The barrier between Mr Dombey and his wife was not weakened by time.
Ill-assorted couple, unhappy in themselves and in each other, bound
together by no tie but the manacle that joined their fettered hands, and
straining that so harshly, in their shrinking asunder, that it wore and
chafed to the bone, Time, consoler of affliction and softener of anger,
could do nothing to help them. Their pride, however different in kind
and object, was equal in degree; and, in their flinty opposition,
struck out fire between them which might smoulder or might blaze, as
circumstances were, but burned up everything within their mutual reach,
and made their marriage way a road of ashes.

Let us be just to him. In the monstrous delusion of his life, swelling
with every grain of sand that shifted in its glass, he urged her on, he
little thought to what, or considered how; but still his feeling towards
her, such as it was, remained as at first. She had the grand demerit of
unaccountably putting herself in opposition to the recognition of his
vast importance, and to the acknowledgment of her complete submission to
it, and so far it was necessary to correct and reduce her; but otherwise
he still considered her, in his cold way, a lady capable of doing
honour, if she would, to his choice and name, and of reflecting credit
on his proprietorship.

Now, she, with all her might of passionate and proud resentment, bent
her dark glance from day to day, and hour to hour--from that night in
her own chamber, when she had sat gazing at the shadows on the wall,
to the deeper night fast coming--upon one figure directing a crowd of
humiliations and exasperations against her; and that figure, still her
husband's.

Was Mr Dombey's master-vice, that ruled him so inexorably, an unnatural
characteristic? It might be worthwhile, sometimes, to inquire what
Nature is, and how men work to change her, and whether, in the enforced
distortions so produced, it is not natural to be unnatural. Coop any
son or daughter of our mighty mother within narrow range, and bind the
prisoner to one idea, and foster it by servile worship of it on the part
of the few timid or designing people standing round, and what is Nature
to the willing captive who has never risen up upon the wings of a free
mind--drooping and useless soon--to see her in her comprehensive truth!

Alas! are there so few things in the world, about us, most unnatural,
and yet most natural in being so? Hear the magistrate or judge admonish
the unnatural outcasts of society; unnatural in brutal habits, unnatural
in want of decency, unnatural in losing and confounding all distinctions
between good and evil; unnatural in ignorance, in vice, in recklessness,
in contumacy, in mind, in looks, in everything. But follow the good
clergyman or doctor, who, with his life imperilled at every breath
he draws, goes down into their dens, lying within the echoes of our
carriage wheels and daily tread upon the pavement stones. Look round
upon the world of odious sights--millions of immortal creatures have no
other world on earth--at the lightest mention of which humanity revolts,
and dainty delicacy living in the next street, stops her ears, and lisps
'I don't believe it!' Breathe the polluted air, foul with every impurity
that is poisonous to health and life; and have every sense, conferred
upon our race for its delight and happiness, offended, sickened and
disgusted, and made a channel by which misery and death alone can enter.
Vainly attempt to think of any simple plant, or flower, or wholesome
weed, that, set in this foetid bed, could have its natural growth,
or put its little leaves off to the sun as GOD designed it. And then,
calling up some ghastly child, with stunted form and wicked face, hold
forth on its unnatural sinfulness, and lament its being, so early, far
away from Heaven--but think a little of its having been conceived, and
born and bred, in Hell!

Those who study the physical sciences, and bring them to bear upon the
health of Man, tell us that if the noxious particles that rise from
vitiated air were palpable to the sight, we should see them lowering in
a dense black cloud above such haunts, and rolling slowly on to corrupt
the better portions of a town. But if the moral pestilence that rises
with them, and in the eternal laws of our Nature, is inseparable from
them, could be made discernible too, how terrible the revelation! Then
should we see depravity, impiety, drunkenness, theft, murder, and a long
train of nameless sins against the natural affections and repulsions of
mankind, overhanging the devoted spots, and creeping on, to blight the
innocent and spread contagion among the pure. Then should we see how the
same poisoned fountains that flow into our hospitals and lazar-houses,
inundate the jails, and make the convict-ships swim deep, and roll
across the seas, and over-run vast continents with crime. Then should
we stand appalled to know, that where we generate disease to strike our
children down and entail itself on unborn generations, there also we
breed, by the same certain process, infancy that knows no innocence,
youth without modesty or shame, maturity that is mature in nothing but
in suffering and guilt, blasted old age that is a scandal on the form we
bear, unnatural humanity! When we shall gather grapes from thorns, and
figs from thistles; when fields of grain shall spring up from the
offal in the bye-ways of our wicked cities, and roses bloom in the fat
churchyards that they cherish; then we may look for natural humanity,
and find it growing from such seed.

Oh for a good spirit who would take the house-tops off, with a more
potent and benignant hand than the lame demon in the tale, and show
a Christian people what dark shapes issue from amidst their homes, to
swell the retinue of the Destroying Angel as he moves forth among them!
For only one night's view of the pale phantoms rising from the scenes of
our too-long neglect; and from the thick and sullen air where Vice and
Fever propagate together, raining the tremendous social retributions
which are ever pouring down, and ever coming thicker! Bright and blest
the morning that should rise on such a night: for men, delayed no more
by stumbling-blocks of their own making, which are but specks of dust
upon the path between them and eternity, would then apply themselves,
like creatures of one common origin, owing one duty to the Father of one
family, and tending to one common end, to make the world a better place!

Not the less bright and blest would that day be for rousing some who
never have looked out upon the world of human life around them, to a
knowledge of their own relation to it, and for making them acquainted
with a perversion of nature in their own contracted sympathies and
estimates; as great, and yet as natural in its development when once
begun, as the lowest degradation known.

But no such day had ever dawned on Mr Dombey, or his wife; and the
course of each was taken.

Through six months that ensued upon his accident, they held the same
relations one towards the other. A marble rock could not have stood more
obdurately in his way than she; and no chilled spring, lying uncheered
by any ray of light in the depths of a deep cave, could be more sullen
or more cold than he.

The hope that had fluttered within her when the promise of her new home
dawned, was quite gone from the heart of Florence now. That home was
nearly two years old; and even the patient trust that was in her,
could not survive the daily blight of such experience. If she had any
lingering fancy in the nature of hope left, that Edith and her father
might be happier together, in some distant time, she had none, now, that
her father would ever love her. The little interval in which she had
imagined that she saw some small relenting in him, was forgotten in the
long remembrance of his coldness since and before, or only remembered as
a sorrowful delusion.

Florence loved him still, but, by degrees, had come to love him rather
as some dear one who had been, or who might have been, than as the hard
reality before her eyes. Something of the softened sadness with which
she loved the memory of little Paul, or of her mother, seemed to enter
now into her thoughts of him, and to make them, as it were, a dear
remembrance. Whether it was that he was dead to her, and that partly for
this reason, partly for his share in those old objects of her affection,
and partly for the long association of him with hopes that were withered
and tendernesses he had frozen, she could not have told; but the father
whom she loved began to be a vague and dreamy idea to her: hardly more
substantially connected with her real life, than the image she would
sometimes conjure up, of her dear brother yet alive, and growing to be a
man, who would protect and cherish her.

The change, if it may be called one, had stolen on her like the change
from childhood to womanhood, and had come with it. Florence was almost
seventeen, when, in her lonely musings, she was conscious of these
thoughts.

She was often alone now, for the old association between her and her
Mama was greatly changed. At the time of her father's accident, and when
he was lying in his room downstairs, Florence had first observed that
Edith avoided her. Wounded and shocked, and yet unable to reconcile this
with her affection when they did meet, she sought her in her own room at
night, once more.

'Mama,' said Florence, stealing softly to her side, 'have I offended
you?'

Edith answered 'No.'

'I must have done something,' said Florence. 'Tell me what it is. You
have changed your manner to me, dear Mama. I cannot say how instantly I
feel the least change; for I love you with my whole heart.'

'As I do you,' said Edith. 'Ah, Florence, believe me never more than
now!'

'Why do you go away from me so often, and keep away?' asked Florence.
'And why do you sometimes look so strangely on me, dear Mama? You do so,
do you not?'

Edith signified assent with her dark eyes.

'Why?' returned Florence imploringly. 'Tell me why, that I may know how
to please you better; and tell me this shall not be so any more.'

