Bradley Headstone held fast by that other interview he was to have with Lizzie Hexam. In stipulating for it, he had been impelled by a feeling little short of desperation, and the feeling abided by him. It was very soon after his interview with the Secretary, that he and Charley Hexam set out one leaden evening, not unnoticed by Miss Peecher, to have this desperate interview accomplished.

‘That dolls’ dressmaker,’ said Bradley, ‘is favourable neither to me nor to you, Hexam.’

‘A pert crooked little chit, Mr Headstone! I knew she would put herself in the way, if she could, and would be sure to strike in with something impertinent. It was on that account that I proposed our going to the City to-night and meeting my sister.’

‘So I supposed,’ said Bradley, getting his gloves on his nervous hands as he walked. ‘So I supposed.’

‘Nobody but my sister,’ pursued Charley, ‘would have found out such an extraordinary companion. She has done it in a ridiculous fancy of giving herself up to another. She told me so, that night when we went there.’

‘Why should she give herself up to the dressmaker?’ asked Bradley.

‘Oh!’ said the boy, colouring. ‘One of her romantic ideas! I tried to convince her so, but I didn’t succeed. However, what we have got to do, is, to succeed to-night, Mr Headstone, and then all the rest follows.’

‘You are still sanguine, Hexam.’

‘Certainly I am, sir. Why, we have everything on our side.’

‘Except your sister, perhaps,’ thought Bradley. But he only gloomily thought it, and said nothing.

‘Everything on our side,’ repeated the boy with boyish confidence. ‘Respectability, an excellent connexion for me, common sense, everything!’

‘To be sure, your sister has always shown herself a devoted sister,’ said Bradley, willing to sustain himself on even that low ground of hope.

‘Naturally, Mr Headstone, I have a good deal of influence with her. And now that you have honoured me with your confidence and spoken to me first, I say again, we have everything on our side.’

And Bradley thought again, ‘Except your sister, perhaps.’

A grey dusty withered evening in London city has not a hopeful aspect. The closed warehouses and offices have an air of death about them, and the national dread of colour has an air of mourning. The towers and steeples of the many houseencompassed churches, dark and dingy as the sky that seems descending on them, are no relief to the general gloom; a sun-dial on a church-wall has the look, in its useless black shade, of having failed in its business enterprise and stopped payment for ever; melancholy waifs and strays of housekeepers and porter sweep melancholy waifs and strays of papers and pins into the kennels, and other more melancholy waifs and strays explore them, searching and stooping and poking for anything to sell. The set of humanity outward from the City is as a set of prisoners departing from gaol, and dismal Newgate seems quite as fit a stronghold for the mighty Lord Mayor as his own state-dwelling.

On such an evening, when the city grit gets into the hair and eyes and skin, and when the fallen leaves of the few unhappy city trees grind down in corners under wheels of wind, the schoolmaster and the pupil emerged upon the Leadenhall Street region, spying eastward for Lizzie. Being something too soon in their arrival, they lurked at a corner, waiting for her to appear. The bestlooking among us will not look very well, lurking at a corner, and Bradley came out of that disadvantage very poorly indeed.

‘Here she comes, Mr Headstone! Let us go forward and meet her.’

As they advanced, she saw them coming, and seemed rather troubled. But she greeted her brother with the usual warmth, and touched the extended hand of Bradley.

‘Why, where are you going, Charley, dear?’ she asked him then.

‘Nowhere. We came on purpose to meet you.’

‘To meet me, Charley?’

‘Yes. We are going to walk with you. But don’t let us take the great leading streets where every one walks, and we can’t hear ourselves speak. Let us go by the quiet backways. Here’s a large paved court by this church, and quiet, too. Let us go up here.’

‘But it’s not in the way, Charley.’

‘Yes it is,’ said the boy, petulantly. ‘It’s in my way, and my way is yours.’

She had not released his hand, and, still holding it, looked at him with a kind of appeal. He avoided her eyes, under pretence of saying, ‘Come along, Mr Headstone.’ Bradley walked at his side — not at hers — and the brother and sister walked hand in hand. The court brought them to a churchyard; a paved square court, with a raised bank of earth about breast high, in the middle, enclosed by iron rails. Here, conveniently and heathfully elevated above the level of the living, were the dead, and the tombstones; some of the latter droopingly inclined from the perpendicular, as if they were ashamed of the lies they told.

They paced the whole of this place once, in a constrained and uncomfortable manner, when the boy stopped and said:

‘Lizzie, Mr Headstone has something to say to you. I don’t wish to be an interruption either to him or to you, and so I’ll go and take a little stroll and come back. I know in a general way what Mr Headstone intends to say, and I very highly approve of it, as I hope — and indeed I do not doubt — you will. I needn’t tell you, Lizzie, that I am under great obligations to Mr Headstone, and that I am very anxious for Mr Headstone to succeed in all he undertakes. As I hope — and as, indeed, I don’t doubt — you must be.’

‘Charley,’ returned his sister, detaining his hand as he withdrew it, ‘I think you had better stay. I think Mr Headstone had better not say what he thinks of saying.’

