Tea-time, an hour short of midnight; the place, a French apartment,
comprising some half-dozen rooms;--a dull cold hall or corridor, a
dining-room, a drawing-room, a bed-room, and an inner drawingroom, or
boudoir, smaller and more retired than the rest. All these shut in by
one large pair of doors on the main staircase, but each room provided
with two or three pairs of doors of its own, establishing several means
of communication with the remaining portion of the apartment, or with
certain small passages within the wall, leading, as is not unusual in
such houses, to some back stairs with an obscure outlet below. The whole
situated on the first floor of so large an Hotel, that it did not absorb
one entire row of windows upon one side of the square court-yard in the
centre, upon which the whole four sides of the mansion looked.

An air of splendour, sufficiently faded to be melancholy, and
sufficiently dazzling to clog and embarrass the details of life with a
show of state, reigned in these rooms The walls and ceilings were gilded
and painted; the floors were waxed and polished; crimson drapery hung
in festoons from window, door, and mirror; and candelabra, gnarled and
intertwisted like the branches of trees, or horns of animals, stuck
out from the panels of the wall. But in the day-time, when the
lattice-blinds (now closely shut) were opened, and the light let in,
traces were discernible among this finery, of wear and tear and dust,
of sun and damp and smoke, and lengthened intervals of want of use and
habitation, when such shows and toys of life seem sensitive like life,
and waste as men shut up in prison do. Even night, and clusters of
burning candles, could not wholly efface them, though the general
glitter threw them in the shade.

The glitter of bright tapers, and their reflection in looking-glasses,
scraps of gilding and gay colours, were confined, on this night, to one
room--that smaller room within the rest, just now enumerated. Seen from
the hall, where a lamp was feebly burning, through the dark perspective
of open doors, it looked as shining and precious as a gem. In the heart
of its radiance sat a beautiful woman--Edith.

She was alone. The same defiant, scornful woman still. The cheek a
little worn, the eye a little larger in appearance, and more lustrous,
but the haughty bearing just the same. No shame upon her brow; no late
repentance bending her disdainful neck. Imperious and stately yet, and
yet regardless of herself and of all else, she sat with her dark eyes
cast down, waiting for someone.

No book, no work, no occupation of any kind but her own thought,
beguiled the tardy time. Some purpose, strong enough to fill up any
pause, possessed her. With her lips pressed together, and quivering
if for a moment she released them from her control; with her nostril
inflated; her hands clasped in one another; and her purpose swelling in
her breast; she sat, and waited.

At the sound of a key in the outer door, and a footstep in the hall, she
started up, and cried 'Who's that?' The answer was in French, and two
men came in with jingling trays, to make preparation for supper.

'Who had bade them to do so?' she asked.

'Monsieur had commanded it, when it was his pleasure to take the
apartment. Monsieur had said, when he stayed there for an hour, en
route, and left the letter for Madame--Madame had received it surely?'

'Yes.'

'A thousand pardons! The sudden apprehension that it might have been
forgotten had struck hIm;' a bald man, with a large beard from a
neighbouring restaurant; 'with despair! Monsieur had said that supper
was to be ready at that hour: also that he had forewarned Madame of the
commands he had given, in his letter. Monsieur had done the Golden Head
the honour to request that the supper should be choice and delicate.
Monsieur would find that his confidence in the Golden Head was not
misplaced.'

Edith said no more, but looked on thoughtfully while they prepared the
table for two persons, and set the wine upon it. She arose before they
had finished, and taking a lamp, passed into the bed-chamber and into
the drawing-room, where she hurriedly but narrowly examined all the
doors; particularly one in the former room that opened on the passage in
the wall. From this she took the key, and put it on the outer side. She
then came back.

The men--the second of whom was a dark, bilious subject, in a jacket,
close shaved, and with a black head of hair close cropped--had completed
their preparation of the table, and were standing looking at it. He
who had spoken before, inquired whether Madame thought it would be long
before Monsieur arrived?

'She couldn't say. It was all one.'

'Pardon! There was the supper! It should be eaten on the instant.
Monsieur (who spoke French like an Angel--or a Frenchman--it was all the
same) had spoken with great emphasis of his punctuality. But the English
nation had so grand a genius for punctuality. Ah! what noise! Great
Heaven, here was Monsieur. Behold him!'

In effect, Monsieur, admitted by the other of the two, came, with his
gleaming teeth, through the dark rooms, like a mouth; and arriving in
that sanctuary of light and colour, a figure at full length, embraced
Madame, and addressed her in the French tongue as his charming wife.

'My God! Madame is going to faint. Madame is overcome with joy!' The
bald man with the beard observed it, and cried out.

Madame had only shrunk and shivered. Before the words were spoken, she
was standing with her hand upon the velvet back of a great chair; her
figure drawn up to its full height, and her face immoveable.

'Francois has flown over to the Golden Head for supper. He flies on
these occasions like an angel or a bird. The baggage of Monsieur is in
his room. All is arranged. The supper will be here this moment.' These
facts the bald man notified with bows and smiles, and presently the
supper came.

The hot dishes were on a chafing-dish; the cold already set forth, with
the change of service on a sideboard. Monsieur was satisfied with this
arrangement. The supper table being small, it pleased him very well. Let
them set the chafing-dish upon the floor, and go. He would remove the
dishes with his own hands.

'Pardon!' said the bald man, politely. 'It was impossible!'

Monsieur was of another opinion. He required no further attendance that
night.

'But Madame--' the bald man hinted.

'Madame,' replied Monsieur, 'had her own maid. It was enough.'

'A million pardons! No! Madame had no maid!'

'I came here alone,' said Edith 'It was my choice to do so. I am well
used to travelling; I want no attendance. They need send nobody to me.

Monsieur accordingly, persevering in his first proposed impossibility,
proceeded to follow the two attendants to the outer door, and secure it
after them for the night. The bald man turning round to bow, as he went
out, observed that Madame still stood with her hand upon the velvet
back of the great chair, and that her face was quite regardless of him,
though she was looking straight before her.

