ng nothing about the hidden will, could not claim his
share, and the guilty secret remained (except for Arthur's unhappy
father) in possession of only Mrs. Clennam and the crafty Flintwinch.

So the years rolled by, and Mrs. Clennam's cold gray eyes grew colder,
her gray hair grayer and her face more hard and stony. She went out
less and less, and finally paralysis made her keep to her room and her
chair.

The time came when Arthur's father lay dying with his son beside him. On
his death-bed he did not forget the money which had never been restored.
He had not strength to write, but with his dying hand he gave Arthur his
watch, making him promise to take it back to England to the wife whose
anger and hatred still lived. The watch still held the little paper with
the bead initials that stood for "Do not forget," and he meant thus to
remind her of the wrong which was still unrighted.

Many times thereafter, on his way back to London, Arthur thought of his
father's strange manner and wondered if it could be that some wrong deed
lay on his conscience. This idea clung to him, so that when he saw Mrs.
Clennam again on his arrival, and spoke to her of his father's last
hours, he asked her if she thought this might be so. But at this her
anger rose; she upbraided him and declared if he ever referred again to
the subject she would renounce him as her son and cast him off for ever.

It was her guilty conscience, of course, that caused this burst of rage.
And yet, just because it was not for the money's sake that she had done
that evil act, but because she so hated the woman to whom it should have
been given, she tried to convince herself that she had acted rightly,
as the instrument of God, to punish wickedness. She had told herself
this falsehood over and over again so often that she had ended by quite
believing it to be the truth.

Arthur said no more to her about the matter. He was a man now, and his
father's death had made him master of a very considerable fortune. He
decided that he would not carry on the business, but would make a new
one for himself. This resolution angered Mrs. Clennam greatly, but she
grimly determined to carry it on herself, and in Arthur's place took the
wily Flintwinch as her partner and told Arthur coldly to go his own way.

II

THE CHILD OF THE MARSHALSEA

On the first night of his return to the house of his childhood Arthur
had noticed there a little seamstress, with pale, transparent fac