" said Estella,--"which is a nearer case,--if you had taught her,
from the dawn of her intelligence, with your utmost energy and might,
that there was such a thing as daylight, but that it was made to be her
enemy and destroyer, and she must always turn against it, for it had
blighted you and would else blight her;--if you had done this, and then,
for a purpose, had wanted her to take naturally to the daylight and she
could not do it, you would have been disappointed and angry?"

Miss Havisham sat listening (or it seemed so, for I could not see her
face), but still made no answer.

"So," said Estella, "I must be taken as I have been made. The success is
not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me."

Miss Havisham had settled down, I hardly knew how, upon the floor, among
the faded bridal relics with which it was strewn. I took advantage of
the moment--I had sought one from the first--to leave the room, after
beseeching Estella's attention to her, with a movement of my hand. When
I left, Estella was yet standing by the great chimney-piece, just as she
had stood throughout. Miss Havisham's gray hair was all adrift upon the
ground, among the other bridal wrecks, and was a miserable sight to see.

It was with a depressed heart that I walked in the starlight for an
hour and more, about the courtyard, and about the brewery, and about
the ruined garden. When I at last took courage to return to the room, I
found Estella sitting at Miss Havisham's knee, taking up some stitches
in one of those old articles of dress that were dropping to pieces, and
of which I have often been reminded since by the faded tatters of old
banners that I have seen hanging up in cathedrals. Afterwards, Estella
and I played at cards, as of yore,--only we were skilful now, and played
French games,--and so the evening wore away, and I went to bed.

I lay in that separate building across the courtyard. It was the first
time I had ever lain down to rest in Satis House, and sleep refused to
come near me. A thousand Miss Havishams haunted me. She was on this side
of my pillow, on that, at the head of the bed, at the foot, behind the
half-opened door of the dressing-room, in the dressing-room, in the room
overhead, in the room beneath,--everywhere. At last, when the night was
slow to creep on towards two o'clock, I felt that I absolutely could no
longer bear the place as a place to lie down in, and that I must get up.
I therefore got up a