' interrupted Jonas, but in a suppressed voice still;
'what harm do you suppose she has come to? I know no more where she is
than you do; I wish I did. Wait till she comes home, and see; she can't
be long. Will that content you?'

'Mind!' exclaimed the old man. 'Not a hair of her head! not a hair of
her head ill-used! I won't bear it. I--I--have borne it too long Jonas.
I am silent, but I--I--I can speak. I--I--I can speak--' he stammered,
as he crept back to his chair, and turned a threatening, though a
feeble, look upon him.

'You can speak, can you!' thought Jonas. 'So, so, we'll stop your
speaking. It's well I knew of this in good time. Prevention is better
than cure.'

He had made a poor show of playing the bully and evincing a desire to
conciliate at the same time, but was so afraid of the old man that
great drops had started out upon his brow; and they stood there yet. His
unusual tone of voice and agitated manner had sufficiently expressed his
fear; but his face would have done so now, without that aid, as he again
walked to and fro, glancing at him by the candelight.

He stopped at the window to think. An opposite shop was lighted up; and
the tradesman and a customer were reading some printed bill together
across the counter. The sight brought him back, instantly, to the
occupation he had forgotten. 'Look here! Do you know of this? Is it
found? Do you suspect ME?'

A hand upon the door. 'What's that!'

'A pleasant evenin',' said the voice of Mrs Gamp, 'though warm, which,
bless you, Mr Chuzzlewit, we must expect when cowcumbers is three for
twopence. How does Mr Chuffey find his self to-night, sir?'

Mrs Gamp kept particularly close to the door in saying this, and
curtseyed more than usual. She did not appear to be quite so much at her
ease as she generally was.

'Get him to his room,' said Jonas, walking up to her, and speaking in
her ear. 'He has been raving to-night--stark mad. Don't talk while he's
here, but come down again.'

'Poor sweet dear!' cried Mrs Gamp, with uncommon tenderness. 'He's all
of a tremble.'

'Well he may be,' said Jonas, 'after the mad fit he has had. Get him
upstairs.'

She was by this time assisting him to rise.

'There's my blessed old chick!' cried Mrs Gamp, in a tone that was at
once soothing and encouraging. 'There's my darlin' Mr Chuffey! Now come
up to your own room, sir, and lay down on your bed a bit; for you're
a-shakin' all over, as if your precious jints was