'My Florence,' answered Edith, taking the hand that embraced her neck,
and looking into the eyes that looked into hers so lovingly, as Florence
knelt upon the ground before her; 'why it is, I cannot tell you. It is
neither for me to say, nor you to hear; but that it is, and that it must
be, I know. Should I do it if I did not?'

'Are we to be estranged, Mama?' asked Florence, gazing at her like one
frightened.

Edith's silent lips formed 'Yes.'

Florence looked at her with increasing fear and wonder, until she could
see her no more through the blinding tears that ran down her face.

'Florence! my life!' said Edith, hurriedly, 'listen to me. I cannot
bear to see this grief. Be calmer. You see that I am composed, and is it
nothing to me?'

She resumed her steady voice and manner as she said the latter words,
and added presently:

'Not wholly estranged. Partially: and only that, in appearance,
Florence, for in my own breast I am still the same to you, and ever will
be. But what I do is not done for myself.'

'Is it for me, Mama?' asked Florence.

'It is enough,' said Edith, after a pause, 'to know what it is; why,
matters little. Dear Florence, it is better--it is necessary--it must
be--that our association should be less frequent. The confidence there
has been between us must be broken off.'

'When?' cried Florence. 'Oh, Mama, when?'

'Now,' said Edith.

'For all time to come?' asked Florence.

'I do not say that,' answered Edith. 'I do not know that. Nor will I
say that companionship between us is, at the best, an ill-assorted and
unholy union, of which I might have known no good could come. My way
here has been through paths that you will never tread, and my way
henceforth may lie--God knows--I do not see it--'

Her voice died away into silence; and she sat, looking at Florence,
and almost shrinking from her, with the same strange dread and wild
avoidance that Florence had noticed once before. The same dark pride and
rage succeeded, sweeping over her form and features like an angry chord
across the strings of a wild harp. But no softness or humility ensued on
that. She did not lay her head down now, and weep, and say that she
had no hope but in Florence. She held it up as if she were a beautiful
Medusa, looking on him, face to face, to strike him dead. Yes, and she
would have done it, if she had had the charm.

'Mama,' said Florence, anxiously, 'there is a change in you, in more
than what you say to me, which alarms me. Let me stay with you a
little.'

'No,' said Edith, 'no, dearest. I am best left alone now, and I do best
to keep apart from you, of all else. Ask me no questions, but believe
that what I am when I seem fickle or capricious to you, I am not of my
own will, or for myself. Believe, though we are stranger to each other
than we have been, that I am unchanged to you within. Forgive me
for having ever darkened your dark home--I am a shadow on it, I know
well--and let us never speak of this again.'

'Mama,' sobbed Florence, 'we are not to part?'

'We do this that we may not part,' said Edith. 'Ask no more. Go,
Florence! My love and my remorse go with you!'

She embraced her, and dismissed her; and as Florence passed out of her
room, Edith looked on the retiring figure, as if her good angel went out
in that form, and left her to the haughty and indignant passions that
now claimed her for their own, and set their seal upon her brow.

From that hour, Florence and she were, as they had been, no more. For
days together, they would seldom meet, except at table, and when Mr
Dombey was present. Then Edith, imperious, inflexible, and silent, never
looked at her. Whenever Mr Carker was of the party, as he often was,
during the progress of Mr Dombey's recovery, and afterwards, Edith held
herself more removed from her, and was more distant towards her, than at
other times. Yet she and Florence never encountered, when there was no
one by, but she would embrace her as affectionately as of old, though
not with the same relenting of her proud aspect; and often, when she had
been out late, she would steal up to Florence's room, as she had been
used to do, in the dark, and whisper 'Good-night,' on her pillow. When
unconscious, in her slumber, of such visits, Florence would sometimes
awake, as from a dream of those words, softly spoken, and would seem
to feel the touch of lips upon her face. But less and less often as the
months went on.

And now the void in Florence's own heart began again, indeed, to make
a solitude around her. As the image of the father whom she loved had
insensibly become a mere abstraction, so Edith, following the fate of
all the rest about whom her affections had entwined themselves, was
fleeting, fading, growing paler in the distance, every day. Little by
little, she receded from Florence, like the retiring ghost of what she
had been; little by little, the chasm between them widened and seemed
deeper; little by little, all the power of earnestness and tenderness
she had shown, was frozen up in the bold, angry hardihood with which she
stood, upon the brink of a deep precipice unseen by Florence, daring to
look down.

There was but one consideration to set against the heavy loss of Edith,
and though it was slight comfort to her burdened heart, she tried to
think it some relief. No longer divided between her affection and duty
to the two, Florence could love both and do no injustice to either. As
shadows of her fond imagination, she could give them equal place in her
own bosom, and wrong them with no doubts.

So she tried to do. At times, and often too, wondering speculations on
the cause of this change in Edith, would obtrude themselves upon her
mind and frighten her; but in the calm of its abandonment once more to
silent grief and loneliness, it was not a curious mind. Florence had
only to remember that her star of promise was clouded in the general
gloom that hung upon the house, and to weep and be resigned.

Thus living, in a dream wherein the overflowing love of her young
heart expended itself on airy forms, and in a real world where she had
experienced little but the rolling back of that strong tide upon itself,
Florence grew to be seventeen. Timid and retiring as her solitary life
had made her, it had not embittered her sweet temper, or her
earnest nature. A child in innocent simplicity; a woman in her modest
self-reliance, and her deep intensity of feeling; both child and woman
seemed at once expressed in her face and fragile delicacy of shape, and
gracefully to mingle there;--as if the spring should be unwilling to
depart when summer came, and sought to blend the earlier beauties of the
flowers with their bloom. But in her thrilling voice, in her calm eyes,
sometimes in a sage ethereal light that seemed to rest upon her head,
and always in a certain pensive air upon her beauty, there was an
expression, such as had been seen in the dead boy; and the council in
the Servants' Hall whispered so among themselves, and shook their heads,
and ate and drank the more, in a closer bond of good-fellowship.

This observant body had plenty to say of Mr and Mrs Dombey, and of Mr
Carker, who appeared to be a mediator between them, and who came and
went as if he were trying to make peace, but never could. They all
deplored the uncomfortable state of affairs, and all agreed that Mrs
Pipchin (whose unpopularity was not to be surpassed) had some hand in
it; but, upon the whole, it was agreeable to have so good a subject
for a rallying point, and they made a great deal of it, and enjoyed
themselves very much.

The general visitors who came to the house, and those among whom Mr and
Mrs Dombey visited, thought it a pretty equal match, as to haughtiness,
at all events, and thought nothing more about it. The young lady
with the back did not appear for some time after Mrs Skewton's death;
observing to some particular friends, with her usual engaging little
scream, that she couldn't separate the family from a notion of
tombstones, and horrors of that sort; but when she did come, she saw
nothing wrong, except Mr Dombey's wearing a bunch of gold seals to his
watch, which shocked her very much, as an exploded superstition. This
youthful fascinator considered a daughter-in-law objectionable in
principle; otherwise, she had nothing to say against Florence, but that
she sadly wanted 'style'--which might mean back, perhaps. Many, who only
came to the house on state occasions, hardly knew who Florence was, and
said, going home, 'Indeed, was that Miss Dombey, in the corner? Very
pretty, but a little delicate and thoughtful in appearance!'

None the less so, certainly, for her life of the last six months.
Florence took her seat at the dinner-table, on the day before the second
anniversary of her father's marriage to Edith (Mrs Skewton had been
lying stricken with paralysis when the first came round), with an
uneasiness, amounting to dread. She had no other warrant for it, than
the occasion, the expression of her father's face, in the hasty
glance she caught of it, and the presence of Mr Carker, which, always
unpleasant to her, was more so on this day, than she had ever felt it
before.

Edith was richly dressed, for she and Mr Dombey were engaged in the
evening to some large assembly, and the dinner-hour that day was late.
She did not appear until they were seated at table, when Mr Carker rose
and led her to her chair. Beautiful and lustrous as she was, there was
that in her face and air which seemed to separate her hopelessly from
Florence, and from everyone, for ever more. And yet, for an instant,
Florence saw a beam of kindness in her eyes, when they were turned
on her, that made the distance to which she had withdrawn herself, a
greater cause of sorrow and regret than ever.

