"Yes, yes, I know it. But, Pip— my
Dear!" There was an earnest womanly
compassion for me in her new affection. "My
dear! Believe this: when she first came to me,
I meant to save her from misery like my own.
At first I meant no more."

"Well, well!" said I. "I hope so."

"But as she grew, and promised to be very
beautiful, I gradually did worse, and with my praises,
and with my jewels and with my teachings,
and with this figure of myself always before
her a warning to back and point my lessons, I
stole her heart away and put ice in its place."

"Better," I could not help saying, "to have
left her a natural heart, even to be bruised or
broken."

With that, Miss Havisham looked distractedly
at me for a while, and then burst out again,
What had she done!

"If you knew all my story," she pleaded,
"you would have some compassion for me and
a better understanding of me."

"Miss Havisham," I answered, as delicately as
I could, ''I believe I may say that I do know your
story, and have known it ever since I first left
this neighbourhood. It has inspired me with
great commiseration, and I hope I understand
it and its influences. Does what has passed
between us give me any excuse for asking you
a question relative to Estella? Not as she is,
but as she was when she first came here?"

She was seated on the ground, with her arms
on the ragged chair, and her head leaning on
them. She looked full at me when I said this,
and replied, "Go on.

"Whose child was Estella?"

She shook her head.

"You don't know?"

She shook her head again.

"But Mr. Jaggers brought her here, or sent
her here?"

"Brought her here."

"Will you tell me how that came about?"

She answered in a low whisper and with
great caution: ''I had been shut up in these
rooms a long time (I don't know how long;
you know what time the clocks keep here), when
I told him that I wanted a little girl to rear and
Iove, and save from my fate. I had first seen him
when I sent for him to lay this place waste for
me; having read of him in the newspapers, before
I and the world parted. He told me that he
would look about him for such an orphan child.
One night he brought her here asleep, and I
called her Estella."

"Might I ask her age then?"

"Two  or three. She herself knows nothing,
but that she was left an orphan and I adopted
her."

So convinced I was of the woman's being her
mother, that I wanted no evidence to establish
the fact in my own mind. But to any mind,
I thought, the connexion here was clear and
straight.

What more could I hope to do by prolonging
the interview? I had succeeded on behalf of
Herbert, Miss Havisham had told me all she
knew of Estella, I had said and done what I
could to ease her mind. No matter with what
other words we parted; we parted.

Twilight was closing in when I went down
stairs into the natural air. I called to the
woman who had opened the gate when I entered,
that I would not trouble her just yet, but would
walk round the place before leaving. For I had
a presentiment that I should never be there
again, and I felt that the dying light was suited
to my last view of it.

By the wilderness of casks that I had walked
on long ago, and on which the rain of years had
fallen since, rotting them in many places, and
leaving miniature swamps and pools of water
upon those that stood on end, I made my way
to the ruined garden. I went all round it; round
by the corner where Herbert and I had fought
our battle; round by the paths where Estella
and I had walked. So cold, so lonely, so dreary
all!

Taking the brewery on my way back, I raised
the rusty latch of a little door at the garden end
of it, and walked through. I was going out at
the opposite door— not easy to open now, for
the damp wood had started and swelled, and the
hinges were yielding, and the threshold was
encumbered with a growth of fungus — when I
turned my head to look back. A childish
association revived with wonderful force in the
moment of the slight action, and I fancied that I saw
Miss Havisham hanging to the beam. So strong
was the impression, that I stood under the beam
shuddering from head to foot before I knew it
was a fancy—though to be sure I was there in
an instant.

The mournfulness of the place and time, and
the great terror of this illusion, though it was
but momentary, caused me to feel an
indescribable awe as I came out between the open
wooden gates where I had once wrung my hair
after Estella had wrung my heart. Passing on
into the front court-yard, I hesitated whether to
call the woman to let me out at the locked gate
of which she had the key, or first to go
upstairs and assure myself that Miss Havisham
was as safe and well as I had left her. I took
the latter course and went up.

I looked into the room where I had left her,
and I saw her seated in the ragged chair upon
the hearth close to the fire, with her back
towards me. In the moment when I was with
drawing my head to go quietly away, I saw a
great flaming light spring up. In the same
moment I saw her running at me with
a whirl of fire blazing all about her, and soaring
at least as many feet above her head as she was
high.

I had a double-caped great-coat on, and over
my arm another thick coat. That I got them off,
closed with her, threw her down, and got them
over her; that I dragged the great cloth from the
table for the same purpose, and with it dragged
down the heap of rottenness in the midst, and
all the ugly things that sheltered there; that we
were on the ground struggling like desperate
enemies, and that the closer I covered her, the