It appeared to us that Mr. Vholes said neither more nor less than the truth in intimating that he sought to divide the responsibility, such as it was, of knowing Richard’s situation.  I could only suggest that I should go down to Deal, where Richard was then stationed, and see him, and try if it were possible to avert the worst.  Without consulting Mr. Vholes on this point, I took my guardian aside to propose it, while Mr. Vholes gauntly stalked to the fire and warmed his funeral gloves.

The fatigue of the journey formed an immediate objection on my guardian’s part, but as I saw he had no other, and as I was only too happy to go, I got his consent.  We had then merely to dispose of Mr. Vholes.

“Well, sir,” said Mr. Jarndyce, “Miss Summerson will communicate with Mr. Carstone, and you can only hope that his position may be yet retrievable.  You will allow me to order you lunch after your journey, sir.”

“I thank you, Mr. Jarndyce,” said Mr. Vholes, putting out his long black sleeve to check the ringing of the bell, “not any.  I thank you, no, not a morsel.  My digestion is much impaired, and I am but a poor knife and fork at any time.  If I was to partake of solid food at this period of the day, I don’t know what the consequences might be.  Everything having been openly carried on, sir, I will now with your permission take my leave.”

“And I would that you could take your leave, and we could all take our leave, Mr. Vholes,” returned my guardian bitterly, “of a cause you know of.”

Mr. Vholes, whose black dye was so deep from head to foot that it had quite steamed before the fire, diffusing a very unpleasant perfume, made a short one-sided inclination of his head from the neck and slowly shook it.

“We whose ambition it is to be looked upon in the light of respectable practitioners, sir, can but put our shoulders to the wheel.  We do it, sir.  At least, I do it myself; and I wish to think well of my professional brethren, one and all.  You are sensible of an obligation not to refer to me, miss, in communicating with Mr. C.?”

I said I would be careful not to do it.

“Just so, miss.  Good morning.  Mr. Jarndyce, good morning, sir.”  Mr. Vholes put his dead glove, which scarcely seemed to have any hand in it, on my fingers, and then on my guardian’s fingers, and took his long thin shadow away.  I thought of it on the outside of the coach, passing over all the sunny landscape between us and London, chilling the seed in the ground as it glided along.

Of course it became necessary to tell Ada where I was going and why I was going, and of course she was anxious and distressed.  But she was too true to Richard to say anything but words of pity and words of excuse, and in a more loving spirit still—­my dear devoted girl!—­she wrote him a long letter, of which I took charge.

Charley was to be my travelling companion, though I am sure I wanted none and would willingly have left her at home.  We all went to London that afternoon, and finding two places in the mail, secured them.  At our usual bed-time, Charley and I were rolling away seaward with the Kentish letters.