As the sound of Carker's fastening the door resounded through the
intermediate rooms, and seemed to come hushed and stilled into that last
distant one, the sound of the Cathedral clock striking twelve mingled
with it, in Edith's ears She heard him pause, as if he heard it too
and listened; and then came back towards her, laying a long train of
footsteps through the silence, and shutting all the doors behind him as
he came along. Her hand, for a moment, left the velvet chair to bring a
knife within her reach upon the table; then she stood as she had stood
before.

'How strange to come here by yourself, my love!' he said as he entered.

'What?' she returned.

Her tone was so harsh; the quick turn of her head so fierce; her
attitude so repellent; and her frown so black; that he stood, with the
lamp in his hand, looking at her, as if she had struck him motionless.

'I say,' he at length repeated, putting down the lamp, and smiling his
most courtly smile, 'how strange to come here alone! It was unnecessarty
caution surely, and might have defeated itself. You were to have engaged
an attendant at Havre or Rouen, and have had abundance of time for the
purpose, though you had been the most capricious and difficult (as you
are the most beautiful, my love) of women.'

Her eyes gleamed strangely on him, but she stood with her hand resting
on the chair, and said not a word.

'I have never,' resumed Carker, 'seen you look so handsome, as you do
to-night. Even the picture I have carried in my mind during this cruel
probation, and which I have contemplated night and day, is exceeded by
the reality.'

Not a word. Not a look Her eyes completely hidden by their drooping
lashes, but her head held up.

'Hard, unrelenting terms they were!' said Carker, with a smile, 'but
they are all fulfilled and passed, and make the present more delicious
and more safe. Sicily shall be the place of our retreat. In the idlest
and easiest part of the world, my soul, we'll both seek compensation for
old slavery.'

He was coming gaily towards her, when, in an instant, she caught the
knife up from the table, and started one pace back.

'Stand still!' she said, 'or I shall murder you!'

The sudden change in her, the towering fury and intense abhorrence
sparkling in her eyes and lighting up her brow, made him stop as if a
fire had stopped him.

'Stand still!' she said, 'come no nearer me, upon your life!'

They both stood looking at each other. Rage and astonishment were in his
face, but he controlled them, and said lightly,

'Come, come! Tush, we are alone, and out of everybody's sight and
hearing. Do you think to frighten me with these tricks of virtue?'

'Do you think to frighten me,' she answered fiercely, 'from any purpose
that I have, and any course I am resolved upon, by reminding me of the
solitude of this place, and there being no help near? Me, who am here
alone, designedly? If I feared you, should I not have avoided you? If I
feared you, should I be here, in the dead of night, telling you to your
face what I am going to tell?'

'And what is that,' he said, 'you handsome shrew? Handsomer so, than any
other woman in her best humour?'

'I tell you nothing,' she returned, until you go back to that
chair--except this, once again--Don't come near me! Not a step nearer. I
tell you, if you do, as Heaven sees us, I shall murder you!'

'Do you mistake me for your husband?' he retorted, with a grin.

Disdaining to reply, she stretched her arm out, pointing to the chair.
He bit his lip, frowned, laughed, and sat down in it, with a baffled,
irresolute, impatient air, he was unable to conceal; and biting his nail
nervously, and looking at her sideways, with bitter discomfiture, even
while he feigned to be amused by her caprice.

She put the knife down upon the table, and touching her bosom with her
hand, said:

'I have something lying here that is no love trinket, and sooner than
endure your touch once more, I would use it on you--and you know it,
while I speak--with less reluctance than I would on any other creeping
thing that lives.'

He affected to laugh jestingly, and entreated her to act her play out
quickly, for the supper was growing cold. But the secret look with which
he regarded her, was more sullen and lowering, and he struck his foot
once upon the floor with a muttered oath.

'How many times,' said Edith, bending her darkest glance upon him, 'has
your bold knavery assailed me with outrage and insult? How many times
in your smooth manner, and mocking words and looks, have I been twitted
with my courtship and my marriage? How many times have you laid bare my
wound of love for that sweet, injured girl and lacerated it? How often
have you fanned the fire on which, for two years, I have writhed; and
tempted me to take a desperate revenge, when it has most tortured me?'

'I have no doubt, Ma'am,' he replied, 'that you have kept a good
account, and that it's pretty accurate. Come, Edith. To your husband,
poor wretch, this was well enough--'

'Why, if,' she said, surveying him with a haughty contempt and disgust,
that he shrunk under, let him brave it as he would, 'if all my other
reasons for despising him could have been blown away like feathers,
his having you for his counsellor and favourite, would have almost been
enough to hold their place.'

'Is that a reason why you have run away with me?' he asked her,
tauntingly.

'Yes, and why we are face to face for the last time. Wretch! We meet
tonight, and part tonight. For not one moment after I have ceased to
speak, will I stay here!'

He turned upon her with his ugliest look, and gripped the table with his
hand; but neither rose, nor otherwise answered or threatened her.

'I am a woman,' she said, confronting him steadfastly, 'who from her
childhood has been shamed and steeled. I have been offered and rejected,
put up and appraised, until my very soul has sickened. I have not had
an accomplishment or grace that might have been a resource to me, but it
has been paraded and vended to enhance my value, as if the common crier
had called it through the streets. My poor, proud friends, have looked
on and approved; and every tie between us has been deadened in my
breast. There is not one of them for whom I care, as I could care for
a pet dog. I stand alone in the world, remembering well what a hollow
world it has been to me, and what a hollow part of it I have been
myself. You know this, and you know that my fame with it is worthless to
me.'

'Yes; I imagined that,' he said.

'And calculated on it,' she rejoined, 'and so pursued me. Grown too
indifferent for any opposition but indifference, to the daily working
of the hands that had moulded me to this; and knowing that my marriage
would at least prevent their hawking of me up and down; I suffered
myself to be sold, as infamously as any woman with a halter round her
neck is sold in any market-place. You know that.'

'Yes,' he said, showing all his teeth 'I know that.'

