The trembling earnestness with which he uttered this extraordinary warning, carried with it, to my mind, the conviction that he spoke the truth.

“Mind this!” he went on, shaking his hands at me in the vehemence of his agitation. “I hold no thread, in my own mind, between that man Fosco, and the past time which I call back to me for your sake. If you find the thread, keep it to yourself⁠—tell me nothing⁠—on my knees I beg and pray, let me be ignorant, let me be innocent, let me be blind to all the future as I am now!”

He said a few words more, hesitatingly and disconnectedly, then stopped again.