in the outer court-yard, the prison-door opened,
and shut upon them. In the Lodge, which seemed by contrast with the
outer noise a place of refuge and peace, a yellow lamp was already
striving with the prison shadows.

'Why, John!' said the turnkey who admitted them. 'What is it?'

'Nothing, father; only this lady not knowing her way, and being badgered
by the boys. Who did you want, ma'am?'

'Miss Dorrit. Is she here?'

The young man became more interested. 'Yes, she is here. What might your
name be?'

'Mrs Clennam.'

'Mr Clennam's mother?' asked the young man.

She pressed her lips together, and hesitated. 'Yes. She had better be
told it is his mother.'

'You see,' said the young man,'the Marshal's family living in the
country at present, the Marshal has given Miss Dorrit one of the rooms
in his house to use when she likes. Don't you think you had better come
up there, and let me bring Miss Dorrit?'

She signified her assent, and he unlocked a door and conducted her up
a side staircase into a dwelling-house above. He showed her into a
darkening room, and left her. The room looked down into the darkening
prison-yard, with its inmates strolling here and there, leaning out
of windows communing as much apart as they could with friends who were
going away, and generally wearing out their imprisonment as they best
might that summer evening. The air was heavy and hot; the closeness
of the place, oppressive; and from without there arose a rush of
free sounds, like the jarring memory of such things in a headache and
heartache. She stood at the window, bewildered, looking down into this
prison as it were out of her own different prison, when a soft word or
two of surprise made her start, and Little Dorrit stood before her.

'Is it possible, Mrs Clennam, that you are so happily recovered as--'

Little Dorrit stopped, for there was neither happiness nor health in the
face that turned to her. 'This is not recovery; it is not strength; I
don't know what it is.' With an agitated wave of her hand, she put all
that aside. 'You have a packet left with you which you were to give to
Arthur, if it was not reclaimed before this place closed to-night.'

'Yes.'

'I reclaim it.'

Little Dorrit took it from her bosom, and gave it into her hand, which
remained stretched out after receiving it.

'Have you any idea of its contents?'

Frightened by her being there with that new power Of Movement in her,
which, as she said hers