r would
still admit of no approach, to make a desperate appeal to Affery. If she
could be brought to become communicative, and to do what lay in her to
break the spell of secrecy that enshrouded the house, he might shake
off the paralysis of which every hour that passed over his head made
him more acutely sensible. This was the result of his day's anxiety, and
this was the decision he put in practice when the day closed in.

His first disappointment, on arriving at the house, was to find the door
open, and Mr Flintwinch smoking a pipe on the steps. If circumstances
had been commonly favourable, Mistress Affery would have opened the
door to his knock. Circumstances being uncommonly unfavourable, the door
stood open, and Mr Flintwinch was smoking his pipe on the steps.

'Good evening,' said Arthur.

'Good evening,' said Mr Flintwinch.

The smoke came crookedly out of Mr Flintwinch's mouth, as if it
circulated through the whole of his wry figure and came back by his wry
throat, before coming forth to mingle with the smoke from the crooked
chimneys and the mists from the crooked river.

'Have you any news?' said Arthur.

'We have no news,' said Jeremiah.

'I mean of the foreign man,' Arthur explained.

_'I_ mean of the foreign man,' said Jeremiah.

He looked so grim, as he stood askew, with the knot of his cravat under
his ear, that the thought passed into Clennam's mind, and not for the
first time by many, could Flintwinch for a purpose of his own have got
rid of Blandois? Could it have been his secret, and his safety, that
were at issue? He was small and bent, and perhaps not actively strong;
yet he was as tough as an old yew-tree, and as crusty as an old jackdaw.
Such a man, coming behind a much younger and more vigorous man, and
having the will to put an end to him and no relenting, might do it
pretty surely in that solitary place at a late hour.

While, in the morbid condition of his thoughts, these thoughts drifted
over the main one that was always in Clennam's mind, Mr Flintwinch,
regarding the opposite house over the gateway with his neck twisted and
one eye shut up, stood smoking with a vicious expression upon him; more
as if he were trying to bite off the stem of his pipe, than as if he
were enjoying it. Yet he was enjoying it in his own way.

'You'll be able to take my likeness, the next time you call, Arthur,
I should think,' said Mr Flintwinch, drily, as he stooped to knock the
ashes out.

Rather