ing her lips with his hand.
'Forgetfulness in you who remember so many and so much, would be new
indeed. Shall I remind you that I am not, and that I never was, anything
but the friend whom you agreed to trust? No. You remember it, don't
you?'

'I try to do so, or I should have broken the promise just now, when my
mistaken brother was here. You will consider his bringing-up in this
place, and will not judge him hardly, poor fellow, I know!' In raising
her eyes with these words, she observed his face more nearly than she
had done yet, and said, with a quick change of tone, 'You have not been
ill, Mr Clennam?'

'No.'

'Nor tried? Nor hurt?' she asked him, anxiously.

It fell to Clennam now, to be not quite certain how to answer. He said
in reply:

'To speak the truth, I have been a little troubled, but it is over.

Do I show it so plainly? I ought to have more fortitude and self-command
than that. I thought I had. I must learn them of you. Who could teach me
better!'

He never thought that she saw in him what no one else could see. He
never thought that in the whole world there were no other eyes that
looked upon him with the same light and strength as hers.

'But it brings me to something that I wish to say,' he continued, 'and
therefore I will not quarrel even with my own face for telling tales
and being unfaithful to me. Besides, it is a privilege and pleasure to
confide in my Little Dorrit. Let me confess then, that, forgetting how
grave I was, and how old I was, and how the time for such things had
gone by me with the many years of sameness and little happiness that
made up my long life far away, without marking it--that, forgetting all
this, I fancied I loved some one.'

'Do I know her, sir?' asked Little Dorrit.

'No, my child.'

'Not the lady who has been kind to me for your sake?'

'Flora. No, no. Do you think--'

'I never quite thought so,' said Little Dorrit, more to herself than
him. 'I did wonder at it a little.'

'Well!' said Clennam, abiding by the feeling that had fallen on him in
the avenue on the night of the roses, the feeling that he was an
older man, who had done with that tender part of life, 'I found out my
mistake, and I thought about it a little--in short, a good deal--and got
wiser. Being wiser, I counted up my years and considered what I am, and
looked back, and looked forward, and found that I should soon be grey. I
found that I had climbed the hill, and passed the level grou