'And calculated on it,' she rejoined once more, 'and so pursued me.
From my marriage day, I found myself exposed to such new shame--to such
solicitation and pursuit (expressed as clearly as if it had been written
in the coarsest words, and thrust into my hand at every turn) from one
mean villain, that I felt as if I had never known humiliation till
that time. This shame my husband fixed upon me; hemmed me round with,
himself; steeped me in, with his own hands, and of his own act, repeated
hundreds of times. And thus--forced by the two from every point of
rest I had--forced by the two to yield up the last retreat of love
and gentleness within me, or to be a new misfortune on its innocent
object--driven from each to each, and beset by one when I escaped the
other--my anger rose almost to distraction against both I do not know
against which it rose higher--the master or the man!'

He watched her closely, as she stood before him in the very triumph of
her indignant beauty. She was resolute, he saw; undauntable; with no
more fear of him than of a worm.

'What should I say of honour or of chastity to you!' she went on. 'What
meaning would it have to you; what meaning would it have from me! But if
I tell you that the lightest touch of your hand makes my blood cold with
antipathy; that from the hour when I first saw and hated you, to now,
when my instinctive repugnance is enhanced by every minute's knowledge
of you I have since had, you have been a loathsome creature to me which
has not its like on earth; how then?'

He answered with a faint laugh, 'Ay! How then, my queen?'

'On that night, when, emboldened by the scene you had assisted at, you
dared come to my room and speak to me,' she said, 'what passed?'

He shrugged his shoulders, and laughed

'What passed?' she said.

'Your memory is so distinct,' he said, 'that I have no doubt you can
recall it.'

'I can,' she said. 'Hear it! Proposing then, this flight--not this
flight, but the flight you thought it--you told me that in the having
given you that meeting, and leaving you to be discovered there, if you
so thought fit; and in the having suffered you to be alone with me many
times before,--and having made the opportunities, you said,--and in the
having openly avowed to you that I had no feeling for my husband but
aversion, and no care for myself--I was lost; I had given you the power
to traduce my name; and I lived, in virtuous reputation, at the pleasure
of your breath.'

'All stratagems in love---' he interrupted, smiling. 'The old adage--'

'On that night,' said Edith, 'and then, the struggle that I long had had
with something that was not respect for my good fame--that was I know
not what--perhaps the clinging to that last retreat--was ended. On that
night, and then, I turned from everything but passion and resentment.
I struck a blow that laid your lofty master in the dust, and set you
there, before me, looking at me now, and knowing what I mean.'

He sprung up from his chair with a great oath. She put her hand into her
bosom, and not a finger trembled, not a hair upon her head was stirred.
He stood still: she too: the table and chair between them.

'When I forget that this man put his lips to mine that night, and held
me in his arms as he has done again to-night,' said Edith, pointing at
him; 'when I forget the taint of his kiss upon my cheek--the cheek that
Florence would have laid her guiltless face against--when I forget my
meeting with her, while that taint was hot upon me, and in what a flood
the knowledge rushed upon me when I saw her, that in releasing her
from the persecution I had caused by my love, I brought a shame and
degradation on her name through mine, and in all time to come should be
the solitary figure representing in her mind her first avoidance of a
guilty creature--then, Husband, from whom I stand divorced henceforth,
I will forget these last two years, and undo what I have done, and
undeceive you!'

Her flashing eyes, uplifted for a moment, lighted again on Carker, and
she held some letters out in her left hand.

'See these!' she said, contemptuously. 'You have addressed these to me
in the false name you go by; one here, some elsewhere on my road. The
seals are unbroken. Take them back!'

She crunched them in her hand, and tossed them to his feet. And as she
looked upon him now, a smile was on her face.

'We meet and part to-night,' she said. 'You have fallen on Sicilian
days and sensual rest, too soon. You might have cajoled, and fawned,
and played your traitor's part, a little longer, and grown richer. You
purchase your voluptuous retirement dear!'

'Edith!' he retorted, menacing her with his hand. 'Sit down! Have done
with this! What devil possesses you?'

'Their name is Legion,' she replied, uprearing her proud form as if
she would have crushed him; 'you and your master have raised them in a
fruitful house, and they shall tear you both. False to him, false to his
innocent child, false every way and everywhere, go forth and boast of
me, and gnash your teeth, for once, to know that you are lying!'

He stood before her, muttering and menacing, and scowling round as if
for something that would help him to conquer her; but with the same
indomitable spirit she opposed him, without faltering.

'In every vaunt you make,' she said, 'I have my triumph I single out in
you the meanest man I know, the parasite and tool of the proud tyrant,
that his wound may go the deeper, and may rankle more. Boast, and
revenge me on him! You know how you came here to-night; you know how you
stand cowering there; you see yourself in colours quite as despicable,
if not as odious, as those in which I see you. Boast then, and revenge
me on yourself.'

The foam was on his lips; the wet stood on his forehead. If she would
have faltered once for only one half-moment, he would have pinioned her;
but she was as firm as rock, and her searching eyes never left him.

'We don't part so,' he said. 'Do you think I am drivelling, to let you
go in your mad temper?'

'Do you think,' she answered, 'that I am to be stayed?'

'I'll try, my dear,' he said with a ferocious gesture of his head.

'God's mercy on you, if you try by coming near me!' she replied.

'And what,' he said, 'if there are none of these same boasts and vaunts
on my part? What if I were to turn too? Come!' and his teeth fairly
shone again. 'We must make a treaty of this, or I may take some
unexpected course. Sit down, sit down!'

'Too late!' she cried, with eyes that seemed to sparkle fire. 'I have
thrown my fame and good name to the winds! I have resolved to bear
the shame that will attach to me--resolved to know that it attaches
falsely--that you know it too--and that he does not, never can, and
never shall. I'll die, and make no sign. For this, I am here alone with
you, at the dead of night. For this, I have met you here, in a false
name, as your wife. For this, I have been seen here by those men, and
left here. Nothing can save you now.'

He would have sold his soul to root her, in her beauty, to the floor,
and make her arms drop at her sides, and have her at his mercy. But
he could not look at her, and not be afraid of her. He saw a strength
within her that was resistless. He saw that she was desperate, and that
her unquenchable hatred of him would stop at nothing. His eyes followed
the hand that was put with such rugged uncongenial purpose into her
white bosom, and he thought that if it struck at hIm, and failed, it
would strike there, just as soon.

