Page 1081 - bleak-house

and no more.’
‘I hope it may prove so. Very well. Go on. Go on, sir!’
Glancing at the angry eyes which now avoid him and at the
angry figure trembling from head to foot, yet striving to be
still, Mr. Bucket feels his way with his forefinger and in a
low voice proceeds.
‘Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it becomes my duty to
tell you that the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn long entertained
mistrusts and suspicions of Lady Dedlock.’
‘If he had dared to breathe them to me, sir—which he
never did—I would have killed him myself!’ exclaims Sir
Leicester, striking his hand upon the table. But in the very
heat and fury of the act he stops, fixed by the knowing eyes
of Mr. Bucket, whose forefinger is slowly going and who,
with mingled confidence and patience, shakes his head.
‘Sir Leicester Dedlock, the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn
was deep and close, and what he fully had in his mind in
the very beginning I can’t quite take upon myself to say.
But I know from his lips that he long ago suspected Lady
Dedlock of having discovered, through the sight of some
handwriting—in this very house, and when you yourself,
Sir Leicester Dedlock, were present—the existence, in great
poverty, of a certain person who had been her lover before
you courted her and who ought to have been her husband.’
Mr. Bucket stops and deliberately repeats, ‘Ought to have
been her husband, not a doubt about it. I know from his
lips that when that person soon afterwards died, he sus-
pected Lady Dedlock of visiting his wretched lodging and
his wretched grave, alone and in secret. I know from my

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