h road, and
giving her a home--he regarded her, in that perspective, as his adopted
daughter, his poor child of the Marshalsea hushed to rest. If there were
a last subject in his thoughts, and it lay towards Twickenham, its form
was so indefinite that it was little more than the pervading atmosphere
in which these other subjects floated before him.

He had crossed the heath and was leaving it behind when he gained upon a
figure which had been in advance of him for some time, and which, as
he gained upon it, he thought he knew. He derived this impression
from something in the turn of the head, and in the figure's action of
consideration, as it went on at a sufficiently sturdy walk. But when
the man--for it was a man's figure--pushed his hat up at the back of his
head, and stopped to consider some object before him, he knew it to be
Daniel Doyce.

'How do you do, Mr Doyce?' said Clennam, overtaking him. 'I am glad to
see you again, and in a healthier place than the Circumlocution Office.'

'Ha! Mr Meagles's friend!' exclaimed that public criminal, coming out of
some mental combinations he had been making, and offering his hand. 'I
am glad to see you, sir. Will you excuse me if I forget your name?'

'Readily. It's not a celebrated name. It's not Barnacle.' 'No, no,' said
Daniel, laughing. 'And now I know what it is. It's Clennam. How do you
do, Mr Clennam?'

'I have some hope,' said Arthur, as they walked on together, 'that we
may be going to the same place, Mr Doyce.'

'Meaning Twickenham?' returned Daniel. 'I am glad to hear it.'

They were soon quite intimate, and lightened the way with a variety of
conversation. The ingenious culprit was a man of great modesty and good
sense; and, though a plain man, had been too much accustomed to combine
what was original and daring in conception with what was patient and
minute in execution, to be by any means an ordinary man. It was at first
difficult to lead him to speak about himself, and he put off Arthur's
advances in that direction by admitting slightly, oh yes, he had done
this, and he had done that, and such a thing was of his making, and
such another thing was his discovery, but it was his trade, you see, his
trade; until, as he gradually became assured that his companion had a
real interest in his account of himself, he frankly yielded to it. Then
it appeared that he was the son of a north-country blacksmith, and had
originally been apprenticed by his widowed mother