my torturer,' he replied. 'Before him I have step by step
abandoned name and reputation, peace and quiet, house and home.'

'I have kept your name and reputation for you, and your peace and
quiet, and your house and home too,' said Uriah, with a sulky, hurried,
defeated air of compromise. 'Don't be foolish, Mr. Wickfield. If I
have gone a little beyond what you were prepared for, I can go back, I
suppose? There's no harm done.'

'I looked for single motives in everyone,' said Mr. Wickfield, and I was
satisfied I had bound him to me by motives of interest. But see what he
is--oh, see what he is!'

'You had better stop him, Copperfield, if you can,' cried Uriah,
with his long forefinger pointing towards me. 'He'll say something
presently--mind you!--he'll be sorry to have said afterwards, and you'll
be sorry to have heard!'

'I'll say anything!' cried Mr. Wickfield, with a desperate air. 'Why
should I not be in all the world's power if I am in yours?'

'Mind! I tell you!' said Uriah, continuing to warn me. 'If you don't
stop his mouth, you're not his friend! Why shouldn't you be in all the
world's power, Mr. Wickfield? Because you have got a daughter. You and
me know what we know, don't we? Let sleeping dogs lie--who wants to
rouse 'em? I don't. Can't you see I am as umble as I can be? I tell you,
if I've gone too far, I'm sorry. What would you have, sir?'

'Oh, Trotwood, Trotwood!'exclaimed Mr. Wickfield, wringing his hands.
'What I have come down to be, since I first saw you in this house! I was
on my downward way then, but the dreary, dreary road I have traversed
since! Weak indulgence has ruined me. Indulgence in remembrance, and
indulgence in forgetfulness. My natural grief for my child's mother
turned to disease; my natural love for my child turned to disease. I
have infected everything I touched. I have brought misery on what I
dearly love, I know--you know! I thought it possible that I could truly
love one creature in the world, and not love the rest; I thought it
possible that I could truly mourn for one creature gone out of the
world, and not have some part in the grief of all who mourned. Thus the
lessons of my life have been perverted! I have preyed on my own morbid
coward heart, and it has preyed on me. Sordid in my grief, sordid in my
love, sordid in my miserable escape from the darker side of both, oh see
the ruin I am, and hate me, shun me!'

He dropped into a chair, and weakly sobbed. The excitemen