He did not venture, therefore, to advance towards her; but the door by
which he had entered was behind him, and he stepped back to lock it.

'Lastly, take my warning! Look to yourself!' she said, and smiled again.
'You have been betrayed, as all betrayers are. It has been made known
that you are in this place, or were to be, or have been. If I live, I
saw my husband in a carriage in the street to-night!'

'Strumpet, it's false!' cried Carker.

At the moment, the bell rang loudly in the hall. He turned white, as she
held her hand up like an enchantress, at whose invocation the sound had
come.

'Hark! do you hear it?'

He set his back against the door; for he saw a change in her, and
fancied she was coming on to pass him. But, in a moment, she was gone
through the opposite doors communicating with the bed-chamber, and they
shut upon her.

Once turned, once changed in her inflexible unyielding look, he felt
that he could cope with her. He thought a sudden terror, occasioned
by this night-alarm, had subdued her; not the less readily, for her
overwrought condition. Throwing open the doors, he followed, almost
instantly.

But the room was dark; and as she made no answer to his call, he
was fain to go back for the lamp. He held it up, and looked round,
everywhere, expecting to see her crouching in some corner; but the
room was empty. So, into the drawing-room and dining-room he went,
in succession, with the uncertain steps of a man in a strange place;
looking fearfully about, and prying behind screens and couches; but she
was not there. No, nor in the hall, which was so bare that he could see
that, at a glance.

All this time, the ringing at the bell was constantly renewed, and those
without were beating at the door. He put his lamp down at a distance,
and going near it, listened. There were several voices talking together:
at least two of them in English; and though the door was thick, and
there was great confusion, he knew one of these too well to doubt whose
voice it was.

He took up his lamp again, and came back quickly through all the rooms,
stopping as he quitted each, and looking round for her, with the light
raised above his head. He was standing thus in the bed-chamber, when the
door, leading to the little passage in the wall, caught his eye. He went
to it, and found it fastened on the other side; but she had dropped a
veil in going through, and shut it in the door.

All this time the people on the stairs were ringing at the bell, and
knocking with their hands and feet.

He was not a coward: but these sounds; what had gone before; the
strangeness of the place, which had confused him, even in his return
from the hall; the frustration of his schemes (for, strange to say, he
would have been much bolder, if they had succeeded); the unseasonable
time; the recollection of having no one near to whom he could appeal for
any friendly office; above all, the sudden sense, which made even his
heart beat like lead, that the man whose confidence he had outraged,
and whom he had so treacherously deceived, was there to recognise and
challenge him with his mask plucked off his face; struck a panic through
him. He tried the door in which the veil was shut, but couldn't force
it. He opened one of the windows, and looked down through the lattice of
the blind, into the court-yard; but it was a high leap, and the stones
were pitiless.

The ringing and knocking still continuing--his panic too--he went back
to the door in the bed-chamber, and with some new efforts, each more
stubborn than the last, wrenched it open. Seeing the little staircase
not far off, and feeling the night-air coming up, he stole back for his
hat and coat, made the door as secure after hIm as he could, crept down
lamp in hand, extinguished it on seeing the street, and having put it in
a corner, went out where the stars were shining.

Edith is waiting at a hotel in France. After two attendants serve supper to her, Carker arrives for their planned rendezvous. He is surprised that she has not followed his instructions to hire a new maid, but is pleased that they are alone. He plans for them to continue on to Sicily. When he approaches her, Edith seizes a knife and threatens him. She makes it clear that she has arranged for them to meet alone but that she is planning to leave and has no intentions of the two being lovers, or continuing on together. She has always hated him, and staged the elopement only for the purpose of hurting and shaming both Dombey and Carker, as well as escaping from her marriage. Carker is furious but he is also frightened of Edith, and doesn't know what to do. She also reveals that Dombey has located them, and will be coming in pursuit of revenge. Sure enough, a commotion begins in the inn, distracting Carker enough that Edith is able to slip away through a hidden passage she had prepared in advance. Carker is now distressed, overwhelmed, and afraid, and escapes from the hotel room through the same passage


The Porter at the iron gate which shut the court-yard from the street,
had left the little wicket of his house open, and was gone away; no
doubt to mingle in the distant noise at the door of the great staircase.
Lifting the latch softly, Carker crept out, and shutting the jangling
gate after him with as little noise as possible, hurried off.

In the fever of his mortification and unavailing rage, the panic that
had seized upon him mastered him completely. It rose to such a height
that he would have blindly encountered almost any risk, rather than
meet the man of whom, two hours ago, he had been utterly regardless.
His fierce arrival, which he had never expected; the sound of his voice;
their having been so near a meeting, face to face; he would have braved
out this, after the first momentary shock of alarm, and would have put
as bold a front upon his guilt as any villain. But the springing of his
mine upon himself, seemed to have rent and shivered all his hardihood
and self-reliance. Spurned like any reptile; entrapped and mocked;
turned upon, and trodden down by the proud woman whose mind he had
slowly poisoned, as he thought, until she had sunk into the mere
creature of his pleasure; undeceived in his deceit, and with his fox's
hide stripped off, he sneaked away, abashed, degraded, and afraid.

Some other terror came upon hIm quite removed from this of being
pursued, suddenly, like an electric shock, as he was creeping through
the streets Some visionary terror, unintelligible and inexplicable,
associated with a trembling of the ground,--a rush and sweep of
something through the air, like Death upon the wing. He shrunk, as if to
let the thing go by. It was not gone, it never had been there, yet what
a startling horror it had left behind.

He raised his wicked face so full of trouble, to the night sky, where
the stars, so full of peace, were shining on him as they had been when
he first stole out into the air; and stopped to think what he should
do. The dread of being hunted in a strange remote place, where the laws
might not protect him--the novelty of the feeling that it was strange
and remote, originating in his being left alone so suddenly amid the
ruins of his plans--his greater dread of seeking refuge now, in Italy or
in Sicily, where men might be hired to assassinate him, he thought, at
any dark street corner--the waywardness of guilt and fear--perhaps some
sympathy of action with the turning back of all his schemes--impelled
him to turn back too, and go to England.