There was very little said at dinner. Florence heard her father speak to
Mr Carker sometimes on business matters, and heard him softly reply, but
she paid little attention to what they said, and only wished the dinner
at an end. When the dessert was placed upon the table, and they were
left alone, with no servant in attendance, Mr Dombey, who had been
several times clearing his throat in a manner that augured no good,
said:

'Mrs Dombey, you know, I suppose, that I have instructed the housekeeper
that there will be some company to dinner here to-morrow.'

'I do not dine at home,' she answered.

'Not a large party,' pursued Mr Dombey, with an indifferent assumption
of not having heard her; 'merely some twelve or fourteen. My sister,
Major Bagstock, and some others whom you know but slightly.'

'I do not dine at home,' she repeated.

'However doubtful reason I may have, Mrs Dombey,' said Mr Dombey, still
going majestically on, as if she had not spoken, 'to hold the occasion
in very pleasant remembrance just now, there are appearances in these
things which must be maintained before the world. If you have no respect
for yourself, Mrs Dombey--'

'I have none,' she said.

'Madam,' cried Mr Dombey, striking his hand upon the table, 'hear me if
you please. I say, if you have no respect for yourself--'

'And I say I have none,' she answered.

He looked at her; but the face she showed him in return would not have
changed, if death itself had looked.

'Carker,' said Mr Dombey, turning more quietly to that gentleman, 'as
you have been my medium of communication with Mrs Dombey on former
occasions, and as I choose to preserve the decencies of life, so far as
I am individually concerned, I will trouble you to have the goodness to
inform Mrs Dombey that if she has no respect for herself, I have
some respect for myself, and therefore insist on my arrangements for
to-morrow.'

'Tell your sovereign master, Sir,' said Edith, 'that I will take leave
to speak to him on this subject by-and-bye, and that I will speak to him
alone.'

'Mr Carker, Madam,' said her husband, 'being in possession of the reason
which obliges me to refuse you that privilege, shall be absolved from
the delivery of any such message.' He saw her eyes move, while he spoke,
and followed them with his own.

'Your daughter is present, Sir,' said Edith.

'My daughter will remain present,' said Mr Dombey.

Florence, who had risen, sat down again, hiding her face in her hands,
and trembling.

'My daughter, Madam'--began Mr Dombey.

But Edith stopped him, in a voice which, although not raised in the
least, was so clear, emphatic, and distinct, that it might have been
heard in a whirlwind.

'I tell you I will speak to you alone,' she said. 'If you are not mad,
heed what I say.'

'I have authority to speak to you, Madam,' returned her husband, 'when
and where I please; and it is my pleasure to speak here and now.'

She rose up as if to leave the room; but sat down again, and looking at
him with all outward composure, said, in the same voice:

'You shall!'

'I must tell you first, that there is a threatening appearance in your
manner, Madam,' said Mr Dombey, 'which does not become you.'

She laughed. The shaken diamonds in her hair started and trembled. There
are fables of precious stones that would turn pale, their wearer being
in danger. Had these been such, their imprisoned rays of light would
have taken flight that moment, and they would have been as dull as lead.

Carker listened, with his eyes cast down.

'As to my daughter, Madam,' said Mr Dombey, resuming the thread of his
discourse, 'it is by no means inconsistent with her duty to me, that
she should know what conduct to avoid. At present you are a very strong
example to her of this kind, and I hope she may profit by it.'

'I would not stop you now,' returned his wife, immoveable in eye, and
voice, and attitude; 'I would not rise and go away, and save you the
utterance of one word, if the room were burning.'

Mr Dombey moved his head, as if in a sarcastic acknowledgment of the
attention, and resumed. But not with so much self-possession as before;
for Edith's quick uneasiness in reference to Florence, and Edith's
indifference to him and his censure, chafed and galled him like a
stiffening wound.

'Mrs Dombey,' said he, 'it may not be inconsistent with my daughter's
improvement to know how very much to be lamented, and how necessary to
be corrected, a stubborn disposition is, especially when it is indulged
in--unthankfully indulged in, I will add--after the gratification of
ambition and interest. Both of which, I believe, had some share in
inducing you to occupy your present station at this board.'

'No! I would not rise, and go away, and save you the utterance of one
word,' she repeated, exactly as before, 'if the room were burning.'

'It may be natural enough, Mrs Dombey,' he pursued, 'that you should
be uneasy in the presence of any auditors of these disagreeable truths;
though why'--he could not hide his real feeling here, or keep his eyes
from glancing gloomily at Florence--'why anyone can give them greater
force and point than myself, whom they so nearly concern, I do not
pretend to understand. It may be natural enough that you should object
to hear, in anybody's presence, that there is a rebellious principle
within you which you cannot curb too soon; which you must curb,
Mrs Dombey; and which, I regret to say, I remember to have seen
manifested--with some doubt and displeasure, on more than one occasion
before our marriage--towards your deceased mother. But you have the
remedy in your own hands. I by no means forgot, when I began, that my
daughter was present, Mrs Dombey. I beg you will not forget, to-morrow,
that there are several persons present; and that, with some regard to
appearances, you will receive your company in a becoming manner.'

'So it is not enough,' said Edith, 'that you know what has passed
between yourself and me; it is not enough that you can look here,'
pointing at Carker, who still listened, with his eyes cast down, 'and be
reminded of the affronts you have put upon me; it is not enough that you
can look here,' pointing to Florence with a hand that slightly trembled
for the first and only time, 'and think of what you have done, and of
the ingenious agony, daily, hourly, constant, you have made me feel in
doing it; it is not enough that this day, of all others in the year, is
memorable to me for a struggle (well-deserved, but not conceivable by
such as you) in which I wish I had died! You add to all this, do you,
the last crowning meanness of making her a witness of the depth to which
I have fallen; when you know that you have made me sacrifice to her
peace, the only gentle feeling and interest of my life, when you know
that for her sake, I would now if I could--but I can not, my soul
recoils from you too much--submit myself wholly to your will, and be the
meekest vassal that you have!'

This was not the way to minister to Mr Dombey's greatness. The old
feeling was roused by what she said, into a stronger and fiercer
existence than it had ever had. Again, his neglected child, at this
rough passage of his life, put forth by even this rebellious woman, as
powerful where he was powerless, and everything where he was nothing!

He turned on Florence, as if it were she who had spoken, and bade her
leave the room. Florence with her covered face obeyed, trembling and
weeping as she went.

'I understand, Madam,' said Mr Dombey, with an angry flush of triumph,
'the spirit of opposition that turned your affections in that channel,
but they have been met, Mrs Dombey; they have been met, and turned
back!'

'The worse for you!' she answered, with her voice and manner 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, that I would
permit my name to be banded about in such connexion? Pooh, pooh, Madam!
Fie for shame! You're absurd.' Mr Dombey absolutely laughed.

But not as she did. She had better have been dead than laugh as she did,
in reply, with her intent look fixed upon him. He had better have been
dead, than sitting there, in his magnificence, to hear her.

'No, Mrs Dombey,' he resumed. 'No, Madam. There is no possibility of
separation between you and me, and therefore I the more advise you to be
awakened to a sense of duty. And, Carker, as I was about to say to you--'

Mr Carker, who had sat and listened all this time, now raised his eyes,
in which there was a bright unusual light.

'--As I was about to say to you,' resumed Mr Dombey, 'I must beg you, now
that matters have come to this, to inform Mrs Dombey, that it is not
the rule of my life to allow myself to be thwarted by anybody--anybody,
Carker--or to suffer anybody to be paraded as a stronger motive for
obedience in those who owe obedience to me than I am my self. The
mention that has been made of my daughter, and the use that is made of
my daughter, in opposition to me, are unnatural. Whether my daughter is
in actual concert with Mrs Dombey, I do not know, and do not care; but
after what Mrs Dombey has said today, and my daughter has heard to-day,
I beg you to make known to Mrs Dombey, that if she continues to make
this house the scene of contention it has become, I shall consider my
daughter responsible in some degree, on that lady's own avowal, and
shall visit her with my severe displeasure. Mrs Dombey has asked
"whether it is not enough," that she had done this and that. You will
please to answer no, it is not enough.'

