By a masterstroke of secret arrangement, the inexhaustible baby here appeared at the door, suspended in midair by invisible agency. Mrs. Boffin, plunging at it, brought it to Bella’s lap, where both Mrs. and Mr. Boffin (as the saying is) “took it out of” the Inexhaustible in a shower of caresses. It was only this timely appearance that kept Bella from swooning. This, and her husband’s earnestness in explaining further to her how it had come to pass that he had been supposed to be slain, and had even been suspected of his own murder; also, how he had put a pious fraud upon her which had preyed upon his mind, as the time for its disclosure approached, lest she might not make full allowance for the object with which it had originated, and in which it had fully developed.