However, he returned to his own subject by first entreating her to see him oftener, and to remember that it was impossible to have a stronger interest in her welfare than he had, or to be more set upon promoting it than he was. When she answered fervently, she well knew that, she never forgot it, he touched upon his second and more delicate point—the suspicion he had formed.

‘Little Dorrit,’ he said, taking her hand again, and speaking lower than he had spoken yet, so that even Maggy in the small room could not hear him, ‘another word. I have wanted very much to say this to you; I have tried for opportunities. Don’t mind me, who, for the matter of years, might be your father or your uncle. Always think of me as quite an old man. I know that all your devotion centres in this room, and that nothing to the last will ever tempt you away from the duties you discharge here. If I were not sure of it, I should, before now, have implored you, and implored your father, to let me make some provision for you in a more suitable place. But you may have an interest—I will not say, now, though even that might be—may have, at another time, an interest in some one else; an interest not incompatible with your affection here.’

She was very, very pale, and silently shook her head.

‘It may be, dear Little Dorrit.’

‘No. No. No.’ She shook her head, after each slow repetition of the word, with an air of quiet desolation that he remembered long afterwards. The time came when he remembered it well, long afterwards, within those prison walls; within that very room.

‘But, if it ever should be, tell me so, my dear child. Entrust the truth to me, point out the object of such an interest to me, and I will try with all the zeal, and honour, and friendship and respect that I feel for you, good Little Dorrit of my heart, to do you a lasting service.’

‘O thank you, thank you! But, O no, O no, O no!’ She said this, looking at him with her work-worn hands folded together, and in the same resigned accents as before.

‘I press for no confidence now. I only ask you to repose unhesitating trust in me.’

‘Can I do less than that, when you are so good!’

‘Then you will trust me fully? Will have no secret unhappiness, or anxiety, concealed from me?’

‘Almost none.’

‘And you have none now?’

She shook her head. But she was very pale.

‘When I lie down to-night, and my thoughts come back—as they will, for they do every night, even when I have not seen you—to this sad place, I may believe that there is no grief beyond this room, now, and its usual occupants, which preys on Little Dorrit’s mind?’

She seemed to catch at these words—that he remembered, too, long afterwards—and said, more brightly, ‘Yes, Mr Clennam; yes, you may!’

The crazy staircase, usually not slow to give notice when any one was coming up or down, here creaked under a quick tread, and a further sound was heard upon it, as if a little steam-engine with more steam than it knew what to do with, were working towards the room. As it approached, which it did very rapidly, it laboured with increased energy; and, after knocking at the door, it sounded as if it were stooping down and snorting in at the keyhole.