'A moment!' cried Carker, interposing, 'permit me! painful as my
position is, at the best, and unusually painful in seeming to entertain
a different opinion from you,' addressing Mr Dombey, 'I must ask, had
you not better reconsider the question of a separation. I know how
incompatible it appears with your high public position, and I know how
determined you are when you give Mrs Dombey to understand'--the light
in his eyes fell upon her as he separated his words each from each, with
the distinctness of so many bells--'that nothing but death can ever part
you. Nothing else. But when you consider that Mrs Dombey, by living in
this house, and making it as you have said, a scene of contention, not
only has her part in that contention, but compromises Miss Dombey every
day (for I know how determined you are), will you not relieve her from a
continual irritation of spirit, and a continual sense of being unjust
to another, almost intolerable? Does this not seem like--I do not say
it is--sacrificing Mrs Dombey to the preservation of your preeminent and
unassailable position?'

Again the light in his eyes fell upon her, as she stood looking at her
husband: now with an extraordinary and awful smile upon her face.

'Carker,' returned Mr Dombey, with a supercilious frown, and in a tone
that was intended to be final, 'you mistake your position in offering
advice to me on such a point, and you mistake me (I am surprised to
find) in the character of your advice. I have no more to say.'

'Perhaps,' said Carker, with an unusual and indefinable taunt in
his air, 'you mistook my position, when you honoured me with the
negotiations in which I have been engaged here'--with a motion of his
hand towards Mrs Dombey.

'Not at all, Sir, not at all,' returned the other haughtily. 'You were
employed--'

'Being an inferior person, for the humiliation of Mrs Dombey. I forgot.
Oh, yes, it was expressly understood!' said Carker. 'I beg your pardon!'

As he bent his head to Mr Dombey, with an air of deference that accorded
ill with his words, though they were humbly spoken, he moved it round
towards her, and kept his watching eyes that way.

She had better have turned hideous and dropped dead, than have stood up
with such a smile upon her face, in such a fallen spirit's majesty of
scorn and beauty. She lifted her hand to the tiara of bright jewels
radiant on her head, and, plucking it off with a force that dragged
and strained her rich black hair with heedless cruelty, and brought it
tumbling wildly on her shoulders, cast the gems upon the ground. From
each arm, she unclasped a diamond bracelet, flung it down, and trod upon
the glittering heap. Without a word, without a shadow on the fire of
her bright eye, without abatement of her awful smile, she looked on Mr
Dombey to the last, in moving to the door; and left him.

Florence had heard enough before quitting the room, to know that Edith
loved her yet; that she had suffered for her sake; and that she had kept
her sacrifices quiet, lest they should trouble her peace. She did not
want to speak to her of this--she could not, remembering to whom she
was opposed--but she wished, in one silent and affectionate embrace, to
assure her that she felt it all, and thanked her.

Her father went out alone, that evening, and Florence issuing from her
own chamber soon afterwards, went about the house in search of Edith,
but unavailingly. She was in her own rooms, where Florence had
long ceased to go, and did not dare to venture now, lest she should
unconsciously engender new trouble. Still Florence hoping to meet her
before going to bed, changed from room to room, and wandered through the
house so splendid and so dreary, without remaining anywhere.

She was crossing a gallery of communication that opened at some little
distance on the staircase, and was only lighted on great occasions, when
she saw, through the opening, which was an arch, the figure of a man
coming down some few stairs opposite. Instinctively apprehensive of
her father, whom she supposed it was, she stopped, in the dark, gazing
through the arch into the light. But it was Mr Carker coming down alone,
and looking over the railing into the hall. No bell was rung to announce
his departure, and no servant was in attendance. He went down quietly,
opened the door for himself, glided out, and shut it softly after him.

Her invincible repugnance to this man, and perhaps the stealthy act of
watching anyone, which, even under such innocent circumstances, is in a
manner guilty and oppressive, made Florence shake from head to foot. Her
blood seemed to run cold. As soon as she could--for at first she felt
an insurmountable dread of moving--she went quickly to her own room and
locked her door; but even then, shut in with her dog beside her, felt
a chill sensation of horror, as if there were danger brooding somewhere
near her.

It invaded her dreams and disturbed the whole night. Rising in the
morning, unrefreshed, and with a heavy recollection of the domestic
unhappiness of the preceding day, she sought Edith again in all the
rooms, and did so, from time to time, all the morning. But she remained
in her own chamber, and Florence saw nothing of her. Learning, however,
that the projected dinner at home was put off, Florence thought it
likely that she would go out in the evening to fulfil the engagement
she had spoken of; and resolved to try and meet her, then, upon the
staircase.

When the evening had set in, she heard, from the room in which she sat
on purpose, a footstep on the stairs that she thought to be Edith's.
Hurrying out, and up towards her room, Florence met her immediately,
coming down alone.

What was Florence's affright and wonder when, at sight of her, with her
tearful face, and outstretched arms, Edith recoiled and shrieked!

'Don't come near me!' she cried. 'Keep away! Let me go by!'

'Mama!' said Florence.

'Don't call me by that name! Don't speak to me! Don't look at
me!--Florence!' shrinking back, as Florence moved a step towards her,
'don't touch me!'

As Florence stood transfixed before the haggard face and staring eyes,
she noted, as in a dream, that Edith spread her hands over them, and
shuddering through all her form, and crouching down against the wall,
crawled by her like some lower animal, sprang up, and fled away.

Florence dropped upon the stairs in a swoon; and was found there by Mrs
Pipchin, she supposed. She knew nothing more, until she found herself
lying on her own bed, with Mrs Pipchin and some servants standing round
her.

'Where is Mama?' was her first question.

'Gone out to dinner,' said Mrs Pipchin.

'And Papa?'

'Mr Dombey is in his own room, Miss Dombey,' said Mrs Pipchin, 'and the
best thing you can do, is to take off your things and go to bed this
minute.' This was the sagacious woman's remedy for all complaints,
particularly lowness of spirits, and inability to sleep; for which
offences, many young victims in the days of the Brighton Castle had been
committed to bed at ten o'clock in the morning.

Without promising obedience, but on the plea of desiring to be very
quiet, Florence disengaged herself, as soon as she could, from the
ministration of Mrs Pipchin and her attendants. Left alone, she thought
of what had happened on the staircase, at first in doubt of its reality;
then with tears; then with an indescribable and terrible alarm, like
that she had felt the night before.

She determined not to go to bed until Edith returned, and if she could
not speak to her, at least to be sure that she was safe at home. What
indistinct and shadowy dread moved Florence to this resolution, she did
not know, and did not dare to think. She only knew that until Edith came
back, there was no repose for her aching head or throbbing heart.

The evening deepened into night; midnight came; no Edith.

Florence could not read, or rest a moment. She paced her own room,
opened the door and paced the staircase-gallery outside, looked out of
window on the night, listened to the wind blowing and the rain falling,
sat down and watched the faces in the fire, got up and watched the moon
flying like a storm-driven ship through the sea of clouds.

All the house was gone to bed, except two servants who were waiting the
return of their mistress, downstairs.

One o'clock. The carriages that rumbled in the distance, turned away,
or stopped short, or went past; the silence gradually deepened, and was
more and more rarely broken, save by a rush of wind or sweep of rain.
Two o'clock. No Edith!

Florence, more agitated, paced her room; and paced the gallery outside;
and looked out at the night, blurred and wavy with the raindrops on the
glass, and the tears in her own eyes; and looked up at the hurry in
the sky, so different from the repose below, and yet so tranquil and
solitary. Three o'clock! There was a terror in every ash that dropped
out of the fire. No Edith yet.

More and more agitated, Florence paced her room, and paced the gallery,
and looked out at the moon with a new fancy of her likeness to a pale
fugitive hurrying away and hiding her guilty face. Four struck! Five! No
Edith yet.

But now there was some cautious stir in the house; and Florence found
that Mrs Pipchin had been awakened by one of those who sat up, had risen
and had gone down to her father's door. Stealing lower down the stairs,
and observing what passed, she saw her father come out in his morning
gown, and start when he was told his wife had not come home. He
dispatched a messenger to the stables to inquire whether the coachman
was there; and while the man was gone, dressed himself very hurriedly.

