r mine, for nobody's but mine!--you will give me
the greatest joy I can experience on earth, the joy of knowing that I
have been serviceable to you, and that I have paid some little of the
great debt of my affection and gratitude. I can't say what I wish to
say. I can't visit you here where I have lived so long, I can't think of
you here where I have seen so much, and be as calm and comforting as I
ought. My tears will make their way. I cannot keep them back. But
pray, pray, pray, do not turn from your Little Dorrit, now, in your
affliction! Pray, pray, pray, I beg you and implore you with all my
grieving heart, my friend--my dear!--take all I have, and make it a
Blessing to me!'

The star had shone on her face until now, when her face sank upon his
hand and her own.

It had grown darker when he raised her in his encircling arm, and softly
answered her.

'No, darling Little Dorrit. No, my child. I must not hear of such a
sacrifice. Liberty and hope would be so dear, bought at such a price,
that I could never support their weight, never bear the reproach of
possessing them. But with what ardent thankfulness and love I say this,
I may call Heaven to witness!'

'And yet you will not let me be faithful to you in your affliction?'

'Say, dearest Little Dorrit, and yet I will try to be faithful to you.
If, in the bygone days when this was your home and when this was your
dress, I had understood myself (I speak only of myself) better, and
had read the secrets of my own breast more distinctly; if, through my
reserve and self-mistrust, I had discerned a light that I see brightly
now when it has passed far away, and my weak footsteps can never
overtake it; if I had then known, and told you that I loved and honoured
you, not as the poor child I used to call you, but as a woman whose
true hand would raise me high above myself and make me a far happier and
better man; if I had so used the opportunity there is no recalling--as
I wish I had, O I wish I had!--and if something had kept us apart then,
when I was moderately thriving, and when you were poor; I might have met
your noble offer of your fortune, dearest girl, with other words than
these, and still have blushed to touch it. But, as it is, I must never
touch it, never!'

She besought him, more pathetically and earnestly, with her little
supplicatory hand, than she could have done in any words.

'I am disgraced enough, my Little Dorrit. I must not descend so low as
that,