He skirted the Public Gardens and hurried past the Lovelace. “Is that old waiter there still?” he wondered. At the sight of the workhouse, the personality of his father seemed to beckon him, to welcome him; but it was still only as a skull. The skull knew he was coming, though; and it was glad! The skull of old “Truepenny” was the only brain in the world whose thoughts he could read! Eyeless sockets deceived no one.

He was passing the slaughterhouse now. “I’ve only touched meat once,” he thought, “since she talked to me that day. But if I see her at his grave I shall sheer off and not go near it!”

When he came to the hole in the fence that led to that portion of the cemetery where the paupers were buried, he recalled how startled he’d been when he saw Miss Gault go down on her hands and knees to get through this aperture. So well did he remember that incident as he himself now went down on his hands and knees, that while a clump of dock-weeds struck cold against his face, he became suddenly certain that Miss Gault was there now.