“Imagine the poor fellow without even his present resource,” said my guardian to me. “Yet what can I do? You know him, Esther. He would never accept of help from me, now. To offer it, or hint at it would be to drive him to an extremity, if nothing else did.”

Mr Vholes hereupon addressed me again.

“What Mr Jarndyce remarks, miss, is no doubt the case, and is the difficulty. I do not see that anything is to be done. I do not say that anything is to be done. Far from it. I merely come down here under the seal of confidence and mention it, in order that everything may be openly carried on, and that it may not be said afterwards that everything was not openly carried on. My wish is that everything should be openly carried on. I desire to leave a good name behind me. If I consulted merely my own interests with Mr C, I should not be here. So insurmountable, as you must well know, would be his objections. This is not a professional attendance. This can he charged to nobody. I have no interest in it, except as a member of society and a father — and a son,” said Mr Vholes, who had nearly forgotten that point.

It appeared to us that Mr Vholes said neither more nor less than the truth, in intimating that he sought to divide the responsibility, such as it was, of knowing Richard’s situation. I could only suggest that I should go down to Deal, where Richard was then stationed, and see him, and try if it were possible to avert the worst. Without consulting Mr Vholes on this point, I took my guardian aside to propose it, while Mr Vholes gauntly stalked to the fire, and warmed his funeral gloves.

The fatigue of the journey formed an immediate objection on my guardian’s part; but as I saw he had no other, and as I was only too happy to go, I got his consent. We had then merely to dispose of Mr Vholes.

“Well, sir,” said Mr Jarndyce, “Miss Summerson will communicate with Mr Carstone, and you can only hope that his position may be yet retrievable. You will allow me to order you lunch after your journey, sir.”

“I thank you, Mr Jarndyce,” said Mr Vholes, putting out his long black sleeve, to check the ringing of the bell, “not any. I thank you, no, not a morsel. My digestion is much impaired, and I am but a poor knife and fork at any time. If I was to partake of solid food at this period of the day, I don’t know what the consequences might be. Everything having been openly carried on, sir, I will now with your permission take my leave.”

“And I would that you could take your leave, and we could all take our leave, Mr Vholes,” returned my guardian, bitterly, “of a cause you know of.”

Mr Vholes, whose black dye was so deep from head to foot that it had quite steamed before the fire, diffusing a very unpleasant perfume, made a short one-sided inclination of his head from the neck and slowly shook it.

“We whose ambition it is to be looked upon in the light of respectable practitioners, sir, can but put our shoulders to the wheel. We do it, sir. At least, I do it myself; and I wish to think well of my professional brethren, one and all. You are sensible of an obligation not to refer to me, miss, in communicating with Mr C?”

I said I would be careful not to do it.

“Just so, miss. Good morning. Mr Jarndyce, good morning, sir.” Mr Vholes put his dead glove, which scarcely seemed to have any hand in it, on my fingers, and then on my guardian’s fingers, and took his long thin shadow away. I thought of it on the outside of the coach, passing over all the sunny landscape between us and London, chilling the seed in the ground as it glided along.