'I am safer there, in any case. If I should not decide,' he thought,
'to give this fool a meeting, I am less likely to be traced there, than
abroad here, now. And if I should (this cursed fit being over), at least
I shall not be alone, without a soul to speak to, or advise with, or
stand by me. I shall not be run in upon and worried like a rat.'

He muttered Edith's name, and clenched his hand. As he crept along,
in the shadow of the massive buildings, he set his teeth, and muttered
dreadful imprecations on her head, and looked from side to side, as
if in search of her. Thus, he stole on to the gate of an inn-yard. The
people were a-bed; but his ringing at the bell soon produced a man with
a lantern, in company with whom he was presently in a dim coach-house,
bargaining for the hire of an old phaeton, to Paris.

The bargain was a short one; and the horses were soon sent for. Leaving
word that the carriage was to follow him when they came, he stole away
again, beyond the town, past the old ramparts, out on the open road,
which seemed to glide away along the dark plain, like a stream.

Whither did it flow? What was the end of it? As he paused, with some
such suggestion within him, looking over the gloomy flat where the
slender trees marked out the way, again that flight of Death came
rushing up, again went on, impetuous and resistless, again was nothing
but a horror in his mind, dark as the scene and undefined as its
remotest verge.

There was no wind; there was no passing shadow on the deep shade of the
night; there was no noise. The city lay behind hIm, lighted here and
there, and starry worlds were hidden by the masonry of spire and
roof that hardly made out any shapes against the sky. Dark and lonely
distance lay around him everywhere, and the clocks were faintly striking
two.

He went forward for what appeared a long time, and a long way; often
stopping to listen. At last the ringing of horses' bells greeted his
anxious ears. Now softer, and now louder, now inaudible, now ringing
very slowly over bad ground, now brisk and merry, it came on; until with
a loud shouting and lashing, a shadowy postillion muffled to the eyes,
checked his four struggling horses at his side.

'Who goes there! Monsieur?'

'Yes.'

'Monsieur has walked a long way in the dark midnight.'

'No matter. Everyone to his task. Were there any other horses ordered at
the Post-house?'

'A thousand devils!--and pardons! other horses? at this hour? No.'

'Listen, my friend. I am much hurried. Let us see how fast we can
travel! The faster, the more money there will be to drink. Off we go
then! Quick!'

'Halloa! whoop! Halloa! Hi!' Away, at a gallop, over the black
landscape, scattering the dust and dirt like spray!

The clatter and commotion echoed to the hurry and discordance of the
fugitive's ideas. Nothing clear without, and nothing clear within.
Objects flitting past, merging into one another, dimly descried,
confusedly lost sight of, gone! Beyond the changing scraps of fence and
cottage immediately upon the road, a lowering waste. Beyond the shifting
images that rose up in his mind and vanished as they showed themselves,
a black expanse of dread and rage and baffled villainy. Occasionally, a
sigh of mountain air came from the distant Jura, fading along the
plain. Sometimes that rush which was so furious and horrible, again
came sweeping through his fancy, passed away, and left a chill upon his
blood.

The lamps, gleaming on the medley of horses' heads, jumbled with
the shadowy driver, and the fluttering of his cloak, made a thousand
indistinct shapes, answering to his thoughts. Shadows of familiar
people, stooping at their desks and books, in their remembered
attitudes; strange apparitions of the man whom he was flying from, or
of Edith; repetitions in the ringing bells and rolling wheels, of words
that had been spoken; confusions of time and place, making last night
a month ago, a month ago last night--home now distant beyond hope, now
instantly accessible; commotion, discord, hurry, darkness, and confusion
in his mind, and all around him.--Hallo! Hi! away at a gallop over the
black landscape; dust and dirt flying like spray, the smoking horses
snorting and plunging as if each of them were ridden by a demon, away in
a frantic triumph on the dark road--whither?

Again the nameless shock comes speeding up, and as it passes, the bells
ring in his ears 'whither?' The wheels roar in his ears 'whither?' All
the noise and rattle shapes itself into that cry. The lights and shadows
dance upon the horses' heads like imps. No stopping now: no slackening!
On, on! Away with him upon the dark road wildly!

He could not think to any purpose. He could not separate one subject of
reflection from another, sufficiently to dwell upon it, by itself, for
a minute at a time. The crash of his project for the gaining of a
voluptuous compensation for past restraint; the overthrow of his
treachery to one who had been true and generous to him, but whose least
proud word and look he had treasured up, at interest, for years--for
false and subtle men will always secretly despise and dislike the object
upon which they fawn and always resent the payment and receipt of homage
that they know to be worthless; these were the themes uppermost in his
mind. A lurking rage against the woman who had so entrapped him and
avenged herself was always there; crude and misshapen schemes of
retaliation upon her, floated in his brain; but nothing was distinct. A
hurry and contradiction pervaded all his thoughts. Even while he was so
busy with this fevered, ineffectual thinking, his one constant idea was,
that he would postpone reflection until some indefinite time.

Then, the old days before the second marriage rose up in his
remembrance. He thought how jealous he had been of the boy, how jealous
he had been of the girl, how artfully he had kept intruders at a
distance, and drawn a circle round his dupe that none but himself should
cross; and then he thought, had he done all this to be flying now, like
a scared thief, from only the poor dupe?

He could have laid hands upon himself for his cowardice, but it was the
very shadow of his defeat, and could not be separated from it. To have
his confidence in his own knavery so shattered at a blow--to be within
his own knowledge such a miserable tool--was like being paralysed. With
an impotent ferocity he raged at Edith, and hated Mr Dombey and hated
himself, but still he fled, and could do nothing else.

Again and again he listened for the sound of wheels behind. Again and
again his fancy heard it, coming on louder and louder. At last he was so
persuaded of this, that he cried out, 'Stop' preferring even the loss of
ground to such uncertainty.

The word soon brought carriage, horses, driver, all in a heap together,
across the road.

'The devil!' cried the driver, looking over his shoulder, 'what's the
matter?'

'Hark! What's that?'

'What?'

'That noise?'