The man came back, in great haste, bringing the coachman with him, who
said he had been at home and in bed, since ten o'clock. He had driven
his mistress to her old house in Brook Street, where she had been met by
Mr Carker--

Florence stood upon the very spot where she had seen him coming down.
Again she shivered with the nameless terror of that sight, and had
hardly steadiness enough to hear and understand what followed.

--Who had told him, the man went on to say, that his mistress would not
want the carriage to go home in; and had dismissed him.

She saw her father turn white in the face, and heard him ask in a quick,
trembling voice, for Mrs Dombey's maid. The whole house was roused; for
she was there, in a moment, very pale too, and speaking incoherently.

She said she had dressed her mistress early--full two hours before she
went out--and had been told, as she often was, that she would not be
wanted at night. She had just come from her mistress's rooms, but--

'But what! what was it?' Florence heard her father demand like a madman.

'But the inner dressing-room was locked and the key gone.'

Her father seized a candle that was flaming on the ground--someone had
put it down there, and forgotten it--and came running upstairs with such
fury, that Florence, in her fear, had hardly time to fly before him.
She heard him striking in the door, as she ran on, with her hands widely
spread, and her hair streaming, and her face like a distracted person's,
back to her own room.

When the door yielded, and he rushed in, what did he see there? No
one knew. But thrown down in a costly mass upon the ground, was every
ornament she had had, since she had been his wife; every dress she had
worn; and everything she had possessed. This was the room in which he
had seen, in yonder mirror, the proud face discard him. This was the
room in which he had wondered, idly, how these things would look when he
should see them next!

Heaping them back into the drawers, and locking them up in a rage of
haste, he saw some papers on the table. The deed of settlement he had
executed on their marriage, and a letter. He read that she was gone.
He read that he was dishonoured. He read that she had fled, upon
her shameful wedding-day, with the man whom he had chosen for her
humiliation; and he tore out of the room, and out of the house, with
a frantic idea of finding her yet, at the place to which she had been
taken, and beating all trace of beauty out of the triumphant face with
his bare hand.

Florence, not knowing what she did, put on a shawl and bonnet, in a
dream of running through the streets until she found Edith, and then
clasping her in her arms, to save and bring her back. But when she
hurried out upon the staircase, and saw the frightened servants going up
and down with lights, and whispering together, and falling away from her
father as he passed down, she awoke to a sense of her own powerlessness;
and hiding in one of the great rooms that had been made gorgeous for
this, felt as if her heart would burst with grief.

Compassion for her father was the first distinct emotion that made head
against the flood of sorrow which overwhelmed her. Her constant nature
turned to him in his distress, as fervently and faithfully, as if,
in his prosperity, he had been the embodiment of that idea which had
gradually become so faint and dim. Although she did not know, otherwise
than through the suggestions of a shapeless fear, the full extent of
his calamity, he stood before her, wronged and deserted; and again her
yearning love impelled her to his side.

He was not long away; for Florence was yet weeping in the great room and
nourishing these thoughts, when she heard him come back. He ordered the
servants to set about their ordinary occupations, and went into his own
apartment, where he trod so heavily that she could hear him walking up
and down from end to end.

Yielding at once to the impulse of her affection, timid at all other
times, but bold in its truth to him in his adversity, and undaunted by
past repulse, Florence, dressed as she was, hurried downstairs. As she
set her light foot in the hall, he came out of his room. She hastened
towards him unchecked, with her arms stretched out, and crying 'Oh dear,
dear Papa!' as if she would have clasped him round the neck.

And so she would have done. But in his frenzy, he lifted up his cruel
arm, and struck her, crosswise, with that heaviness, that she tottered
on the marble floor; and as he dealt the blow, he told her what Edith
was, and bade her follow her, since they had always been in league.

She did not sink down at his feet; she did not shut out the sight of him
with her trembling hands; she did not weep; she did not utter one word
of reproach. But she looked at him, and a cry of desolation issued from
her heart. For as she looked, she saw him murdering that fond idea to
which she had held in spite of him. She saw his cruelty, neglect, and
hatred dominant above it, and stamping it down. She saw she had no
father upon earth, and ran out, orphaned, from his house.

Ran out of his house. A moment, and her hand was on the lock, the cry
was on her lips, his face was there, made paler by the yellow candles
hastily put down and guttering away, and by the daylight coming in above
the door. Another moment, and the close darkness of the shut-up house
(forgotten to be opened, though it was long since day) yielded to the
unexpected glare and freedom of the morning; and Florence, with her head
bent down to hide her agony of tears, was in the streets.

Edith and Mr. Dombey continue to be unhappy in their marriage. Florence has almost entirely given up on the hope of her father coming to love her, and is also saddened by the absence of closeness between her and Edith. After Dombey's accident, Florence noticed that Edith had begun to avoid her, so one day she questions her. Edith will say only that, while she still loves Florence, she must be no longer as close with her as before. Edith also implies that their relationship may not have been good for Florence anyways. After that, she only shows Florence affection in secret. On the evening before Edith and Dombey's second wedding anniversary, Florence, Dombey, Edith, and Carker all gather for dinner. Dombey announces plans for a dinner the following evening to mark the anniversary while Edith insists she has pre-existing plans. Dombey says that Carker will be entrusted with making her attend the dinner. Edith tries to insist on a private conversation with her husband, especially since Florence is visibly distressed. Dombey says he has the right to shame her before others if he wants. He finally sends Florence out of the room only when Edith accuses him of mistreating her. Edith reaches her breaking point, and, in front of Carker, asks Dombey for a separation. Dombey rejects this suggestion as ridiculous. Dombey also says that he is growing mistrustful of Florence's role in Edith's resistance, and that if Edith's behavior does not change, he will punish Florence for it. Carker suggests that perhaps a separation between Dombey and Edith would be best after all, but Dombey dismisses this possibility a second time, and the group goes their separate ways. Later, when Mr. Dombey has gone out, Florence goes to look for Edith, hoping to comfort her. She sees Carker coming downstairs alone, leaving the house. Florence is disturbed by this and retreats to her room. The next day she does not see Edith until the evening, and when she approaches her, Edith reacts so violently that Florence faints. When she awakens she is told that Edith has gone out, and while Mrs. Pipchin urges Florence to go to bed, she decides to wait up for Edith. She waits all night, becoming more and more distressed. In the morning, Mr. Dombey is notified that his wife has not come home. Florence watches as her father calls the coachman to ask for more information. The coachman explains that the previous night, he drove Edith to her old residence, where Carker was waiting for her. He was told that Edith would not need the coach to return, and had been sent home. Edith's maid confirms that her mistress's dressing room is locked. Furious, Dombey rushes upstairs and breaks down the door, finding all of Edith's discarded things, and a letter telling him that she is leaving him for Carker. Dombey is shocked and enraged, and runs into the street. When he returns to the house, Florence goes to try to comfort him, but he strikes her, accusing her of having conspired with Edith. Distraught, Florence finally accepts that her father is not a good man, and flees the house


In the wildness of her sorrow, shame, and terror, the forlorn girl
hurried through the sunshine of a bright morning, as if it were the
darkness of a winter night. Wringing her hands and weeping bitterly,
insensible to everything but the deep wound in her breast, stunned by
the loss of all she loved, left like the sole survivor on a lonely shore
from the wreck of a great vessel, she fled without a thought, without a
hope, without a purpose, but to fly somewhere anywhere.

The cheerful vista of the long street, burnished by the morning light,
the sight of the blue sky and airy clouds, the vigorous freshness of
the day, so flushed and rosy in its conquest of the night, awakened no
responsive feelings in her so hurt bosom. Somewhere, anywhere, to hide
her head! somewhere, anywhere, for refuge, never more to look upon the
place from which she fled!

But there were people going to and fro; there were opening shops, and
servants at the doors of houses; there was the rising clash and roar
of the day's struggle. Florence saw surprise and curiosity in the faces
flitting past her; saw long shadows coming back upon the pavement; and
heard voices that were strange to her asking her where she went, and
what the matter was; and though these frightened her the more at first,
and made her hurry on the faster, they did her the good service of
recalling her in some degree to herself, and reminding her of the
necessity of greater composure.

Where to go? Still somewhere, anywhere! still going on; but where! She
thought of the only other time she had been lost in the wild wilderness
of London--though not lost as now--and went that way. To the home of
Walter's Uncle.

