ed, 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.

It