'Ah Heaven, be quiet, cursed brigand!' to a horse who shook his bells
'What noise?'

'Behind. Is it not another carriage at a gallop? There! what's that?'

'Miscreant with a Pig's head, stand still!' to another horse, who bit
another, who frightened the other two, who plunged and backed. 'There is
nothing coming.'

'Nothing.'

'No, nothing but the day yonder.'

'You are right, I think. I hear nothing now, indeed. Go on!'

The entangled equipage, half hidden in the reeking cloud from the
horses, goes on slowly at first, for the driver, checked unnecessarily
in his progress, sulkily takes out a pocket-knife, and puts a new lash
to his whip. Then 'Hallo, whoop! Hallo, hi!' Away once more, savagely.

And now the stars faded, and the day glimmered, and standing in the
carriage, looking back, he could discern the track by which he had
come, and see that there was no traveller within view, on all the
heavy expanse. And soon it was broad day, and the sun began to shine
on cornfields and vineyards; and solitary labourers, risen from little
temporary huts by heaps of stones upon the road, were, here and there,
at work repairing the highway, or eating bread. By and by, there were
peasants going to their daily labour, or to market, or lounging at the
doors of poor cottages, gazing idly at him as he passed. And then there
was a postyard, ankle-deep in mud, with steaming dunghills and vast
outhouses half ruined; and looking on this dainty prospect, an immense,
old, shadeless, glaring, stone chateau, with half its windows blinded,
and green damp crawling lazily over it, from the balustraded terrace to
the taper tips of the extinguishers upon the turrets.

Gathered up moodily in a corner of the carriage, and only intent on
going fast--except when he stood up, for a mile together, and looked
back; which he would do whenever there was a piece of open country--he
went on, still postponing thought indefinitely, and still always
tormented with thinking to no purpose.

Shame, disappointment, and discomfiture gnawed at his heart; a constant
apprehension of being overtaken, or met--for he was groundlessly
afraid even of travellers, who came towards him by the way he was
going--oppressed him heavily. The same intolerable awe and dread that
had come upon him in the night, returned unweakened in the day. The
monotonous ringing of the bells and tramping of the horses; the monotony
of his anxiety, and useless rage; the monotonous wheel of fear, regret,
and passion, he kept turning round and round; made the journey like a
vision, in which nothing was quite real but his own torment.

It was a vision of long roads, that stretched away to an horizon, always
receding and never gained; of ill-paved towns, up hill and down, where
faces came to dark doors and ill-glazed windows, and where rows of
mudbespattered cows and oxen were tied up for sale in the long narrow
streets, butting and lowing, and receiving blows on their blunt heads
from bludgeons that might have beaten them in; of bridges, crosses,
churches, postyards, new horses being put in against their wills, and
the horses of the last stage reeking, panting, and laying their drooping
heads together dolefully at stable doors; of little cemeteries with
black crosses settled sideways in the graves, and withered wreaths upon
them dropping away; again of long, long roads, dragging themselves out,
up hill and down, to the treacherous horizon.

Of morning, noon, and sunset; night, and the rising of an early moon.
Of long roads temporarily left behind, and a rough pavement reached; of
battering and clattering over it, and looking up, among house-roofs, at
a great church-tower; of getting out and eating hastily, and drinking
draughts of wine that had no cheering influence; of coming forth afoot,
among a host of beggars--blind men with quivering eyelids, led by
old women holding candles to their faces; idiot girls; the lame, the
epileptic, and the palsied--of passing through the clamour, and looking
from his seat at the upturned countenances and outstretched hands,
with a hurried dread of recognising some pursuer pressing forward--of
galloping away again, upon the long, long road, gathered up, dull and
stunned, in his corner, or rising to see where the moon shone faintly on
a patch of the same endless road miles away, or looking back to see who
followed.

Of never sleeping, but sometimes dozing with unclosed eyes, and
springing up with a start, and a reply aloud to an imaginary voice. Of
cursing himself for being there, for having fled, for having let her
go, for not having confronted and defied him. Of having a deadly quarrel
with the whole world, but chiefly with himself. Of blighting everything
with his black mood as he was carried on and away.

It was a fevered vision of things past and present all confounded
together; of his life and journey blended into one. Of being madly
hurried somewhere, whither he must go. Of old scenes starting up among
the novelties through which he travelled. Of musing and brooding over
what was past and distant, and seeming to take no notice of the actual
objects he encountered, but with a wearisome exhausting consciousness of
being bewildered by them, and having their images all crowded in his hot
brain after they were gone.

A vision of change upon change, and still the same monotony of bells and
wheels, and horses' feet, and no rest. Of town and country, postyards,
horses, drivers, hill and valley, light and darkness, road and pavement,
height and hollow, wet weather and dry, and still the same monotony of
bells and wheels, and horses' feet, and no rest. A vision of tending
on at last, towards the distant capital, by busier roads, and sweeping
round, by old cathedrals, and dashing through small towns and villages,
less thinly scattered on the road than formerly, and sitting shrouded in
his corner, with his cloak up to his face, as people passing by looked
at him.

Of rolling on and on, always postponing thought, and always racked with
thinking; of being unable to reckon up the hours he had been upon the
road, or to comprehend the points of time and place in his journey. Of
being parched and giddy, and half mad. Of pressing on, in spite of all,
as if he could not stop, and coming into Paris, where the turbid river
held its swift course undisturbed, between two brawling streams of life
and motion.

A troubled vision, then, of bridges, quays, interminable streets; of
wine-shops, water-carriers, great crowds of people, soldiers, coaches,
military drums, arcades. Of the monotony of bells and wheels and horses'
feet being at length lost in the universal din and uproar. Of the
gradual subsidence of that noise as he passed out in another carriage
by a different barrier from that by which he had entered. Of the
restoration, as he travelled on towards the seacoast, of the monotony of
bells and wheels, and horses' feet, and no rest.

