And yet he had not spoken to Margaret on the subject during the
journey, and would now have taken her to the lawyer's chambers
without a word, had she not interrupted him and stopped him.

Nevertheless he had been thinking of his uncle, and his uncle's will,
and his uncle's money, throughout the morning. He was thinking of it
at that moment when she stopped him--thinking how hard it all was,
how cruel that those people in the New Road should have had and spent
half his uncle's fortune, and that now the remainder, which at one
time had seemed to be near the reach of his own children, should also
go to atone for the negligence and fraud of those wretched Rubbs.

We all know with how strong a bias we regard our own side of any
question, and he regarded his side in this question with a very
strong bias. Nevertheless he had refrained from a word, and would
have refrained, had she not stopped him.

When she took hold of him by the coat, he looked for a moment into
her face, and thought that in its trouble it was very sweet. She
leaned somewhat against him as she spoke, and he wished that she
would lean against him altogether. There was about her a quiet
power of endurance, and at the same time a comeliness and a womanly
softness which seemed to fit her altogether for his wants and
wishes. As he looked with his dull face across into the square, no
physiognomist would have declared of him that at that moment he was
suffering from love, or thinking of a woman that was dear to him. But
it was so with him, and the physiognomist, had one been there, would
have been wrong. She had now asked him a question, which he was bound
to answer in some way:--"What ought I to do, John?"

He turned slowly round and walked with her, away from their
destination, round by the south side of the square, and then up along
the blank wall on the east side, nearly to the passage into Holborn,
and back again all round the enclosed space. She, while she was
speaking to him and listening to him, hardly remembered where she was
or whither she was going.

"I thought," said he, in answer to her question, "that you intended
to ask Mr Slow's advice?"

"I didn't mean to do more than tell him what should be done. He is
not a friend, you know, John."

"It's customary to ask lawyers their advice on such subjects."

"I'd rather have yours, John. But, in truth, what I want you to say
is, that I am right in doing this,--right in keeping my promise to my
brot