he general ruin.

Doyce was working at the time in Germany, and it was some weeks before
he could be found; in the meantime, Clennam, being insolvent, was taken
to the Marshalsea.

Mr. Chivery was on the lock and young John was in the lodge when the
Marshalsea was reached. The elder Mr. Chivery shook hands with him in a
shamefaced kind of way, and said, "I don't call to mind, sir, as I was
ever less glad to see you."

The prisoner followed young John up the old staircase into the old room.
"I thought you'd like the room, and here it is for you," said young
John.

Young John waited upon him; and it was young John who explained that he
did this not on the ground of the prisoner's merits, but because of the
merits of another, of one who loved the prisoner. Clennam tried to argue
to himself the improbability of Little Dorrit loving him, but he wasn't
altogether successful.

He fell ill, and it was Little Dorrit whose living presence first
cheered him when he returned from the world of feverish dreams and
shadows.

He did his best to dissuade her from coming. He was a ruined man, and
the time when Little Dorrit and the prison had anything in common had
long gone by.

But still she came and often read to him. And one day she told him that
all her money had gone as his had gone, lost in the Merdle whirlpool,
and that her sister Fanny's was lost, too, in the same way.

"I have nothing in the world. I am as poor as when I lived here. When
papa came over to England, just before his death, he confided everything
he had to the same hands, and it is all swept away. Oh, my dearest and
best, are you quite sure you will not share my fortune with me?"

Locked in his arms, held to his heart, she drew the slight hand round
his neck, and clasped it in its fellow-hand.

Of course, when Doyce, who was a thoroughly good fellow, and successful
to boot, found out his partner's plight, he came back and put things
right, and the business was soon set going again.

And on the very day of his release, Arthur Clennam and Little Dorrit
went into the neighbouring church of St. George, and were married, Doyce
giving the bride away.

Little Dorrit and her husband walked out of the church alone when the
signing of the register was done.

They paused for a moment on the steps of the portico, and then went down
into the roaring streets, inseparable and blessed.

* * * * *

Martin Chuzzlewit