Of sunset once again, and nightfall. Of long roads again, and dead of
night, and feeble lights in windows by the roadside; and still the old
monotony of bells and wheels, and horses' feet, and no rest. Of dawn,
and daybreak, and the rising of the sun. Of tolling slowly up a hill,
and feeling on its top the fresh sea-breeze; and seeing the morning
light upon the edges of the distant waves. Of coming down into a harbour
when the tide was at its full, and seeing fishing-boats float on, and
glad women and children waiting for them. Of nets and seamen's clothes
spread out to dry upon the shore; of busy sailors, and their voices high
among ships' masts and rigging; of the buoyancy and brightness of the
water, and the universal sparkling.

Of receding from the coast, and looking back upon it from the deck when
it was a haze upon the water, with here and there a little opening of
bright land where the Sun struck. Of the swell, and flash, and murmur of
the calm sea. Of another grey line on the ocean, on the vessel's
track, fast growing clearer and higher. Of cliffs and buildings, and
a windmill, and a church, becoming more and more visible upon it. Of
steaming on at last into smooth water, and mooring to a pier
whence groups of people looked down, greeting friends on board. Of
disembarking, passing among them quickly, shunning every one; and of
being at last again in England.

He had thought, in his dream, of going down into a remote country-place
he knew, and lying quiet there, while he secretly informed himself of
what transpired, and determined how to act, Still in the same stunned
condition, he remembered a certain station on the railway, where he
would have to branch off to his place of destination, and where there
was a quiet Inn. Here, he indistinctly resolved to tarry and rest.

With this purpose he slunk into a railway carriage as quickly as he
could, and lying there wrapped in his cloak as if he were asleep,
was soon borne far away from the sea, and deep into the inland green.
Arrived at his destination he looked out, and surveyed it carefully. He
was not mistaken in his impression of the place. It was a retired spot,
on the borders of a little wood. Only one house, newly-built or altered
for the purpose, stood there, surrounded by its neat garden; the small
town that was nearest, was some miles away. Here he alighted then; and
going straight into the tavern, unobserved by anyone, secured two rooms
upstairs communicating with each other, and sufficiently retired.

His object was to rest, and recover the command of himself, and the
balance of his mind. Imbecile discomfiture and rage--so that, as he
walked about his room, he ground his teeth--had complete possession of
him. His thoughts, not to be stopped or directed, still wandered where
they would, and dragged him after them. He was stupefied, and he was
wearied to death.

But, as if there were a curse upon him that he should never rest again,
his drowsy senses would not lose their consciousness. He had no more
influence with them, in this regard, than if they had been another
man's. It was not that they forced him to take note of present sounds
and objects, but that they would not be diverted from the whole hurried
vision of his journey. It was constantly before him all at once. She
stood there, with her dark disdainful eyes again upon him; and he was
riding on nevertheless, through town and country, light and darkness,
wet weather and dry, over road and pavement, hill and valley, height
and hollow, jaded and scared by the monotony of bells and wheels, and
horses' feet, and no rest.

'What day is this?' he asked of the waiter, who was making preparations
for his dinner.

'Day, Sir?'

'Is it Wednesday?'

'Wednesday, Sir? No, Sir. Thursday, Sir.'

'I forgot. How goes the time? My watch is unwound.'

'Wants a few minutes of five o'clock, Sir. Been travelling a long time,
Sir, perhaps?'

'Yes'

'By rail, Sir?'

'Yes'

'Very confusing, Sir. Not much in the habit of travelling by rail
myself, Sir, but gentlemen frequently say so.'

'Do many gentlemen come here?

'Pretty well, Sir, in general. Nobody here at present. Rather slack just
now, Sir. Everything is slack, Sir.'

He made no answer; but had risen into a sitting posture on the sofa
where he had been lying, and leaned forward with an arm on each knee,
staring at the ground. He could not master his own attention for a
minute together. It rushed away where it would, but it never, for an
instant, lost itself in sleep.

He drank a quantity of wine after dinner, in vain. No such artificial
means would bring sleep to his eyes. His thoughts, more incoherent,
dragged him more unmercifully after them--as if a wretch, condemned to
such expiation, were drawn at the heels of wild horses. No oblivion, and
no rest.

How long he sat, drinking and brooding, and being dragged in imagination
hither and thither, no one could have told less correctly than he. But
he knew that he had been sitting a long time by candle-light, when he
started up and listened, in a sudden terror.

For now, indeed, it was no fancy. The ground shook, the house rattled,
the fierce impetuous rush was in the air! He felt it come up, and go
darting by; and even when he had hurried to the window, and saw what it
was, he stood, shrinking from it, as if it were not safe to look.

A curse upon the fiery devil, thundering along so smoothly, tracked
through the distant valley by a glare of light and lurid smoke, and
gone! He felt as if he had been plucked out of its path, and saved from
being torn asunder. It made him shrink and shudder even now, when its
faintest hum was hushed, and when the lines of iron road he could trace
in the moonlight, running to a point, were as empty and as silent as a
desert.

Unable to rest, and irresistibly attracted--or he thought so--to this
road, he went out, and lounged on the brink of it, marking the way the
train had gone, by the yet smoking cinders that were lying in its
track. After a lounge of some half hour in the direction by which it had
disappeared, he turned and walked the other way--still keeping to the
brink of the road--past the inn garden, and a long way down; looking
curiously at the bridges, signals, lamps, and wondering when another
Devil would come by.

A trembling of the ground, and quick vibration in his ears; a distant
shriek; a dull light advancing, quickly changed to two red eyes, and
a fierce fire, dropping glowing coals; an irresistible bearing on of a
great roaring and dilating mass; a high wind, and a rattle--another come
and gone, and he holding to a gate, as if to save himself!

He waited for another, and for another. He walked back to his former
point, and back again to that, and still, through the wearisome vision
of his journey, looked for these approaching monsters. He loitered about
the station, waiting until one should stay to call there; and when one
did, and was detached for water, he stood parallel with it, watching its
heavy wheels and brazen front, and thinking what a cruel power and might
it had. Ugh! To see the great wheels slowly turning, and to think of
being run down and crushed!

Disordered with wine and want of rest--that want which nothing, although
he was so weary, would appease--these ideas and objects assumed a
diseased importance in his thoughts. When he went back to his room,
which was not until near midnight, they still haunted him, and he sat
listening for the coming of another.

