Chapter xxix. Our Destinies Part Us.
Descending to the ground-floor of the house, I sent to request a moment’s interview with the landlady. I had yet to learn in which of the London prisons Van Brandt was confined; and she was the only person to whom I could venture to address the question.
Having answered my inquiries, the woman put her own sordid construction on my motive for visiting the prisoner.
“Has the money you left upstairs gone into his greedy pockets already?” she asked. “If I was as rich as you are, I should let it go. In your place, I wouldn’t touch him with a pair of tongs!”
The woman’s coarse warning actually proved useful to me; it started a new idea in my mind! Before she spoke, I had been too dull or too preoccupied to see that it was quite needless to degrade myself
