my position came flashing on me; and its disappointments, dangers, disgraces, consequences of all kinds, rushed in in such a multitude that I was borne down by them and had to struggle for every breath I drew.

“Put it,” he resumed, “as the employer of that lawyer whose name begun with a J, and might be Jaggers, — put it as he had come over sea to Portsmouth, and had landed there, and had wanted to come on to you. 'However, you have found me out,' you says just now. Well! However, did I find you out? Why, I wrote from Portsmouth to a person in London, for particulars of your address. That person's name? Why, Wemmick.”

I could not have spoken one word, though it had been to save my life.

I stood, with a hand on the chair-back and a hand on my breast, where I seemed to be suffocating, —