"Such a mean brute, such a stupid brute!" I urged, in despair.

"Don't be afraid of my being a blessing to him," said Estella; "I shall

not be that. Come! Here is my hand. Do we part on this, you visionary

boy--or man?"

"O Estella!" I answered, as my bitter tears fell fast on her hand, do

what I would to restrain them; "even if I remained in England and could

hold my head up with the rest, how could I see you Drummle's wife?"

"Nonsense," she returned,--"nonsense. This will pass in no time."

"Never, Estella!"

"You will get me out of your thoughts in a week."

"Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You

have been in every line I have ever read since I first came here, the

rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been

in every prospect I have ever seen since,--on the river, on the sails of

the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness,

in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been

the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become

acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings

are made are not more real, or more impossible to be displaced by your

hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and

everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you

cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good

in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation, I associate you only

with the good; and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you

must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp

distress I may. O God bless you, God forgive you!"

In what ecstasy of unhappiness I got these broken words out of myself, I

don't know. The rhapsody welled up within me, like blood from an

inward wound, and gushed out. I held her hand to my lips some lingering

moments, and so I left her. But ever afterwards, I remembered,--and soon

afterwards with stronger reason,--that while Estella looked at me merely

with incredulous wonder, the spectral figure of Miss Havisham, her hand

still covering her heart, seemed all resolved into a ghastly stare of

pity and remorse.

All done, all gone! So much was done and gone, that when I went out at

the gate, the light of the day seemed of a darker color than when I went

in. For a while, I hid myself among some lanes and by-paths, and then

struck off to walk all the way to London. For, I had by that time come

to myself so far as to consider that I could not go back to the inn and

see Drummle there; that I could not bear to sit upon the coach and

be spoken to; that I could do nothing half so good for myself as tire

myself out.




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