ckening
cup she could not own her loathing of or turn away from'. How shame,
remorse, and passion raged within her, when, upright and majestic in her
beauty before him, she knew that in her spirit she was down at his feet!

'Miss Florence,' said Carker, 'left to the care--if one may call it
care--of servants and mercenary people, in every way her inferiors,
necessarily wanted some guide and compass in her younger days, and,
naturally, for want of them, has been indiscreet, and has in some degree
forgotten her station. There was some folly about one Walter, a common
lad, who is fortunately dead now: and some very undesirable association,
I regret to say, with certain coasting sailors, of anything but good
repute, and a runaway old bankrupt.'

'I have heard the circumstances, Sir,' said Edith, flashing her
disdainful glance upon him, 'and I know that you pervert them. You may
not know it. I hope so.'

'Pardon me,' said Mr Carker, 'I believe that nobody knows them so well
as I. Your generous and ardent nature, Madam--the same nature which is
so nobly imperative in vindication of your beloved and honoured husband,
and which has blessed him as even his merits deserve--I must respect,
defer to, bow before. But, as regards the circumstances, which is indeed
the business I presumed to solicit your attention to, I can have
no doubt, since, in the execution of my trust as Mr Dombey's
confidential--I presume to say--friend, I have fully ascertained them.
In my execution of that trust; in my deep concern, which you can so well
understand, for everything relating to him, intensified, if you will
(for I fear I labour under your displeasure), by the lower motive of
desire to prove my diligence, and make myself the more acceptable;
I have long pursued these circumstances by myself and trustworthy
instruments, and have innumerable and most minute proofs.'

She raised her eyes no higher than his mouth, but she saw the means of
mischief vaunted in every tooth it contained.

'Pardon me, Madam,' he continued, 'if in my perplexity, I presume to
take counsel with you, and to consult your pleasure. I think I have
observed that you are greatly interested in Miss Florence?'

What was there in her he had not observed, and did not know? Humbled
and yet maddened by the thought, in every new presentment of it, however
faint, she pressed her teeth upon her quivering lip to force composure
on it, and distantly inclined her head in reply.

'Thi