‘Why, how do you know what it is?’ returned the boy.

‘Perhaps I don’t, but —’

‘Perhaps you don’t? No, Liz, I should think not. If you knew what it was, you would give me a very different answer. There; let go; be sensible. I wonder you don’t remember that Mr Headstone is looking on.’

She allowed him to separate himself from her, and he, after saying, ‘Now Liz, be a rational girl and a good sister,’ walked away. She remained standing alone with Bradley Headstone, and it was not until she raised her eyes, that he spoke.

‘I said,’ he began, ‘when I saw you last, that there was something unexplained, which might perhaps influence you. I have come this evening to explain it. I hope you will not judge of me by my hesitating manner when I speak to you. You see me at my greatest disadvantage. It is most unfortunate for me that I wish you to see me at my best, and that I know you see me at my worst.’

She moved slowly on when he paused, and he moved slowly on beside her.

‘It seems egotistical to begin by saying so much about myself,’ he resumed, ‘but whatever I say to you seems, even in my own ears, below what I want to say, and different from what I want to say. I can’t help it. So it is. You are the ruin of me.’

She started at the passionate sound of the last words, and at the passionate action of his hands, with which they were accompanied.

‘Yes! you are the ruin — the ruin — the ruin — of me. I have no resources in myself, I have no confidence in myself, I have no government of myself when you are near me or in my thoughts. And you are always in my thoughts now. I have never been quit of you since I first saw you. Oh, that was a wretched day for me! That was a wretched, miserable day!’

A touch of pity for him mingled with her dislike of him, and she said: ‘Mr Headstone, I am grieved to have done you any harm, but I have never meant it.’

‘There!’ he cried, despairingly. ‘Now, I seem to have reproached you, instead of revealing to you the state of my own mind! Bear with me. I am always wrong when you are in question. It is my doom.’

Struggling with himself, and by times looking up at the deserted windows of the houses as if there could be anything written in their grimy panes that would help him, he paced the whole pavement at her side, before he spoke again.

‘I must try to give expression to what is in my mind; it shall and must be spoken. Though you see me so confounded — though you strike me so helpless — I ask you to believe that there are many people who think well of me; that there are some people who highly esteem me; that I have in my way won a Station which is considered worth winning.’

‘Surely, Mr Headstone, I do believe it. Surely I have always known it from Charley.’

‘I ask you to believe that if I were to offer my home such as it is, my station such as it is, my affections such as they are, to any one of the best considered, and best qualified, and most distinguished, among the young women engaged in my calling, they would probably be accepted. Even readily accepted.’

‘I do not doubt it,’ said Lizzie, with her eyes upon the ground.

‘I have sometimes had it in my thoughts to make that offer and to settle down as many men of my class do: I on the one side of a school, my wife on the other, both of us interested in the same work.’

‘Why have you not done so?’ asked Lizzie Hexam. ‘Why do you not do so?’

‘Far better that I never did! The only one grain of comfort I have had these many weeks,’ he said, always speaking passionately, and, when most emphatic, repeating that former action of his hands, which was like flinging his heart’s blood down before her in drops upon the pavement-stones; ‘the only one grain of comfort I have had these many weeks is, that I never did. For if I had, and if the same spell had come upon me for my ruin, I know I should have broken that tie asunder as if it had been thread.’

She glanced at him with a glance of fear, and a shrinking gesture. He answered, as if she had spoken.

‘No! It would not have been voluntary on my part, any more than it is voluntary in me to be here now. You draw me to you. If I were shut up in a strong prison, you would draw me out. I should break through the wall to come to you. If I were lying on a sick bed, you would draw me up — to stagger to your feet and fall there.’

The wild energy of the man, now quite let loose, was absolutely terrible. He stopped and laid his hand upon a piece of the coping of the burial-ground enclosure, as if he would have dislodged the stone.

‘No man knows till the time comes, what depths are within him. To some men it never comes; let them rest and be thankful! To me, you brought it; on me, you forced it; and the bottom of this raging sea,’ striking himself upon the breast, ‘has been heaved up ever since.’

‘Mr Headstone, I have heard enough. Let me stop you here. It will be better for you and better for me. Let us find my brother.’

‘Not yet. It shall and must be spoken. I have been in torments ever since I stopped short of it before. You are alarmed. It is another of my miseries that I cannot speak to you or speak of you without stumbling at every syllable, unless I let the check go altogether and run mad. Here is a man lighting the lamps. He will be gone directly. I entreat of you let us walk round this place again. You have no reason to look alarmed; I can restrain myself, and I will.’

She yielded to the entreaty — how could she do otherwise! — and they paced the stones in silence. One by one the lights leaped up making the cold grey church tower more remote, and they were alone again. He said no more until they had regained the spot where he had broken off; there, he again stood still, and again grasped the stone. In saying what he said then, he never looked at her; but looked at it and wrenched at it.

