'He shall be
gagged if he speaks, and pinioned if he writes,' said Jonas, looking at
him; for they sat alone together. 'He is mad enough for that; I'll go
through with it!'
Hush!
Still listening! To every sound. He had listened ever since, and it
had not come yet. The exposure of the Assurance office; the flight of
Crimple and Bullamy with the plunder, and among the rest, as he feared,
with his own bill, which he had not found in the pocket-book of the
murdered man, and which with Mr Pecksniff's money had probably been
remitted to one or other of those trusty friends for safe deposit at the
banker's; his immense losses, and peril of being still called to account
as a partner in the broken firm; all these things rose in his mind at
one time and always, but he could not contemplate them. He was aware of
their presence, and of the rage, discomfiture, and despair, they brought
along with them; but he thought--of his own controlling power and
direction he thought--of the one dread question only. When they would
find the body in the wood.
He tried--he had never left off trying--not to forget it was there, for
that was impossible, but to forget to weary himself by drawing vivid
pictures of it in his fancy; by going softly about it and about it
among the leaves, approaching it nearer and nearer through a gap in the
boughs, and startling the very flies that were thickly sprinkled all
over it, like heaps of dried currants.
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