Great Expectations

"It is impossible to be gentler, Herbert. Yes? What else?"

"This acquitted young woman and Provis had a little child; a little

child of whom Provis was exceedingly fond. On the evening of the very

night when the object of her jealousy was strangled as I tell you, the

young woman presented herself before Provis for one moment, and swore

that she would destroy the child (which was in her possession), and he

should never see it again; then she vanished.--There's the worst arm

comfortably in the sling once more, and now there remains but the right

hand, which is a far easier job. I can do it better by this light

than by a stronger, for my hand is steadiest when I don't see the poor

blistered patches too distinctly.--You don't think your breathing is

affected, my dear boy? You seem to breathe quickly."

"Perhaps I do, Herbert. Did the woman keep her oath?"

"There comes the darkest part of Provis's life. She did."

"That is, he says she did."

"Why, of course, my dear boy," returned Herbert, in a tone of surprise,

and again bending forward to get a nearer look at me. "He says it all. I

have no other information."

"No, to be sure."

"Now, whether," pursued Herbert, "he had used the child's mother ill, or

whether he had used the child's mother well, Provis doesn't say; but she

had shared some four or five years of the wretched life he described

to us at this fireside, and he seems to have felt pity for her, and

forbearance towards her. Therefore, fearing he should be called upon to

depose about this destroyed child, and so be the cause of her death, he

hid himself (much as he grieved for the child), kept himself dark, as he

says, out of the way and out of the trial, and was only vaguely talked

of as a certain man called Abel, out of whom the jealousy arose. After

the acquittal she disappeared, and thus he lost the child and the

child's mother."

"I want to ask--"

"A moment, my dear boy, and I have done. That evil genius, Compeyson,

the worst of scoundrels among many scoundrels, knowing of his keeping

out of the way at that time and of his reasons for doing so, of course

afterwards held the knowledge over his head as a means of keeping him

poorer and working him harder. It was clear last night that this barbed

the point of Provis's animosity."