The meek little stationer, with a broken and unfinished cough, slips down his fourth half-crown⁠—he has never been so close to a case requiring so many⁠—and is fain to depart. And Jo and he, upon this little earth, shall meet no more. No more.

For the cart so hard to draw is near its journey’s end and drags over stony ground. All round the clock it labours up the broken steps, shattered and worn. Not many times can the sun rise and behold it still upon its weary road.