, a happiness to me, that I remained
true to him; that if he should wake from his delusion, even at the point of
death, I am here, love, to recall you to his thoughts.«
    Martin looked with admiration on her glowing face, and pressed his lips to
hers.
    »I have sometimes heard, and read,« she said, »that those whose powers had
been enfeebled long ago, and whose lives had faded, as it were, into a dream,
have been known to rouse themselves before death, and inquire for familiar faces
once very dear to them; but forgotten, unrecognised, hated even, in the
meantime. Think, if with his old impressions of this man, he should suddenly
resume his former self, and find in him his only friend!«
    »I would not urge you to abandon him, dearest,« said Martin, »though I could
count the years we are to wear out asunder. But the influence this fellow
exercises over him, has steadily increased, I fear.«
    She could not help admitting that. Steadily, imperceptibly, and surely,
until now it was paramount and supreme. She herself had none; and yet he treated
her with more affection than at any previous time. Martin thought the
inconsistency a part of his weakness and decay.
    »Does the influence extend to fear?« said Martin. »Is he timid of asserting
his own opinion in the presence of this infatuation? I fancied so just now.«
    »I have thought so, often. Often when we are sitting alone, almost as we
used to do, and I have been reading a favourite book to him, or he has been
talking quite cheerfully, I have observed that the entrance of Mr. Pecksniff has
changed his whole demeanour. He has broken off immediately, and become what you
have seen to-day. When we first came here he had his impetuous outbreaks, in
which it was not easy for Mr. Pecksniff with his utmost plausibility to appease
him. But these have long since dwindled away. He defers to him in everything,
and has no opinion upon any question, but that which is forced upon him by this
treacherous man.«
    Such was the account; rapidly furnished in whispers, and interrupted, brief
as it was, by many false alarms of Mr. Pecksniff's return; which Martin received
of his grandfather's decline, and of that good gentleman's ascendancy. He heard
of Tom Pinch, too, and Jonas too, with not a little about himself into the
bargain
