‘Are you?’ asked Little Dorrit, wistfully.
‘Am I? Most heartily glad!’
‘Then I know I ought to be.’
‘And are you not?’
‘It seems to me hard,’ said Little Dorrit, ‘that he should have lost so many years and suffered so much, and at last pay all the debts as well. It seems to me hard that he should pay in life and money both.’
‘My dear child—’ Clennam was beginning.
‘Yes, I know I am wrong,’ she pleaded timidly, ‘don’t think any worse of me; it has grown up with me here.’
The prison, which could spoil so many things, had tainted Little Dorrit’s mind no more than this. Engendered as the confusion was, in compassion for the poor prisoner, her father, it was the first speck Clennam had ever seen, it was the last speck Clennam ever saw, of the prison atmosphere upon her.
He thought this, and forbore to say another word. With the thought, her purity and goodness came before him in their brightest light. The little spot made them the more beautiful.
Worn out with her own emotions, and yielding to the silence of the room, her hand slowly slackened and failed in its fanning movement, and her head dropped down on the pillow at her father’s side. Clennam rose softly, opened and closed the door without a sound, and passed from the prison, carrying the quiet with him into the turbulent streets.