Mr. Dombey, alone in the silent house, had made no search for Florence. His pride bade him hide all traces of his grief and rage from the world. He had only one thought—to find where Carker had fled with his wife, to follow and to kill him. He hired detectives and at last discovered that Carker had gone to a certain city in France. And to that place he followed him.

Now Edith, desperate as she had been, had not really been so wicked as Mr. Dombey supposed her. She had deserted him, but she had not run away with Carker. In all the trouble between herself and Mr. Dombey, Carker (the smooth, smiling hypocrite!) had labored to make matters worse. He had lied to Mr. Dombey about his wife and taunted her with her position, and done everything in his power to make them hate each other more bitterly. At last, when he saw Edith could bear it no longer, he had begged her to run away with him,[Pg 204] and when she refused, he had threatened her in many cowardly ways. But Edith hated him as much as she disliked her husband, and had not the least idea of running away with him. She had pretended to Carker that she would do so, and had led her husband and everybody else to think she had done so, but this was only to wound her husband\'s pride, and to punish him for all his tortures. Carker had followed her to France, but, once there, he had found the tables turned. Edith laughed at him and scorned him, and sent him from her, baffled and furious.

Carker was thus caught in his own trap. He had lost his own position and reputation, and had gained nothing for all his evil plots. And besides this, he was a fugitive, and Mr. Dombey, the man he had wronged, was on his track.

When he learned his enemy had followed him to France, Carker, raging, but cowardly, fled back to England; and back to England Edith\'s revengeful husband followed him day and night. The wicked manager knew no more peace or rest. He traveled into the country, seeking some lonely village in which to hide, but he could not shake off that grim pursuer.

They met at last face to face one day on a railroad platform when neither was expecting to see the other.

In the surprise of the meeting, Carker\'s foot slipped—he stepped backward, directly in the path[Pg 205] of the engine that was roaring up the track. It caught him, and tossed him, and tore him limb from limb, and its iron wheels crushed and ground him to pieces.

And that was the end of Carker, of the white teeth and false smile, and Mr. Dombey went back to London, still proud and alone, still cold and forbidding.

But his conscience at last had begun to cry out against him, and to deafen its voice he plunged more and more recklessly into business, spending money too lavishly, and taking risks of which, in other days, he would not have thought.

The months went by and little by little the old firm of Dombey and Son became more entangled. Soon there were whispers that the business was in difficulty, but Mr. Dombey did not hear them. One morning the crash came. A bank closed and then suddenly the word went around that the old firm had failed.

It was too true. The proud, hard-hearted merchant, who had driven his daughter from him, was ruined and a beggar. His rich friends, whom he had treated so haughtily, shrugged their shoulders and sneered. Even Major Bagstock at his club grew purple in the face with chuckling.

The servants were all sent away, most of the furniture was sold at a public sale, and the old man, who had once been so proud and held his gray head so high, still sat on hour after hour in the echoing[Pg 206] house, so empty now that even the rats would not live in it. What was he thinking?

At last, in his agony, his sorrow, his remorse, his despair, he remembered Florence. He saw again her trembling lips, her lonely face longing for love—the terrible hopeless change that came over it when his own cruel arm struck her on that final day when she had stood before him.

His pride at last had fallen. He knew now himself what it was to be rejected and deserted. He thought how the daughter he had disliked, of them all, had never changed in her love for him. And by his own act he had lost her for ever. His son, hi............