followed. When he called for an answer to his communication, he received
a brief note, saying that he was discarded from that hour, need never
trouble himself to enter the doors of the old house again, and that
henceforth he must look to his own exertions for the means of living.
This letter was sent by the hand of a sort of managing clerk, one
Jaggers, who was at the same time commissioned to tell Robert that he
could, if he chose, obtain a situation in a house at Liverpool, where
his father's interest was sufficient to secure him a clerkship at a very
moderate salary. Now it so happened that Jaggers had always appeared to
be the best friend young Robert ever had; he had sympathized with him on
the subject of his father's harshness; had applauded his noble
sentiments when he had imparted the secret of his engagement to Agnes;
had wished that _he_ was master of the establishment in St. Simon's
Yard, that justice might be done to disinterested virtue, and had
generally assumed the part of guide, philosopher, and friend, tempered
by humble deference, to the young man. It was arranged between them,
therefore, that, after a time, during which Robert should accept the
situation at Liverpool, a more successful appeal might be made to Dryce
senior, and that a letter addressed to him should be sent under cover to
Jaggers, who would lay it on his table.

Robert and his young wife went away, leaving this good-natured fellow to
watch their interests. A year passed, and the letter had been written,
but remained unanswered; indeed, according to Jaggers's showing, Richard
Dryce was more inveterate than ever, and was unapproachable on the
subject of his undutiful son, in pleading whose cause he, Jaggers, had
very nearly obtained his own dismissal. The firm in which Robert was a
clerk became bankrupt in the commercial crisis, and he was thrown out of
employment. Again he wrote to his father, saying that he had an
appointment offered him in Australia, and only wanted the money to pay
his passage. He received no reply, but some people who knew him in
Liverpool made up the sum, and his wife came to London to live with her
father (who was now superannuated in favour of a new beadle), and to
wait for his return, or for the remittance that was to come by the first
mail, that she might join him there.

Their first child, a girl, had been a poor sickly little creature, and
was dead; but Agnes was likely again to become a mother, and waited
a