‘Then say no more. Say no more. Let Little Dorrit keep her secret from me, and do you keep it from me also. Let her come and go, unobserved and unquestioned. Let me suffer, and let me have what alleviation belongs to my condition. Is it so much, that you torment me like an evil spirit?’

‘I asked you a question. That’s all.’

‘I have answered it. So, say no more. Say no more.’ Here the sound of the wheeled chair was heard upon the floor, and Affery’s bell rang with a hasty jerk.

More afraid of her husband at the moment than of the mysterious sound in the kitchen, Affery crept away as lightly and as quickly as she could, descended the kitchen stairs almost as rapidly as she had ascended them, resumed her seat before the fire, tucked up her skirt again, and finally threw her apron over her head. Then the bell rang once more, and then once more, and then kept on ringing; in despite of which importunate summons, Affery still sat behind her apron, recovering her breath.

At last Mr Flintwinch came shuffling down the staircase into the hall, muttering and calling ‘Affery woman!’ all the way. Affery still remaining behind her apron, he came stumbling down the kitchen stairs, candle in hand, sidled up to her, twitched her apron off, and roused her.

‘Oh Jeremiah!’ cried Affery, waking. ‘What a start you gave me!’

‘What have you been doing, woman?’ inquired Jeremiah. ‘You’ve been rung for fifty times.’

‘Oh Jeremiah,’ said Mistress Affery, ‘I have been a-dreaming!’

Reminded of her former achievement in that way, Mr Flintwinch held the candle to her head, as if he had some idea of lighting her up for the illumination of the kitchen.

‘Don’t you know it’s her tea-time?’ he demanded with a vicious grin, and giving one of the legs of Mistress Affery’s chair a kick.

‘Jeremiah? Tea-time? I don’t know what’s come to me. But I got such a dreadful turn, Jeremiah, before I went—off a-dreaming, that I think it must be that.’

‘Yoogh! Sleepy-Head!’ said Mr Flintwinch, ‘what are you talking about?’

‘Such a strange noise, Jeremiah, and such a curious movement. In the kitchen here—just here.’

Jeremiah held up his light and looked at the blackened ceiling, held down his light and looked at the damp stone floor, turned round with his light and looked about at the spotted and blotched walls.

‘Rats, cats, water, drains,’ said Jeremiah.

Mistress Affery negatived each with a shake of her head. ‘No, Jeremiah; I have felt it before. I have felt it up-stairs, and once on the staircase as I was going from her room to ours in the night—a rustle and a sort of trembling touch behind me.’

‘Affery, my woman,’ said Mr Flintwinch grimly, after advancing his nose to that lady’s lips as a test for the detection of spirituous liquors, ‘if you don’t get tea pretty quick, old woman, you’ll become sensible of a rustle and a touch that’ll send you flying to the other end of the kitchen.’

This prediction stimulated Mrs Flintwinch to bestir herself, and to hasten up-stairs to Mrs Clennam’s chamber. But, for all that, she now began to entertain a settled conviction that there was something wrong in the gloomy house. Henceforth, she was never at peace in it after daylight departed; and never went up or down stairs in the dark without having her apron over her head, lest she should see something.