Book The First: Poverty Chapter 16 Nobody's Weakness

Again, there was the subject of his relations with his mother, which
were now upon an equable and peaceful but never confidential footing,
and whom he saw several times a week. Little Dorrit was a leading and a
constant subject: for the circumstances of his life, united to those of
her own story, presented the little creature to him as the only person
between whom and himself there were ties of innocent reliance on one
hand, and affectionate protection on the other; ties of compassion,
respect, unselfish interest, gratitude, and pity.

Thinking of her, and of the possibility of her father's release from prison by the unbarring
hand of death--the only change of circumstance he could foresee that
might enable him to be such a friend to her as he wished to be, by
altering her whole manner of life, smoothing her rough road, and
giving her a home--he regarded her, in that perspective, as his adopted
daughter, his poor child of the Marshalsea hushed to rest. If there were
a last subject in his thoughts, and it lay towards Twickenham, its form
was so indefinite that it was little more than the pervading atmosphere
in which these other subjects floated before him.

He had crossed the heath and was leaving it behind when he gained upon a
figure which had been in advance of him for some time, and which, as
he gained upon it, he thought he knew. He derived this impression
from something in the turn of the head, and in the figure's action of
consideration, as it went on at a sufficiently sturdy walk. But when
the man--for it was a man's figure--pushed his hat up at the back of his
head, and stopped to consider some object before him, he knew it to be
Daniel Doyce. 'How do you do, Mr Doyce?' said Clennam, overtaking him. 'I am glad to
see you again, and in a healthier place than the Circumlocution Office.'