‘You know what I am going to say. I love you. What other men may mean when they use that expression, I cannot tell; what I mean is, that I am under the influence of some tremendous attraction which I have resisted in vain, and which overmasters me. You could draw me to fire, you could draw me to water, you could draw me to the gallows, you could draw me to any death, you could draw me to anything I have most avoided, you could draw me to any exposure and disgrace. This and the confusion of my thoughts, so that I am fit for nothing, is what I mean by your being the ruin of me. But if you would return a favourable answer to my offer of myself in marringe, you could draw me to any good — every good — with equal force. My circumstances are quite easy, and you would want for nothing. My reputation stands quite high, and would be a shield for yours. If you saw me at my work, able to do it well and respected in it, you might even come to take a sort of pride in me; — I would try hard that you should. Whatever considerations I may have thought of against this offer, I have conquered, and I make it with all my heart. Your brother favours me to the utmost, and it is likely that we might live and work together; anyhow, it is certain that he would have my best influence and support. I don’t know what I could say more if I tried. I might only weaken what is ill enough said as it is. I only add that if it is any claim on you to be in earnest, I am in thorough earnest, dreadful earnest.’

The powdered mortar from under the stone at which he wrenched, rattled on the pavement to confirm his words.

‘Mr Headstone —’

‘Stop! I implore you, before you answer me, to walk round this place once more. It will give you a minute’s time to think, and me a minute’s time to get some fortitude together.’

Again she yielded to the entreaty, and again they came back to the same place, and again he worked at the stone.

‘Is it,’ he said, with his attention apparently engrossed by it, ‘yes, or no?’

‘Mr Headstone, I thank you sincerely, I thank you gratefully, and hope you may find a worthy wife before long and be very happy. But it is no.’

‘Is no short time necessary for reflection; no weeks or days?’ he asked, in the same half-suffocated way.

‘None whatever.’

‘Are you quite decided, and is there no chance of any change in my favour?’

‘I am quite decided, Mr Headstone, and I am bound to answer I am certain there is none.’

‘Then,’ said he, suddenly changing his tone and turning to her, and bringing his clenched hand down upon the stone with a force that laid the knuckles raw and bleeding; ‘then I hope that I may never kill him!’

The dark look of hatred and revenge with which the words broke from his livid lips, and with which he stood holding out his smeared hand as if it held some weapon and had just struck a mortal blow, made her so afraid of him that she turned to run away. But he caught her by the arm.

‘Mr Headstone, let me go. Mr Headstone, I must call for help!’

‘It is I who should call for help,’ he said; ‘you don’t know yet how much I need it.’

The working of his face as she shrank from it, glancing round for her brother and uncertain what to do, might have extorted a cry from her in another instant; but all at once he sternly stopped it and fixed it, as if Death itself had done so.

‘There! You see I have recovered myself. Hear me out.’

With much of the dignity of courage, as she recalled her selfreliant life and her right to be free from accountability to this man, she released her arm from his grasp and stood looking full at him. She had never been so handsome, in his eyes. A shade came over them while he looked back at her, as if she drew the very light out of them to herself.

‘This time, at least, I will leave nothing unsaid,’ he went on, folding his hands before him, clearly to prevent his being betrayed into any impetuous gesture; ‘this last time at least I will not be tortured with after-thoughts of a lost opportunity. Mr Eugene Wrayburn.’

‘Was it of him you spoke in your ungovernable rage and violence?’ Lizzie Hexam demanded with spirit.

He bit his lip, and looked at her, and said never a word.

‘Was it Mr Wrayburn that you threatened?’

He bit his lip again, and looked at her, and said never a word.

‘You asked me to hear you out, and you will not speak. Let me find my brother.’

‘Stay! I threatened no one.’

Her look dropped for an instant to his bleeding hand. He lifted it to his mouth, wiped it on his sleeve, and again folded it over the other. ‘Mr Eugene Wrayburn,’ he repeated.

‘Why do you mention that name again and again, Mr Headstone?’

‘Because it is the text of the little I have left to say. Observe! There are no threats in it. If I utter a threat, stop me, and fasten it upon me. Mr Eugene Wrayburn.’

A worse threat than was conveyed in his manner of uttering the name, could hardly have escaped him.

‘He haunts you. You accept favours from him. You are willing enough to listen to HIM. I know it, as well as he does.’

‘Mr Wrayburn has been considerate and good to me, sir,’ said Lizzie, proudly, ‘in connexion with the death and with the memory of my poor father.’

‘No doubt. He is of course a very considerate and a very good man, Mr Eugene Wrayburn.’

‘He is nothing to you, I think,’ said Lizzie, with an indignation she could not repress.

‘Oh yes, he is. There you mistake. He is much to me.’

‘What can he be to you?’

‘He can be a rival to me among other things,’ said Bradley.

‘Mr Headstone,’ returned Lizzie, with a burning face, ‘it is cowardly in you to speak to me in this way. But it makes me able to tell you that I do not like you, and that I never have liked you from the first, and that no other living creature has anything to do with the effect you have produced upon me for yourself.’

His head bent for a moment, as if under a weight, and he then looked up again, moistening his lips. ‘I was going on with the little I had left to say. I knew all this about Mr Eugene Wrayhurn, all the while you were drawing me to you. I strove against the knowledge, but quite in vain. It made n............