I am Mr Boffin's Secretary. Mr Boffin is a gentleman who inherited a property of which you may have heard some public mention; the Harmon property.'

'Mr Harmon,' said Bradley: who would have been a great deal more at a loss than he was, if he had known to whom he spoke: 'was murdered and found in the river.'

'Was murdered and found in the river.'

'It was not--'

'No,' interposed the Secretary, smiling, 'it was not he who recommended you. Mr Boffin heard of you through a certain Mr Lightwood. I think you know Mr Lightwood, or know of him?'

'I know as much of him as I wish to know, sir. I have no acquaintance with Mr Lightwood, and I desire none. I have no objection to Mr Lightwood, but I have a particular objection to some of Mr Lightwood's friends--in short, to one of Mr Lightwood's friends. His great friend.'

He could hardly get the words out, even then and there, so fierce did he grow (though keeping himself down with infinite pains of repression), when the careless and contemptuous bearing of Eugene Wrayburn rose before his mind.

The Secretary saw there was a strong feeling here on some sore point, and he would have made a diversion from it, but for Bradley's holding to it in his cumbersome way.

'I have no objection to mention the friend by name,' he said, doggedly. 'The person I object to, is Mr Eugene Wrayburn.'

The Secretary remembered him. In his disturbed recollection of that night when he was striving against the drugged drink, there was but a dim image of Eugene's person; but he remembered his name, and his manner of speaking, and how he had gone with them to view the body, and where he had stood, and what he had said.

'Pray, Mr Headstone, what is the name,' he asked, again trying to make a diversion, 'of young Hexam's sister?'

'Her name is Lizzie,' said the schoolmaster, with a strong contraction of his whole face.

'She is a young woman of a remarkable character; is she not?'

'She is sufficiently remarkable to be very superior to Mr Eugene Wrayburn--though an ordinary person might be that,' said the schoolmaster; 'and I hope you will not think it impertinent in me, sir, to ask why you put the two names together?'

'By mere accident,' returned the Secretary. 'Observing that Mr Wrayburn was a disagreeable subject with you, I tried to get away from it: though not very successfully, it would appear.'

'Do you know Mr Wrayburn, sir?'

'No.'

'Then perhaps the names cannot be put together on the authority of any representation of his?'

'Certainly not.'

'I took the liberty to ask,' said Bradley, after casting his eyes on the ground, 'because he is capable of making any representation, in the swaggering levity of his insolence. I--I hope you will not misunderstand me, sir. I--I am much interested in this brother and sister, and the subject awakens very strong feelings within me. Very, very, strong feelings.' With a shaking hand, Bradley took out his handkerchief and wiped his brow.

The Secretary thought, as he glanced at the schoolmaster's face, that he had opened a channel here indeed, and that it was an unexpectedly dark and deep and stormy one, and difficult to sound. All at once, in the midst of his turbulent emotions, Bradley stopped and seemed to challenge his look.