Mr. Crisparkle came in at the moment.  To whom Mr. Jasper repeated: 

’I begin to believe it possible that he may have disappeared of his own accord, and may yet be alive and well.’

Mr. Crisparkle taking a seat, and inquiring:  ‘Why so?’ Mr. Jasper repeated the arguments he had just set forth.  If they had been less plausible than they were, the good Minor Canon’s mind would have been in a state of preparation to receive them, as exculpatory of his unfortunate pupil.  But he, too, did really attach great importance to the lost young man’s having been, so immediately before his disappearance, placed in a new and embarrassing relation towards every one acquainted with his projects and affairs; and the fact seemed to him to present the question in a new light.

‘I stated to Mr. Sapsea, when we waited on him,’ said Jasper:  as he really had done:  ’that there was no quarrel or difference between the two young men at their last meeting.  We all know that their first meeting was unfortunately very far from amicable; but all went smoothly and quietly when they were last together at my house.  My dear boy was not in his usual spirits; he was depressed--I noticed that—­and I am bound henceforth to dwell upon the circumstance the more, now that I know there was a special reason for his being depressed:  a reason, moreover, which may possibly have induced him to absent himself.’

‘I pray to Heaven it may turn out so!’ exclaimed Mr. Crisparkle.

‘I pray to Heaven it may turn out so!’ repeated Jasper.  ’You know—­and Mr. Grewgious should now know likewise—­that I took a great prepossession against Mr. Neville Landless, arising out of his furious conduct on that first occasion.  You know that I came to you, extremely apprehensive, on my dear boy’s behalf, of his mad violence.  You know that I even entered in my Diary, and showed the entry to you, that I had dark forebodings against him.  Mr. Grewgious ought to be possessed of the whole case.  He shall not, through any suppression of mine, be informed of a part of it, and kept in ignorance of another part of it.  I wish him to be good enough to understand that the communication he has made to me has hopefully influenced my mind, in spite of its having been, before this mysterious occurrence took place, profoundly impressed against young Landless.’

This fairness troubled the Minor Canon much.  He felt that he was not as open in his own dealing.  He charged against himself reproachfully that he had suppressed, so far, the two points of a second strong outbreak of temper against Edwin Drood on the part of Neville, and of the passion of jealousy having, to his own certain knowledge, flamed up in Neville’s breast against him.  He was convinced of Neville’s innocence of any part in the ugly disappearance; and yet so many little circumstances combined so wofully against him, that he dreaded to add two more to their cumulative weight.  He was among the truest of men; but he had been balancing in his mind, much to its distress, whether his volunteering to tell these two fragments of truth, at this time, would not be tantamount to a piecing together of falsehood in the place of truth.