Checking her sobs, and drying her swollen eyes, and endeavouring to calm
the agitation of her manner, so as to avoid attracting notice, Florence,
resolving to keep to the more quiet streets as long as she could, was
going on more quietly herself, when a familiar little shadow darted past
upon the sunny pavement, stopped short, wheeled about, came close to
her, made off again, bounded round and round her, and Diogenes, panting
for breath, and yet making the street ring with his glad bark, was at
her feet.

'Oh, Di! oh, dear, true, faithful Di, how did you come here? How could I
ever leave you, Di, who would never leave me?'

Florence bent down on the pavement, and laid his rough, old, loving,
foolish head against her breast, and they got up together, and went on
together; Di more off the ground than on it, endeavouring to kiss his
mistress flying, tumbling over and getting up again without the least
concern, dashing at big dogs in a jocose defiance of his species,
terrifying with touches of his nose young housemaids who were cleaning
doorsteps, and continually stopping, in the midst of a thousand
extravagances, to look back at Florence, and bark until all the dogs
within hearing answered, and all the dogs who could come out, came out
to stare at him.

With this last adherent, Florence hurried away in the advancing morning,
and the strengthening sunshine, to the City. The roar soon grew more
loud, the passengers more numerous, the shops more busy, until she
was carried onward in a stream of life setting that way, and
flowing, indifferently, past marts and mansions, prisons, churches,
market-places, wealth, poverty, good, and evil, like the broad river
side by side with it, awakened from its dreams of rushes, willows, and
green moss, and rolling on, turbid and troubled, among the works and
cares of men, to the deep sea.

At length the quarters of the little Midshipman arose in view. Nearer
yet, and the little Midshipman himself was seen upon his post, intent as
ever on his observations. Nearer yet, and the door stood open, inviting
her to enter. Florence, who had again quickened her pace, as she
approached the end of her journey, ran across the road (closely followed
by Diogenes, whom the bustle had somewhat confused), ran in, and sank
upon the threshold of the well-remembered little parlour.

The Captain, in his glazed hat, was standing over the fire, making
his morning's cocoa, with that elegant trifle, his watch, upon the
chimney-piece, for easy reference during the progress of the cookery.
Hearing a footstep and the rustle of a dress, the Captain turned with a
palpitating remembrance of the dreadful Mrs MacStinger, at the instant
when Florence made a motion with her hand towards him, reeled, and fell
upon the floor.

The Captain, pale as Florence, pale in the very knobs upon his face
raised her like a baby, and laid her on the same old sofa upon which she
had slumbered long ago.

'It's Heart's Delight!' said the Captain, looking intently in her face.
'It's the sweet creetur grow'd a woman!'

Captain Cuttle was so respectful of her, and had such a reverence for
her, in this new character, that he would not have held her in his arms,
while she was unconscious, for a thousand pounds.

'My Heart's Delight!' said the Captain, withdrawing to a little
distance, with the greatest alarm and sympathy depicted on his
countenance. 'If you can hail Ned Cuttle with a finger, do it!'

But Florence did not stir.

'My Heart's Delight!' said the trembling Captain. 'For the sake of Wal'r
drownded in the briny deep, turn to, and histe up something or another,
if able!'

Finding her insensible to this impressive adjuration also, Captain
Cuttle snatched from his breakfast-table a basin of cold water, and
sprinkled some upon her face. Yielding to the urgency of the case, the
Captain then, using his immense hand with extraordinary gentleness,
relieved her of her bonnet, moistened her lips and forehead, put back
her hair, covered her feet with his own coat which he pulled off for
the purpose, patted her hand--so small in his, that he was struck with
wonder when he touched it--and seeing that her eyelids quivered, and
that her lips began to move, continued these restorative applications
with a better heart.

'Cheerily,' said the Captain. 'Cheerily! Stand by, my pretty one, stand
by! There! You're better now. Steady's the word, and steady it is. Keep
her so! Drink a little drop o' this here,' said the Captain. 'There you
are! What cheer now, my pretty, what cheer now?'

At this stage of her recovery, Captain Cuttle, with an imperfect
association of a Watch with a Physician's treatment of a patient, took
his own down from the mantel-shelf, and holding it out on his hook, and
taking Florence's hand in his, looked steadily from one to the other, as
expecting the dial to do something.

'What cheer, my pretty?' said the Captain. 'What cheer now? You've done
her some good, my lad, I believe,' said the Captain, under his
breath, and throwing an approving glance upon his watch. 'Put you
back half-an-hour every morning, and about another quarter towards the
arternoon, and you're a watch as can be ekalled by few and excelled by
none. What cheer, my lady lass!'

'Captain Cuttle! Is it you?' exclaimed Florence, raising herself a
little.

'Yes, yes, my lady lass,' said the Captain, hastily deciding in his own
mind upon the superior elegance of that form of address, as the most
courtly he could think of.

'Is Walter's Uncle here?' asked Florence.

'Here, pretty?' returned the Captain. 'He ain't been here this many a
long day. He ain't been heerd on, since he sheered off arter poor Wal'r.
But,' said the Captain, as a quotation, 'Though lost to sight, to memory
dear, and England, Home, and Beauty!'

'Do you live here?' asked Florence.

'Yes, my lady lass,' returned the Captain.

'Oh, Captain Cuttle!' cried Florence, putting her hands together, and
speaking wildly. 'Save me! keep me here! Let no one know where I am!
I'll tell you what has happened by-and-by, when I can. I have no one in
the world to go to. Do not send me away!'

'Send you away, my lady lass!' exclaimed the Captain. 'You, my Heart's
Delight! Stay a bit! We'll put up this here deadlight, and take a double
turn on the key!'

With these words, the Captain, using his one hand and his hook with the
greatest dexterity, got out the shutter of the door, put it up, made it
all fast, and locked the door itself.

When he came back to the side of Florence, she took his hand, and kissed
it. The helplessness of the action, the appeal it made to him, the
confidence it expressed, the unspeakable sorrow in her face, the pain of
mind she had too plainly suffered, and was suffering then, his
knowledge of her past history, her present lonely, worn, and unprotected
appearance, all so rushed upon the good Captain together, that he fairly
overflowed with compassion and gentleness.

'My lady lass,' said the Captain, polishing the bridge of his nose with
his arm until it shone like burnished copper, 'don't you say a word to
Ed'ard Cuttle, until such times as you finds yourself a riding smooth
and easy; which won't be to-day, nor yet to-morrow. And as to giving of
you up, or reporting where you are, yes verily, and by God's help, so I
won't, Church catechism, make a note on!'

This the Captain said, reference and all, in one breath, and with much
solemnity; taking off his hat at 'yes verily,' and putting it on again,
when he had quite concluded.

Florence could do but one thing more to thank him, and to show him how
she trusted in him; and she did it. Clinging to this rough creature as
the last asylum of her bleeding heart, she laid her head upon his honest
shoulder, and clasped him round his neck, and would have kneeled down to
bless him, but that he divined her purpose, and held her up like a true
man.

'Steady!' said the Captain. 'Steady! You're too weak to stand, you
see, my pretty, and must lie down here again. There, there!' To see the
Captain lift her on the sofa, and cover her with his coat, would have
been worth a hundred state sights. 'And now,' said the Captain, 'you
must take some breakfast, lady lass, and the dog shall have some too.
And arter that you shall go aloft to old Sol Gills's room, and fall
asleep there, like a angel.'

Captain Cuttle patted Diogenes when he made allusion to him,
and Diogenes met that overture graciously, half-way. During the
administration of the restoratives he had clearly been in two minds
whether to fly at the Captain or to offer him his friendship; and he had
expressed that conflict of feeling by alternate waggings of his tail,
and displays of his teeth, with now and then a growl or so. But by this
time, his doubts were all removed. It was plain that he considered the
Captain one of the most amiable of men, and a man whom it was an honour
to a dog to know.

In evidence of these convictions, Diogenes attended on the Captain
while he made some tea and toast, and showed a lively interest in his
housekeeping. But it was in vain for the kind Captain to make such
preparations for Florence, who sorely tried to do some honour to them,
but could touch nothing, and could only weep and weep again.

