They were nothing.' 'But I am afraid,' she returned, 'to leave him, I am afraid to leave
any of them. When I am gone, they pervert--but they don't mean it--even
Maggy.' 'It was a very innocent commission that she undertook, poor thing. And
in keeping it secret from you, she supposed, no doubt, that she was only
saving you uneasiness.'
'Yes, I hope so, I hope so. But I had better go home! It was but the
other day that my sister told me I had become so used to the prison that
I had its tone and character. It must be so. I am sure it must be when I
see these things. My place is there. I am better there, it is unfeeling
in me to be here, when I can do the least thing there. Good-bye. I had
far better stay at home!' The agonised way in which she poured this out, as if it burst of itself
from her suppressed heart, made it difficult for Clennam to keep the
tears from his eyes as he saw and heard her.
'Don't call it home, my child!' he entreated. 'It is always painful to
me to hear you call it home.' 'But it is home! What else can I call home? Why should I ever forget it
for a single moment?'
'You never do, dear Little Dorrit, in any good and true service.'
'I hope not, O I hope not! But it is better for me to stay there; much
better, much more dutiful, much happier. Please don't go with me, let me
go by myself. Good-bye, God bless you. Thank you, thank you.'
He felt that it was better to respect her entreaty, and did not move
while her slight form went quickly away from him. When it had fluttered
out of sight, he turned his face towards the water and stood thinking. She would have been distressed at any time by this discovery of the
letters; but so much so, and in that unrestrainable way? No.
When she had seen her father begging with his threadbare disguise on,
when she had entreated him not to give her father money, she had
been distressed, but not like this. Something had made her keenly and
additionally sensitive just now. Now, was there some one in the hopeless
unattainable distance? Or had the suspicion been brought into his mind,
by his own associations of the troubled river running beneath the bridge
with the same river higher up, its changeless tune upon the prow of the
ferry-boat, so many miles an hour the peaceful flowing of the stream,
here the rushes, there the lilies, nothing uncertain or unquiet?