So in his bed, whither he repaired with no hope of sleep. He still lay
listening; and when he felt the trembling and vibration, got up and went
to the window, to watch (as he could from its position) the dull light
changing to the two red eyes, and the fierce fire dropping glowing
coals, and the rush of the giant as it fled past, and the track of glare
and smoke along the valley. Then he would glance in the direction by
which he intended to depart at sunrise, as there was no rest for him
there; and would lie down again, to be troubled by the vision of his
journey, and the old monotony of bells and wheels and horses' feet,
until another came. This lasted all night. So far from resuming the
mastery of himself, he seemed, if possible, to lose it more and more, as
the night crept on. When the dawn appeared, he was still tormented with
thinking, still postponing thought until he should be in a better state;
the past, present, and future all floated confusedly before him, and he
had lost all power of looking steadily at any one of them.

'At what time,' he asked the man who had waited on hIm over-night, now
entering with a candle, 'do I leave here, did you say?'

'About a quarter after four, Sir. Express comes through at four,
Sir.--It don't stop.'

He passed his hand across his throbbing head, and looked at his watch.
Nearly half-past three.

'Nobody going with you, Sir, probably,' observed the man. 'Two gentlemen
here, Sir, but they're waiting for the train to London.'

'I thought you said there was nobody here,' said Carker, turning upon
him with the ghost of his old smile, when he was angry or suspicious.

'Not then, sir. Two gentlemen came in the night by the short train that
stops here, Sir. Warm water, Sir?'

'No; and take away the candle. There's day enough for me.'

Having thrown himself upon the bed, half-dressed he was at the window as
the man left the room. The cold light of morning had succeeded to night
and there was already, in the sky, the red suffusion of the coming sun.
He bathed his head and face with water--there was no cooling influence
in it for him--hurriedly put on his clothes, paid what he owed, and went
out.

The air struck chill and comfortless as it breathed upon him. There was
a heavy dew; and, hot as he was, it made him shiver. After a glance
at the place where he had walked last night, and at the signal-lights
burning in the morning, and bereft of their significance, he turned to
where the sun was rising, and beheld it, in its glory, as it broke upon
the scene.

So awful, so transcendent in its beauty, so divinely solemn. As he cast
his faded eyes upon it, where it rose, tranquil and serene, unmoved
by all the wrong and wickedness on which its beams had shone since the
beginning of the world, who shall say that some weak sense of virtue
upon Earth, and its in Heaven, did not manifest itself, even to him?
If ever he remembered sister or brother with a touch of tenderness and
remorse, who shall say it was not then?

He needed some such touch then. Death was on him. He was marked off--the
living world, and going down into his grave.

He paid the money for his journey to the country-place he had thought
of; and was walking to and fro, alone, looking along the lines of iron,
across the valley in one direction, and towards a dark bridge near at
hand in the other; when, turning in his walk, where it was bounded by
one end of the wooden stage on which he paced up and down, he saw the
man from whom he had fled, emerging from the door by which he himself
had entered. And their eyes met.

In the quick unsteadiness of the surprise, he staggered, and slipped on
to the road below him. But recovering his feet immediately, he stepped
back a pace or two upon that road, to interpose some wider space between
them, and looked at his pursuer, breathing short and quick.

He heard a shout--another--saw the face change from its vindictive
passion to a faint sickness and terror--felt the earth tremble--knew in
a moment that the rush was come--uttered a shriek--looked round--saw the
red eyes, bleared and dim, in the daylight, close upon him--was beaten
down, caught up, and whirled away upon a jagged mill, that spun him
round and round, and struck him limb from limb, and licked his stream
of life up with its fiery heat, and cast his mutilated fragments in the
air.

When the traveller, who had been recognised, recovered from a swoon, he
saw them bringing from a distance something covered, that lay heavy and
still, upon a board, between four men, and saw that others drove some
dogs away that sniffed upon the road, and soaked his blood up, with a
train of ashes.

Once outside, Carker decides that the best thing to do is head back to England. He hires a coach and driver, and flees. As they drive, he becomes more and more paranoid about being pursued. He manages to flee back to England in a paranoid haze. As he waits on a train platform, anxious to get even further away, he recognizes Dombey coming towards him. Panicked, he falls onto the tracks and is struck by a train and killed

As the novel approaches its conclusion, closure starts to emerge in some of the plotlines. Florence and Walter are finally married, and the wedding, especially now that Sol how returned, signals that Florence has finally found the security and love she has always craved. The marriage, however, rather than providing a domestic retreat from the world as might be expected, will radically broaden her horizons in that she will sail with Walter to China. A wife accompanying her husband to sea was not typical at this time, and shows that Florence gives Walter the complete love and devotion she has always longed to offer to her father. It also reveals a new boldness to her: having taken the radical step of leaving her father's house, she can now survey her future fearlessly, and if she has love at long last, she does not have anything to be anxious about. Carker's plot is also resolved with a punishment for his many evil deeds: a train, which is personified as a kind of demon, kills him. While it is possible that Dombey might have been intending to kill him, as was Alice's fear, this accidental death prevents that fate. It evokes instead a kind of poetic justice where Carker's paranoia emerges because he has made it impossible for him to trust anyone. He becomes obsessed with the idea of being watched just as he himself has been ever watchful in his spying and plotting. In effect, he is his own downfall. There are also surprises that emerge even at this late juncture. Alice, despite her deep hatred of Carker, panics at the thought that she may have enabled his murder and attempts to save him. This shows that even her cynicism and bitterness have not completely hardened her, and that it is always possible for a character to have a change of heart and try to show forgiveness and compassion. Edith is also revealed as having different intentions than might be expected. She is not actually involved in an adulterous affair, and reveals that she has in fact outwitted Carker, playing him to her purposes. While clever, this scheme has deep consequences for Edith in that her reputation is ruined and she will never be socially accepted again. Her sense of shame and moral disgust has become a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. And yet, Edith is willing to tolerate this because she is free and will no longer have to live a lie. The Dombey household dynamic was so poisonous for both Edith and Florence that even the drastic risks they take in liberating themselves are presented as worthwhile.