'Well, well!' said the compassionate Captain, 'arter turning in, my
Heart's Delight, you'll get more way upon you. Now, I'll serve out
your allowance, my lad.' To Diogenes. 'And you shall keep guard on your
mistress aloft.'

Diogenes, however, although he had been eyeing his intended breakfast
with a watering mouth and glistening eyes, instead of falling to,
ravenously, when it was put before him, pricked up his ears, darted to
the shop-door, and barked there furiously: burrowing with his head at
the bottom, as if he were bent on mining his way out.

'Can there be anybody there!' asked Florence, in alarm.

'No, my lady lass,' returned the Captain. 'Who'd stay there, without
making any noise! Keep up a good heart, pretty. It's only people going
by.'

But for all that, Diogenes barked and barked, and burrowed and burrowed,
with pertinacious fury; and whenever he stopped to listen, appeared to
receive some new conviction into his mind, for he set to, barking and
burrowing again, a dozen times. Even when he was persuaded to return to
his breakfast, he came jogging back to it, with a very doubtful air; and
was off again, in another paroxysm, before touching a morsel.

'If there should be someone listening and watching,' whispered Florence.
'Someone who saw me come--who followed me, perhaps.'

'It ain't the young woman, lady lass, is it?' said the Captain, taken
with a bright idea.

'Susan?' said Florence, shaking her head. 'Ah no! Susan has been gone
from me a long time.'

'Not deserted, I hope?' said the Captain. 'Don't say that that there
young woman's run, my pretty!'

'Oh, no, no!' cried Florence. 'She is one of the truest hearts in the
world!'

The Captain was greatly relieved by this reply, and expressed his
satisfaction by taking off his hard glazed hat, and dabbing his head
all over with his handkerchief, rolled up like a ball, observing several
times, with infinite complacency, and with a beaming countenance, that
he know'd it.

'So you're quiet now, are you, brother?' said the Captain to Diogenes.
'There warn't nobody there, my lady lass, bless you!'

Diogenes was not so sure of that. The door still had an attraction
for him at intervals; and he went snuffing about it, and growling to
himself, unable to forget the subject. This incident, coupled with the
Captain's observation of Florence's fatigue and faintness, decided
him to prepare Sol Gills's chamber as a place of retirement for her
immediately. He therefore hastily betook himself to the top of the
house, and made the best arrangement of it that his imagination and his
means suggested.

It was very clean already; and the Captain being an orderly man, and
accustomed to make things ship-shape, converted the bed into a couch,
by covering it all over with a clean white drapery. By a similar
contrivance, the Captain converted the little dressing-table into
a species of altar, on which he set forth two silver teaspoons, a
flower-pot, a telescope, his celebrated watch, a pocket-comb, and
a song-book, as a small collection of rarities, that made a choice
appearance. Having darkened the window, and straightened the pieces of
carpet on the floor, the Captain surveyed these preparations with great
delight, and descended to the little parlour again, to bring Florence to
her bower.

Nothing would induce the Captain to believe that it was possible for
Florence to walk upstairs. If he could have got the idea into his head,
he would have considered it an outrageous breach of hospitality to
allow her to do so. Florence was too weak to dispute the point, and the
Captain carried her up out of hand, laid her down, and covered her with
a great watch-coat.

'My lady lass!' said the Captain, 'you're as safe here as if you was at
the top of St Paul's Cathedral, with the ladder cast off. Sleep is what
you want, afore all other things, and may you be able to show yourself
smart with that there balsam for the still small woice of a wounded
mind! When there's anything you want, my Heart's Delight, as this here
humble house or town can offer, pass the word to Ed'ard Cuttle, as'll
stand off and on outside that door, and that there man will wibrate with
joy.' The Captain concluded by kissing the hand that Florence stretched
out to him, with the chivalry of any old knight-errant, and walking on
tiptoe out of the room.

Descending to the little parlour, Captain Cuttle, after holding a hasty
council with himself, decided to open the shop-door for a few minutes,
and satisfy himself that now, at all events, there was no one loitering
about it. Accordingly he set it open, and stood upon the threshold,
keeping a bright look-out, and sweeping the whole street with his
spectacles.

'How de do, Captain Gills?' said a voice beside him. The Captain,
looking down, found that he had been boarded by Mr Toots while sweeping
the horizon.

'How are, you, my lad?' replied the Captain.

'Well, I'm pretty well, thank'ee, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots. 'You
know I'm never quite what I could wish to be, now. I don't expect that I
ever shall be any more.'

Mr Toots never approached any nearer than this to the great theme of
his life, when in conversation with Captain Cuttle, on account of the
agreement between them.

'Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, 'if I could have the pleasure of a word
with you, it's--it's rather particular.'

'Why, you see, my lad,' replied the Captain, leading the way into the
parlour, 'I ain't what you may call exactly free this morning; and
therefore if you can clap on a bit, I should take it kindly.'

'Certainly, Captain Gills,' replied Mr Toots, who seldom had any notion
of the Captain's meaning. 'To clap on, is exactly what I could wish to
do. Naturally.'

'If so be, my lad,' returned the Captain. 'Do it!'

The Captain was so impressed by the possession of his tremendous
secret--by the fact of Miss Dombey being at that moment under his roof,
while the innocent and unconscious Toots sat opposite to him--that a
perspiration broke out on his forehead, and he found it impossible,
while slowly drying the same, glazed hat in hand, to keep his eyes off
Mr Toots's face. Mr Toots, who himself appeared to have some secret
reasons for being in a nervous state, was so unspeakably disconcerted by
the Captain's stare, that after looking at him vacantly for some time in
silence, and shifting uneasily on his chair, he said:

'I beg your pardon, Captain Gills, but you don't happen to see anything
particular in me, do you?'

'No, my lad,' returned the Captain. 'No.'

'Because you know,' said Mr Toots with a chuckle, 'I know I'm wasting
away. You needn't at all mind alluding to that. I--I should like it.
Burgess and Co. have altered my measure, I'm in that state of thinness.
It's a gratification to me. I--I'm glad of it. I--I'd a great deal
rather go into a decline, if I could. I'm a mere brute you know, grazing
upon the surface of the earth, Captain Gills.'

The more Mr Toots went on in this way, the more the Captain was
weighed down by his secret, and stared at him. What with this cause of
uneasiness, and his desire to get rid of Mr Toots, the Captain was in
such a scared and strange condition, indeed, that if he had been
in conversation with a ghost, he could hardly have evinced greater
discomposure.

'But I was going to say, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots. 'Happening to
be this way early this morning--to tell you the truth, I was coming to
breakfast with you. As to sleep, you know, I never sleep now. I might be
a Watchman, except that I don't get any pay, and he's got nothing on his
mind.'

'Carry on, my lad!' said the Captain, in an admonitory voice.

'Certainly, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots. 'Perfectly true! Happening to
be this way early this morning (an hour or so ago), and finding the door
shut--'

'What! were you waiting there, brother?' demanded the Captain.

'Not at all, Captain Gills,' returned Mr Toots. 'I didn't stop a moment.
I thought you were out. But the person said--by the bye, you don't keep
a dog, you, Captain Gills?'

The Captain shook his head.

'To be sure,' said Mr Toots, 'that's exactly what I said. I knew you
didn't. There is a dog, Captain Gills, connected with--but excuse me.
That's forbidden ground.'

The Captain stared at Mr Toots until he seemed to swell to twice his
natural size; and again the perspiration broke out on the Captain's
forehead, when he thought of Diogenes taking it into his head to come
down and make a third in the parlour.

'The person said,' continued Mr Toots, 'that he had heard a dog barking
in the shop: which I knew couldn't be, and I told him so. But he was as
positive as if he had seen the dog.'

'What person, my lad?' inquired the Captain.

'Why, you see there it is, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, with a
perceptible increase in the nervousness of his manner. 'It's not for
me to say what may have taken place, or what may not have taken place.
Indeed, I don't know. I get mixed up with all sorts of things that I
don't quite understand, and I think there's something rather weak in
my--in my head, in short.'

The Captain nodded his own, as a mark of assent.

'But the person said, as we were walking away,' continued Mr Toots,
'that you knew what, under existing circumstances, might occur--he
said "might," very strongly--and that if you were requested to prepare
yourself, you would, no doubt, come prepared.'

'Person, my lad' the Captain repeated.

