Great Expectations

"Steady!" I thought. I asked him then, "Which of the two do you suppose

you saw?"

"The one who had been mauled," he answered readily, "and I'll swear I

saw him! The more I think of him, the more certain I am of him."

"This is very curious!" said I, with the best assumption I could put on

of its being nothing more to me. "Very curious indeed!"

I cannot exaggerate the enhanced disquiet into which this conversation

threw me, or the special and peculiar terror I felt at Compeyson's

having been behind me "like a ghost." For if he had ever been out of my

thoughts for a few moments together since the hiding had begun, it was

in those very moments when he was closest to me; and to think that I

should be so unconscious and off my guard after all my care was as if

I had shut an avenue of a hundred doors to keep him out, and then had

found him at my elbow. I could not doubt, either, that he was there,

because I was there, and that, however slight an appearance of danger

there might be about us, danger was always near and active.

I put such questions to Mr. Wopsle as, When did the man come in? He

could not tell me that; he saw me, and over my shoulder he saw the man.

It was not until he had seen him for some time that he began to identify

him; but he had from the first vaguely associated him with me, and

known him as somehow belonging to me in the old village time. How was

he dressed? Prosperously, but not noticeably otherwise; he thought, in

black. Was his face at all disfigured? No, he believed not. I believed

not too, for, although in my brooding state I had taken no especial

notice of the people behind me, I thought it likely that a face at all

disfigured would have attracted my attention.

When Mr. Wopsle had imparted to me all that he could recall or I

extract, and when I had treated him to a little appropriate refreshment,

after the fatigues of the evening, we parted. It was between twelve and

one o'clock when I reached the Temple, and the gates were shut. No one

was near me when I went in and went home.

Herbert had come in, and we held a very serious council by the fire. But

there was nothing to be done, saving to communicate to Wemmick what I

had that night found out, and to remind him that we waited for his hint.

As I thought that I might compromise him if I went too often to the

Castle, I made this communication by letter. I wrote it before I went to

bed, and went out and posted it; and again no one was near me. Herbert

and I agreed that we could do nothing else but be very cautious. And

we were very cautious indeed,--more cautious than before, if that were

possible,--and I for my part never went near Chinks's Basin, except

when I rowed by, and then I only looked at Mill Pond Bank as I looked at

anything else.