"Now the money's been brought back," Silas feels able to return to Lantern Yard to seek for the truth of his past. This trip is not merely a matter of economics; his feeling is not only that he can afford the trip, but that now he is inwardly capable of seeking the truth about the past. Religion is one of the problems he wants to resolve — to settle his doubts about the conflicts between his old faith and his new one. This very process of doubting is a measure of his development: in the past, he first believed "unquestioned doctrine" and then rejected all doctrines.
The name Lantern Yard has taken on an ironic tinge now. Dolly asks Silas to bring back "any light to be got up the yard as you talk on, we've need of it i' this world." Lantern Yard once was a light for Silas, but that went out long ago and cannot be rekindled now. He finds everything changed, and the only thing to cheer him is the sight of a prison. Silas wants to set everything in his life to rights, but that is beyond his power.
Lantern Yard is in darkness both literally and symbolically. Prison Street remains, dark and ugly; pale faces stare out from gloomy doorways; there is a bad smell in the air. These physical conditions were common enough among nineteenth-century factories, and as such this scene helps fill out the social background of the novel. But it is also like the evil darkness that must remain a part of Silas' past.
Dolly is convinced that there was some good, some rightness, in the past, despite the apparent injustice:
