After Mrs. General rejects his proposal of marriage, subsequently giving her notice, Mr. Dorrit falls spectacularly apart at Mrs. Merdle's masked ball, thinking he is back in the Marshalsea, and delivering a humiliating outburst to that effect. Soon afterward he passes away, as does Frederick, seemingly out of grief for his brother, and Amy returns to London, where she is given a home by Fanny and Edmund. Arthur seeks out Miss Wade for news of Rigaud's whereabouts. She cannot help, but explains that she is an orphan, hence her patronage of Tattycoram, and that she was slighted in love by Henry Gowan. She had intended to pay Rigaud to kill him but drew back. After another unsuccessful effort to warn his mother about Rigaud, Arthur bumps into Amy, who wounds him by saying she wished they had never met. That evening Mr. Merdle's doctor is summonsed to a bath-house where the 'marvel of the age' has committed suicide.
