Good-bye!' said Mr Meagles. 'This is the last good-bye upon the list,
for Mother and I have just said it to Mr Clennam here, and he only waits
to say it to Pet. Good-bye! We may never meet again.'
'In our course through life we shall meet the people who are coming to
meet us, from many strange places and by many strange roads,' was the
composed reply; 'and what it is set to us to do to them, and what it is
set to them to do to us, will all be done.' There was something in the
manner of these words that jarred upon Pet's ear. It implied that what
was to be done was necessarily evil, and it caused her to say in a
whisper, 'O Father!' and to shrink childishly, in her spoilt way, a
little closer to him. This was not lost on the speaker.
'Your pretty daughter,' she said, 'starts to think of such things. Yet,'
looking full upon her, 'you may be sure that there are men and women
already on their road, who have their business to do with YOU, and who
will do it. Of a certainty they will do it. They may be coming hundreds,
thousands, of miles over the sea there; they may be close at hand now;
they may be coming, for anything you know or anything you can do to
prevent it, from the vilest sweepings of this very town.'
With the coldest of farewells, and with a certain worn expression on her
beauty that gave it, though scarcely yet in its prime, a wasted look,
she left the room. Now, there were many stairs and passages that she had to traverse in
passing from that part of the spacious house to the chamber she had
secured for her own occupation. When she had almost completed the
journey, and was passing along the gallery in which her room was, she
heard an angry sound of muttering and sobbing. A door stood open, and
within she saw the attendant upon the girl she had just left; the maid
with the curious name.
She stood still, to look at this maid. A sullen, passionate girl! Her
rich black hair was all about her face, her face was flushed and hot,
and as she sobbed and raged, she plucked at her lips with an unsparing
hand. 'Selfish brutes!' said the girl, sobbing and heaving between whiles.
'Not caring what becomes of me! Leaving me here hungry and thirsty and
tired, to starve, for anything they care! Beasts! Devils! Wretches!'