'I don't know what person, I'm sure, Captain Gills,' replied Mr Toots,
'I haven't the least idea. But coming to the door, I found him waiting
there; and he said was I coming back again, and I said yes; and he
said did I know you, and I said, yes, I had the pleasure of your
acquaintance--you had given me the pleasure of your acquaintance, after
some persuasion; and he said, if that was the case, would I say to you
what I have said, about existing circumstances and coming prepared, and
as soon as ever I saw you, would I ask you to step round the corner, if
it was only for one minute, on most important business, to Mr Brogley's
the Broker's. Now, I tell you what, Captain Gills--whatever it is, I am
convinced it's very important; and if you like to step round, now, I'll
wait here till you come back.'

The Captain, divided between his fear of compromising Florence in some
way by not going, and his horror of leaving Mr Toots in possession of
the house with a chance of finding out the secret, was a spectacle of
mental disturbance that even Mr Toots could not be blind to. But that
young gentleman, considering his nautical friend as merely in a state of
preparation for the interview he was going to have, was quite satisfied,
and did not review his own discreet conduct without chuckle.

At length the Captain decided, as the lesser of two evils, to run round
to Brogley's the Broker's: previously locking the door that communicated
with the upper part of the house, and putting the key in his pocket.
'If so be,' said the Captain to Mr Toots, with not a little shame and
hesitation, 'as you'll excuse my doing of it, brother.'

'Captain Gills,' returned Mr Toots, 'whatever you do, is satisfactory to
me.'

The Captain thanked him heartily, and promising to come back in less
than five minutes, went out in quest of the person who had entrusted Mr
Toots with this mysterious message. Poor Mr Toots, left to himself, lay
down upon the sofa, little thinking who had reclined there last, and,
gazing up at the skylight and resigning himself to visions of Miss
Dombey, lost all heed of time and place.

It was as well that he did so; for although the Captain was not gone
long, he was gone much longer than he had proposed. When he came back,
he was very pale indeed, and greatly agitated, and even looked as if he
had been shedding tears. He seemed to have lost the faculty of speech,
until he had been to the cupboard and taken a dram of rum from the
case-bottle, when he fetched a deep breath, and sat down in a chair with
his hand before his face.

'Captain Gills,' said Toots, kindly, 'I hope and trust there's nothing
wrong?'

'Thank'ee, my lad, not a bit,' said the Captain. 'Quite contrairy.'

'You have the appearance of being overcome, Captain Gills,' observed Mr
Toots.

'Why, my lad, I am took aback,' the Captain admitted. 'I am.'

'Is there anything I can do, Captain Gills?' inquired Mr Toots. 'If
there is, make use of me.'

The Captain removed his hand from his face, looked at him with a
remarkable expression of pity and tenderness, and took him by the hand,
and shook it hard.

'No, thank'ee,' said the Captain. 'Nothing. Only I'll take it as a
favour if you'll part company for the present. I believe, brother,'
wringing his hand again, 'that, after Wal'r, and on a different model,
you're as good a lad as ever stepped.'

'Upon my word and honour, Captain Gills,' returned Mr Toots, giving
the Captain's hand a preliminary slap before shaking it again, 'it's
delightful to me to possess your good opinion. Thank'ee.'

'And bear a hand and cheer up,' said the Captain, patting him on the
back. 'What! There's more than one sweet creetur in the world!'

'Not to me, Captain Gills,' replied Mr Toots gravely. 'Not to me, I
assure you. The state of my feelings towards Miss Dombey is of that
unspeakable description, that my heart is a desert island, and she lives
in it alone. I'm getting more used up every day, and I'm proud to be so.
If you could see my legs when I take my boots off, you'd form some idea
of what unrequited affection is. I have been prescribed bark, but I
don't take it, for I don't wish to have any tone whatever given to
my constitution. I'd rather not. This, however, is forbidden ground.
Captain Gills, goodbye!'

Captain Cuttle cordially reciprocating the warmth of Mr Toots's
farewell, locked the door behind him, and shaking his head with the same
remarkable expression of pity and tenderness as he had regarded him with
before, went up to see if Florence wanted him.

There was an entire change in the Captain's face as he went upstairs. He
wiped his eyes with his handkerchief, and he polished the bridge of his
nose with his sleeve as he had done already that morning, but his face
was absolutely changed. Now, he might have been thought supremely happy;
now, he might have been thought sad; but the kind of gravity that sat
upon his features was quite new to them, and was as great an improvement
to them as if they had undergone some sublimating process.

He knocked softly, with his hook, at Florence's door, twice or thrice;
but, receiving no answer, ventured first to peep in, and then to enter:
emboldened to take the latter step, perhaps, by the familiar recognition
of Diogenes, who, stretched upon the ground by the side of her couch,
wagged his tail, and winked his eyes at the Captain, without being at
the trouble of getting up.

She was sleeping heavily, and moaning in her sleep; and Captain Cuttle,
with a perfect awe of her youth, and beauty, and her sorrow, raised her
head, and adjusted the coat that covered her, where it had fallen off,
and darkened the window a little more that she might sleep on, and crept
out again, and took his post of watch upon the stairs. All this, with a
touch and tread as light as Florence's own.

Long may it remain in this mixed world a point not easy of decision,
which is the more beautiful evidence of the Almighty's goodness--the
delicate fingers that are formed for sensitiveness and sympathy of
touch, and made to minister to pain and grief, or the rough hard Captain
Cuttle hand, that the heart teaches, guides, and softens in a moment!

Florence slept upon her couch, forgetful of her homelessness and
orphanage, and Captain Cuttle watched upon the stairs. A louder sob or
moan than usual, brought him sometimes to her door; but by degrees she
slept more peacefully, and the Captain's watch was undisturbed.

Overwhelmed, Florence goes to the shop of Walter and his uncle, where Captain Cuttle takes care of her when she collapses on the doorstep. When she awakes, she is surprised to find that Sol is not there, and she begs Cuttle to allow her to stay there. He immediately agrees, makes her some food, and puts her to bed. When he comes back downstairs, Mr. Toots is waiting for him. Mr. Toots explains that as he was going in, a stranger told him that Cuttle is needed at the broker's. Cuttle is uncomfortable leaving the house while Florence sleeps upstairs, but decides to see what is happening. Toots waits, and Cuttle returns in a state of distress. However, he doesn't tell Toots what he has learned, and Toots leaves the house. Cuttle goes upstairs and checks on Florence, and then guards her door while she sleeps

This section reveals that the fallout of the collapse of the Dombey marriage and Florence's departure from her home has mixed results. For Florence, this seems to be a liberating transition. While she is clearly traumatized by feeling that she no longer has any family, the individuals who welcome her demonstrate that love and loyalty can be displayed without blood relations. Indeed, Cuttle, Toots, and Susan rally around her with the unconditional love more typically expected from family members. They love her for who she is, whether or not she has a prestigious social position and wealth. Toots, primarily a comic character, also shows genuine integrity in prioritizing Florence's happiness above his own, and respecting her choice to marry Walter without demonstrating any of the jealousy and bitterness that is so insidious in much of the novel. Moreover, now that Florence is no longer linked with her father, she can more freely choose the kind of family she wants to create for herself, which she does by agreeing to marry Walter. Walter is clear that he would not have approached her or considered himself worthy of her in her former social position, and certainly her father would never have agreed to the match. The pain of Florence's estrangement is offset by her new autonomy and freedom: she can choose to give herself to Walter without needing to seek anyone's approval. While Florence can sometimes seem to be unappealingly passive and dutiful, this section reveals her autonomy, and indeed, her power. As Hilary Schor explains, "in weaving the web of connection that will bring about the novel's happy ending  she moves from the highest realms of English society to the casual working class poverty of the Toodles and the decaying gentility of the Toxes and the Gills" . While Florence's future prospects seem to blossom once she leaves her father's house, Dombey has not learned from the experience and is fixated on preserving his public image and getting revenge on Carker. Some of this desire is shaped by social expectation that he should not tolerate a grave insult, especially from someone who is his social inferior. Dombey's desire for revenge plays into the schemes of Alice and Mrs. Brown; in a sense, others are still manipulating him. He is also fixated on the past, rather than attempting to move forward now that his marriage has ended.