“You are so changed,” said Walter—
“I changed!” she interrupted.
“—To me,” said Walter, softly, as if he were thinking aloud, “changed to me. I left you such a child, and find you—oh! something so different—”
“But your sister, Walter. You have not forgotten what we promised to each other, when we parted?”
“Forgotten!” But he said no more.
“And if you had—if suffering and danger had driven it from your thoughts—which it has not—you would remember it now, Walter, when you find me poor and abandoned, with no home but this, and no friends but the two who hear me speak!”
“I would! Heaven knows I would!” said Walter.
“Oh, Walter,” exclaimed Florence, through her sobs and tears. “Dear brother! Show me some way through the world—some humble path that I may take alone, and labour in, and sometimes think of you as one who will protect and care for me as for a sister! Oh, help me, Walter, for I need help so much!”
“Miss Dombey! Florence! I would die to help you. But your friends are proud and rich. Your father—”
“No, no! Walter!” She shrieked, and put her hands up to her head, in an attitude of terror that transfixed him where he stood. “Don’t say that word!”