residence.

It was at the top of the house nearest to the gateway. It was the room
to which Clennam had hurried on the day when the enriched family had
left the prison for ever, and where he had lifted her insensible from
the floor. He foresaw where they were going as soon as their feet
touched the staircase. The room was so far changed that it was papered
now, and had been repainted, and was far more comfortably furnished; but
he could recall it just as he had seen it in that single glance, when he
raised her from the ground and carried her down to the carriage.

Young John looked hard at him, biting his fingers.

'I see you recollect the room, Mr Clennam?' 'I recollect it well, Heaven
bless her!'

Oblivious of the tea, Young John continued to bite his fingers and to
look at his visitor, as long as his visitor continued to glance about
the room. Finally, he made a start at the teapot, gustily rattled a
quantity of tea into it from a canister, and set off for the common
kitchen to fill it with hot water.

The room was so eloquent to Clennam in the changed circumstances of his
return to the miserable Marshalsea; it spoke to him so mournfully of
her, and of his loss of her; that it would have gone hard with him to
resist it, even though he had not been alone. Alone, he did not try.
He had his hand on the insensible wall as tenderly as if it had been
herself that he touched, and pronounced her name in a low voice. He
stood at the window, looking over the prison-parapet with its grim
spiked border, and breathed a benediction through the summer haze
towards the distant land where she was rich and prosperous.

Young John was some time absent, and, when he came back, showed that he
had been outside by bringing with him fresh butter in a cabbage leaf,
some thin slices of boiled ham in another cabbage leaf, and a little
basket of water-cresses and salad herbs. When these were arranged upon
the table to his satisfaction, they sat down to tea.

Clennam tried to do honour to the meal, but unavailingly. The ham
sickened him, the bread seemed to turn to sand in his mouth. He could
force nothing upon himself but a cup of tea.

'Try a little something green,' said Young John, handing him the basket.

He took a sprig or so of water-cress, and tried again; but the bread
turned to a heavier sand than before, and the ham (though it was good
enough of itself) seemed to blow a faint simoom of ham through the whole
Marshalsea.

'T