'澳洲幸运5_首页_澳洲幸运5官网At first Riderhood had sat with his footless glass extended at arm's length for filling, while the very deliberate stranger seemed absorbed in his preparations. But, gradually his arm reverted home to him, and his glass was lowered and lowered until he rested it upside down upon the table. By the same degrees his attention became concentrated on the knife. And now, as the man held out the bottle to fill all round, Riderhood stood up, leaned over the table to look closer at the knife, and stared from it to him.澳洲幸运5_首页_澳洲幸运5官网'Yes, I am aware they ought to be, my dear,' rejoined her father, 'but they--ain't.'

澳洲幸运5_首页_澳洲幸运5官网'But this is the fanciful side of the situation. It has a real side, so difficult that, though I think of it every day, I never thoroughly think it out. Now, let me determine to think it out as I walk home. I know I evade it, as many men--perhaps most men--do evade thinking their way through their greatest perplexity. I will try to pin myself to mine. Don't evade it, John Harmon; don't evade it; think it out!

Mr Riderhood, with his crooked eye upon his visitor, meditated for some moments, and then refilled his glass, and tipped the contents down his throat in three tips.澳洲幸运5_首页_澳洲幸运5官网The male domestic of Mrs Boffin touched his hat, and in the act of departure had an awful glare bestowed upon him by Mrs Wilfer, intended to carry deep into his audacious soul the assurance that, whatever his private suspicions might be, male domestics in livery were no rarity there.

'He had carried under his arm a canvas bag, containing a suit of his clothes. I had no change of outer clothes with me, as I was to buy slops. "You are very wet, Mr Harmon,"--I can hear him saying--"and I am quite dry under this good waterproof coat. Put on these clothes of mine. You may find on trying them that they will answer your purpose to-morrow, as well as the slops you mean to buy, or better. While you change, I'll hurry the hot coffee." When he came back, I had his clothes on, and there was a black man with him, wearing a linen jacket, like a steward, who put the smoking coffee on the table in a tray and never looked at me. I am so far literal and exact? Literal and exact, I am certain.澳洲幸运5_首页_澳洲幸运5官网A grey dusty withered evening in London city has not a hopeful aspect. The closed warehouses and offices have an air of death about them, and the national dread of colour has an air of mourning. The towers and steeples of the many house- encompassed churches, dark and dingy as the sky that seems descending on them, are no relief to the general gloom; a sun-dial on a church-wall has the look, in its useless black shade, of having failed in its business enterprise and stopped payment for ever; melancholy waifs and strays of housekeepers and porter sweep melancholy waifs and strays of papers and pins into the kennels, and other more melancholy waifs and strays explore them, searching and stooping and poking for anything to sell. The set of humanity outward from the City is as a set of prisoners departing from gaol, and dismal Newgate seems quite as fit a stronghold for the mighty Lord Mayor as his own state-dwelling.

The words gave the Secretary a stroke of pleasure, for he remembered the fifty pounds, and he still loved the girl. No doubt it was very weak--it always IS very weak, some authorities hold-- but he loved the girl.澳洲幸运5_首页_澳洲幸运5官网'Did you?' said Fledgeby, distrustfully. 'Well. Perhaps you did, though.'

'It's summut run down in the fog, ma'am,' answered Bob. 'There's ever so many people in the river.'澳洲幸运5_首页_澳洲幸运5官网'No, sir,' returned Bradley, with a kind of anger.

'This time, at least, I will leave nothing unsaid,' he went on, folding his hands before him, clearly to prevent his being betrayed into any impetuous gesture; 'this last time at least I will not be tortured with after-thoughts of a lost opportunity. Mr Eugene Wrayburn.'

'Her name is Lizzie,' said the schoolmaster, with a strong contraction of his whole face.澳洲幸运5_首页_澳洲幸运5官网She had not released his hand, and, still holding it, looked at him with a kind of appeal. He avoided her eyes, under pretence of saying, 'Come along, Mr Headstone.' Bradley walked at his side-- not at hers--and the brother and sister walked hand in hand. The court brought them to a churchyard; a paved square court, with a raised bank of earth about breast high, in the middle, enclosed by iron rails. Here, conveniently and heathfully elevated above the level of the living, were the dead, and the tombstones; some of the latter droopingly inclined from the perpendicular, as if they were ashamed of the lies they told.

'Well!' said Fledgeby. 'This won't improve with talking about. If we ever find out who did it, we'll mark that person. There's nothing more to be said, except that you undertook to do what circumstances prevent your doing.'

'Impossible!' said the gratified cherub. 'Really I begin to think things are very well as they are. If Mr John Harmon had lived--'

Bradley Headstone held fast by that other interview he was to have with Lizzie Hexam. In stipulating for it, he had been impelled by a feeling little short of desperation, and the feeling abided by him. It was very soon after his interview with the Secretary, that he and Charley Hexam set out one leaden evening, not unnoticed by Miss Peecher, to have this desperate interview accomplished.澳洲幸运5_首页_澳洲幸运5官网'Why have you not done so?' asked Lizzie Hexam. 'Why do you not do so?'

'Mine!' said the Secretary. 'My life!'

Betty thanked him with a grateful curtsey.

'A present from my daughter Bella, Mr Rokesmith.'

'Bother justice!' said Fledgeby.澳洲幸运5_首页_澳洲幸运5官网'Harmon murder, father,' suggested Pleasant.澳洲幸运5_首页_澳洲幸运5官网'May I ask, sir,' said Bradley Headstone, 'to whose good opinion I owe a recommendation to you?'

'Her brother is the matter,' said the old man, lifting up his eyes again.澳洲幸运5_首页_澳洲幸运5官网'Having so much influence with you, Liz, as I have, perhaps I should have done better to have had a little chat with you in the first instance, before Mr Headstone spoke for himself. But really all this in his favour seemed so plain and undeniable, and I knew you to have always been so reasonable and sensible, that I didn't consider it worth while. Very likely that was a mistake of mine. However, it's soon set right. All that need be done to set it right, is for you to tell me at once that I may go home and tell Mr Headstone that what has taken place is not final, and that it will all come round by-and-by.'

'And don't you know that I won't have no Poll Parroting on the part of my daughter? No, nor yet that I won't take no Poll Parroting from no man? And who may YOU be, and what may YOU want?'

'Preposterous!' said Bella.澳洲幸运5_首页_澳洲幸运5官网'Well? Have you finished?' asked the strange man.