So they
both did better than before.
CHAPTER XXIII--THE DAWN AGAIN
Although Mr. Crisparkle and John Jasper met daily under the
Cathedral roof, nothing at any time passed between them having
reference to Edwin Drood, after the time, more than half a year
gone by, when Jasper mutely showed the Minor Canon the conclusion
and the resolution entered in his Diary. It is not likely that
they ever met, though so often, without the thoughts of each
reverting to the subject. It is not likely that they ever met,
though so often, without a sensation on the part of each that the
other was a perplexing secret to him. Jasper as the denouncer and
pursuer of Neville Landless, and Mr. Crisparkle as his consistent
advocate and protector, must at least have stood sufficiently in
opposition to have speculated with keen interest on the steadiness
and next direction of the other's designs. But neither ever
broached the theme.
False pretence not being in the Minor Canon's nature, he doubtless
displayed openly that he would at any time have revived the
subject, and even desired to discuss it. The determined reticence
of Jasper, however, was not to be so approached. Impassive, moody,
solitary, resolute, so concentrated on one idea, and on its
attendant fixed purpose, that he would share it with no fellow-
creature, he lived apart from human life. Constantly exercising an
Art which brought him into mechanical harmony with others, and
which could not have been pursued unless he and they had been in
the nicest mechanical relations and unison, it is curious to
consider that the spirit of the man was in moral accordance or
interchange with nothing around him.
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