er still
unchanged. 'Ay!' for he turned sharply when she said so, 'what is the
worse for me, is twenty million times the worse for you. Heed that, if
you heed nothing else.'

The arch of diamonds spanning her dark hair, flashed and glittered like
a starry bridge. There was no warning in them, or they would have turned
as dull and dim as tarnished honour. Carker still sat and listened, with
his eyes cast down.

'Mrs Dombey,' said Mr Dombey, resuming as much as he could of his
arrogant composure, 'you will not conciliate me, or turn me from any
purpose, by this course of conduct.'

'It is the only true although it is a faint expression of what is within
me,' she replied. 'But if I thought it would conciliate you, I would
repress it, if it were repressible by any human effort. I will do
nothing that you ask.'

'I am not accustomed to ask, Mrs Dombey,' he observed; 'I direct.'

'I will hold no place in your house to-morrow, or on any recurrence of
to-morrow. I will be exhibited to no one, as the refractory slave you
purchased, such a time. If I kept my marriage day, I would keep it as a
day of shame. Self-respect! appearances before the world! what are these
to me? You have done all you can to make them nothing to me, and they
are nothing.'

'Carker,' said Mr Dombey, speaking with knitted brows, and after a
moment's consideration, 'Mrs Dombey is so forgetful of herself and me in
all this, and places me in a position so unsuited to my character, that
I must bring this state of matters to a close.'

'Release me, then,' said Edith, immoveable in voice, in look, and
bearing, as she had been throughout, 'from the chain by which I am
bound. Let me go.'

'Madam?' exclaimed Mr Dombey.

'Loose me. Set me free!'

'Madam?' he repeated, 'Mrs Dombey?'

'Tell him,' said Edith, addressing her proud face to Carker, 'that I
wish for a separation between us, That there had better be one. That I
recommend it to him, Tell him it may take place on his own terms--his
wealth is nothing to me--but that it cannot be too soon.'

'Good Heaven, Mrs Dombey!' said her husband, with supreme amazement, 'do
you imagine it possible that I could ever listen to such a proposition?
Do you know who I am, Madam? Do you know what I represent? Did you ever
hear of Dombey and Son? People to say that Mr Dombey--Mr Dombey!--was
separated from his wife! Common people to talk of Mr Dombey and his
domestic affairs! Do you seriously think, Mrs Dombey, tha