"when they supposed me to have superseded
them; and when Sarah Pocket, Miss Georgiana,
and Mistress Camilla, were not my friends, I
think."

This contrasting of them with the rest seemed,
I was glad to see, to do them good with her.
She looked at me keenly for a little while, and
then said quietly:

"What do you want for them?"

"Only," said I, "that you would not
confound them with the others. They may be of
the same blood, but, believe me, they are not of
the same nature."

Still looking at me keenly, Miss Havisham
repeated:

"What do you want for them?"

"I am not so cunning, you see," I said, in
answer, conscious that I reddened a little, "as
that I could hide from you, even if I desired,
that I do want something. Miss Havisham,
if you would spare the money to do my friend
Herbert a lasting service in life, but which
from the nature of the case must be done without
his knowledge, I could show you how."

"Why must it be done without his knowledge?"
she asked, settling her hands upon her
stick, that she might regard me the more attentively.

"Because," said I, "I began the service
myself more than two years ago, without his
knowledge, and I don't want to be betrayed. Why I
fail in my ability to finish it, I cannot explain.
It is a part of the secret which is another person's
and not mine."

She gradually withdrew her eyes from me,
and turned them on the fire. After watching it
for what appeared in the silence and by the light
of the slowly wasting candles to be a long
time, she was roused by the collapse of
some of the red coals, and looked towards me
again—at first vacantly—then with a gradually
concentrating attention. All this time,
Estella knitted on. When Miss Havisham had
fixed her attention on me, she said, speaking as
if there had been no lapse in our dialogue:

"What else?"

"Estella," said I, turning to her now, and
trying to command my trembling voice, "you
know I love you. You know that I have loved
you long and dearly."

She raised her eyes to my face, on being thus
addressed, and her fingers plied their work, and
she looked at me with an unmoved countenance.
I saw that Miss Havisham glanced from me to
her, and from her to me.

"I should have said this sooner, but for my
long mistake. It induced me to hope that Miss
Havisham meant us for one another. While I
thought you could not help yourself, as it were,
I refrained from saying it. But I must say it
now."

Preserving her unmoved countenance, and
with her fingers still going, Estella shook her
head.

"I know," said I, in answer to that action;
"I know. I have no hope that I shall ever call
you mine, Estella. I am ignorant what may
become of me very soon, how poor I may be, or
where I may go. Still, I love you. I have loved
you ever since I first saw you in this house."

Looking at me perfectly unmoved and with
her fingers busy, she shook her head again.

"It would have been cruel in Miss Havisham,
horribly cruel, to practise on the susceptibility of
a poor boy, and to torture me through all these
years with a vain hope and an idle pursuit, if she
had reflected on the gravity of what she did.
But I think she did not. I think that in the
endurance of her own suffering, she forgot mine,
Estella."

I saw Miss Havisham put her hand to her
heart and hold it there, as she sat looking by
turns at Estella and at me.

"It seems," said Estella, very calmly, "that
there are sentiments, fancies—I don't know how
to call them—which I am not able to comprehend.
When you say you love me, I know what
you mean, as a form of words; but nothing more.
You address nothing in my breast, you touch
nothing there. I don't care for what you say at
all. I have tried to warn you of this; now, have
I not?"

I said in a miserable manner, "Yes."

"Yes. But you would not be warned, for
you thought I didn't mean it. Now, did you
not?"

"I thought and hoped you could not mean it.
You, so young, untried, and beautiful, Estella!
Surely it is not in Nature."

"It is in my nature," she returned. And then
she added, with a stress upon the words, "It is
in the nature formed within me. I make a
great difference between you and all other people
when I say so much. I can do no more."

"Is it not true," said I, "that Bentley
Drummle is in town here, and pursuing you?"

"It is quite true," she replied, referring
to him with the indifference of utter contempt.

"That you encourage him, and ride out with
him, and that he dines with you this very day?"

She seemed a little surprised that I should
know it, but again replied, "Quite true."

"You cannot love him, Estella!"

Her fingers stopped for the first time, as she
retorted rather angrily, "What have I told you?
Do you still think, in spite of it, that I do not
mean what I say?"

"You would never marry him, Estella?"

She looked towards Miss Havisham, and
considered for a moment with her work in her
hands. Then she said, "Why not tell you the
truth? I am going to be married to him."

I dropped my face into my hands, but was
able to control myself better than I could have
expected, considering what agony it gave me to
hear her say those words. When I raised my
face again, there was such a ghastly look upon
Miss Havisham's, that it impressed me, even in
my passionate hurry and grief.

"Estella, dearest dearest Estella, do not let
Miss Havisham lead you into this fatal step.
Put me aside for ever—you have done so, I well
know—but bestow yourself on some worthier
person than Drummle. Miss Havisham gives