Agnes leaned upon his shoulder, and stole her arm about his neck.

“She had an affectionate and gentle heart,” he said; “and it was broken. I knew its tender nature very well. No one could, if I did not. She loved me dearly, but was never happy. She was always labouring, in secret, under this distress; and being delicate and downcast at the time of his last repulse⁠—for it was not the first, by many⁠—pined away and died. She left me Agnes, two weeks old; and the grey hair that you recollect me with, when you first came.” He kissed Agnes on her cheek.

“My love for my dear child was a diseased love, but my mind was all unhealthy then. I say no more of that. I am not speaking of myself, Trotwood, but of her mother, and of her. If I give you any clue to what I am, or to what I have been, you will unravel it, I know. What Agnes is, I need not say. I have always read something of her poor mother’s story, in her character; and so I tell it you tonight, when we three are again together, after such great changes. I have told it all.”