t without another effort,' said Mr Meagles, stoutly. 'Tattycoram,
my poor dear girl, count five-and-twenty.' 'Do not reject the hope, the
certainty, this kind man offers you,' said Clennam in a low emphatic
voice. 'Turn to the friends you have not forgotten. Think once more!'

'I won't! Miss Wade,' said the girl, with her bosom swelling high, and
speaking with her hand held to her throat, 'take me away!'

'Tattycoram,' said Mr Meagles. 'Once more yet! The only thing I ask of
you in the world, my child! Count five-and-twenty!'

She put her hands tightly over her ears, confusedly tumbling down her
bright black hair in the vehemence of the action, and turned her face
resolutely to the wall. Miss Wade, who had watched her under this final
appeal with that strange attentive smile, and that repressing hand
upon her own bosom with which she had watched her in her struggle at
Marseilles, then put her arm about her waist as if she took possession
of her for evermore.

And there was a visible triumph in her face when she turned it to
dismiss the visitors.

'As it is the last time I shall have the honour,' she said, 'and as you
have spoken of not knowing what I am, and also of the foundation of my
influence here, you may now know that it is founded in a common cause.
What your broken plaything is as to birth, I am. She has no name, I have
no name. Her wrong is my wrong. I have nothing more to say to you.'

This was addressed to Mr Meagles, who sorrowfully went out. As Clennam
followed, she said to him, with the same external composure and in the
same level voice, but with a smile that is only seen on cruel faces: a
very faint smile, lifting the nostril, scarcely touching the lips, and
not breaking away gradually, but instantly dismissed when done with:

'I hope the wife of your dear friend Mr Gowan, may be happy in the
contrast of her extraction to this girl's and mine, and in the high good
fortune that awaits her.'

CHAPTER 28. Nobody's Disappearance

Not resting satisfied with the endeavours he had made to recover his
lost charge, Mr Meagles addressed a letter of remonstrance, breathing
nothing but goodwill, not only to her, but to Miss Wade too. No answer
coming to these epistles, or to another written to the stubborn girl
by the hand of her late young mistress, which might have melted her
if anything could (all three letters were returned weeks afterwards as
having been refused at the house-door), he deputed M