Mr. Copperfield, the night before last. What I happened to find there, about their secret way of coming and going, without you — which was strange — led to my suspecting something wrong. I got into the coach from London last night, as it came through Norwich, and was here this morning. Oh, oh, oh! too late!’

Poor little Mowcher turned so chilly after all her crying and fretting, that she turned round on the fender, putting her poor little wet feet in among the ashes to warm them, and sat looking at the fire, like a large doll.

I sat in a chair on the other side of the hearth, lost in unhappy reflections, and looking at the fire too, and sometimes at her.

‘I must go,’ she said at last, rising as she spoke. ‘It’s late. You don’t