up everything to me with joy. I did not come back, and they have passed unspoiled into my place. Let them rest in it, and let Bella rest in hers.
‘What course for me then? This. To live the same quiet Secretary life, carefully avoiding chances of recognition, until they shall have become more accustomed to their altered state, and until the great swarm of swindlers under many names shall have found newer prey. By that time, the method I am establishing through all the affairs, and with which I will every day take new pains to make them both familiar, will be, I may hope, a machine in such working order as that they can keep it going. I know I need but ask of their generosity, to have. When the right time comes, I will ask no more than will replace me in my former path of life, and John Rokesmith shall tread it as contentedly as he may. But John Harmon shall come back no more.
‘That I may never, in the days to come afar off, have any weak misgiving that Bella might, in any contingency, have taken me for my own sake if I had plainly asked her, I will plainly ask her: proving beyond all question what I already know too well. And now it is all thought out, from the beginning to the end, and my mind is easier.’
So deeply engaged had the living-dead man been, in thus communing with himself, that he had regarded neither the wind nor the way, and had resisted the former instinctively as he had pursued the latter. But being now come into the City, where there was a coach-stand, he stood irresolute whether to go to his lodgings, or to go first to Mr Boffin’s house. He decided to go round by the house, arguing, as he carried his overcoat upon his arm, that it was less likely to attract notice if left there, than if taken to Holloway: both Mrs Wilfer and Miss Lavinia being ravenously curious touching every article of which the lodger stood possessed.
Arriving at the house, he found that Mr and Mrs Boffin were out, but that Miss Wilfer was in the drawing-room. Miss Wilfer had remained at home, in consequence of not feeling very well, and had inquired in the evening if Mr Rokesmith were in his room.
‘Make my compliments to Miss Wilfer, and say I am here now.’
Miss Wilfer’s compliments came down in return, and, if it were not too much trouble, would Mr Rokesmith be so kind as to come up before he went?
It was not too much trouble, and Mr Rokesmith came up.
Oh she looked very pretty, she looked very, very pretty! If the father of the late John Harmon had but left his money unconditionally to his son, and if his son had but lighted on this loveable girl for himself, and had the happiness to make her loving as well as loveable!
‘Dear me! Are you not well, Mr Rokesmith?’
‘Yes, quite well. I was sorry to hear, when I came in, that you were not.’
‘A mere nothing. I had a headache—gone now—and was not quite fit for a hot theatre, so I stayed at home. I asked you if you were not well, because you look so white.’
‘Do I? I have had a busy evening.’
She was on a low ottoman before the fire, with a little shining jewel of a table, and her book and her work, beside her. Ah! what a different life the late John Harmon’s, if it had been his happy privilege to take his place upon that ottoman, and draw his arm about that waist, and say, ‘I hope the time has been long without me? What a Home Goddess you look, my darling!’
But, the present John Rokesmith, far removed from the late John Harmon, remained standing at a distance. A little distance in respect of space, but a great distance in respect of separation.
‘Mr Rokesmith,’ said Bella, taking up her work, and inspecting it all round the corners, ‘I wanted to say something to you when I could have the opportunity, as an explanation why I was rude to you the other day. You have no right to think ill of me, sir.’
The sharp little way in which she darted a look at him, half sensitively injured, and half pettishly, would have been very much admired by the late John Harmon.
‘You don’t know how well I think of you, Miss Wilfer.’
‘Truly, you must have a very high opinion of me, Mr Rokesmith, when you believe that in prosperity I neglect and forget my old home.’
‘Do I believe so?’
‘You did, sir, at any rate,’ returned Bella.
‘I took the liberty of reminding you of a little omission into which you had fallen—insensibly and naturally fallen. It was no more than that.’
‘And I beg leave to ask you, Mr Rokesmith,’ said Bella, ‘why you took that liberty?—I hope there is no offence in the phrase; it is your own, remember.’
‘Because I am truly, deeply, profoundly interested in you, Miss Wilfer. Because I wish to see you always at your best. Because I—shall I go on?’
‘No, sir,’ returned Bella, with a burning face, ‘you have said more than enough. I beg that you will not go on. If you have any generosity, any honour, you will say no more.’
The late John Harmon, looking at the proud face with the down-cast eyes, and at the quick breathing as it stirred the fall of bright brown hair over the beautiful neck, would probably have remained silent.
‘I wish to speak to you, sir,’ said Bella, ‘once for all, and I don’t know how to do it. I have sat here all this evening, wishing to speak to you, and determining to speak to you, and feeling that I must. I beg for a moment’s time.’
He remained silent, and she remained with her face averted, sometimes making a slight movement as if she would turn and speak. At length she did so.
‘You know how I am situated here, sir, and you know how I am situated at home. I must speak to you for myself, since there is no one about me whom I could ask to do so. It is not generous in you, it is not honourable in you, to conduct yourself towards me as you do.’
‘Is it ungenerous or dishonourable to be devoted to you; fascinated by you?’
‘Preposterous!’ said Bella.
The late John Harmon might have thought it rather a contemptuous and lofty word of repudiation.
‘I now feel obliged to go on,’ pursued the Secretary, ‘though it were only in self-explanation and self-defence. I hope, Miss Wilfer, that it is not unpardonable—even in me—to make an honest declaration of an honest devotion to you.’
‘An honest declaration!’ repeated Bella, with emphasis.
‘Is it otherwise?’
‘I must request, sir,’ said Bella, taking refuge in a touch of timely resentment, ‘that I may not be questioned. You must excuse me if I decline to be cross-examined.’
‘Oh, Miss Wilfer, this is hardly charitable. I ask you nothing but what your own emphasis suggests. However, I waive even that question. But what I have declared, I take my stand by. I cannot recall the avowal of my earnest and deep attachment to you, and I do not recall it.’
‘I reject it, sir,’ said Bella.
‘I should be blind and deaf if I were not prepared for the reply. Forgive my offence, for it carries its punishment with it.’
‘What punishment?’ asked Bella.
‘Is my present endurance none? But excuse me; I did not mean to cross-examine you again.’
‘You take advantage of a hasty word of mine,’ said Bella with a little sting of self-reproach, ‘to make me seem—I don’t know what. I spoke without consideration when I used it. If that was bad, I am sorry; but you repeat it after consideration, and that seems to me to be at least no better. For the rest, I beg it may be understood, Mr Rokesmith, that there is an end of this between us, now and for ever.’
‘Now and for ever,’ he repeated.
‘Yes. I appeal to you, sir,’ proceeded Bella with increasing spirit, ‘not to pursue me. I appeal to you not to take advantage of your position in this house to make my position in it distressing and disagreeable.