in the way of her duties, but she was tamed
from the beginning."

"Do you remember the sex of the child?"

"Said to have been a girl."

"You have nothing more to say to me to-night?"

"Nothing. I got your letter and destroyed it. Nothing."

We exchanged a cordial good-night, and I went home, with new matter for
my thoughts, though with no relief from the old.

Chapter XLIX

Putting Miss Havisham's note in my pocket, that it might serve as
my credentials for so soon reappearing at Satis House, in case her
waywardness should lead her to express any surprise at seeing me, I went
down again by the coach next day. But I alighted at the Halfway House,
and breakfasted there, and walked the rest of the distance; for I sought
to get into the town quietly by the unfrequented ways, and to leave it
in the same manner.

The best light of the day was gone when I passed along the quiet echoing
courts behind the High Street. The nooks of ruin where the old monks had
once had their refectories and gardens, and where the strong walls were
now pressed into the service of humble sheds and stables, were almost
as silent as the old monks in their graves. The cathedral chimes had at
once a sadder and a more remote sound to me, as I hurried on avoiding
observation, than they had ever had before; so, the swell of the old
organ was borne to my ears like funeral music; and the rooks, as they
hovered about the gray tower and swung in the bare high trees of the
priory garden, seemed to call to me that the place was changed, and that
Estella was gone out of it for ever.

An elderly woman, whom I had seen before as one of the servants who
lived in the supplementary house across the back courtyard, opened the
gate. The lighted candle stood in the dark passage within, as of old,
and I took it up and ascended the staircase alone. Miss Havisham was not
in her own room, but was in the larger room across the landing. Looking
in at the door, after knocking in vain, I saw her sitting on the hearth
in a ragged chair, close before, and lost in the contemplation of, the
ashy fire.

Doing as I had often done, I went in, and stood touching the old
chimney-piece, where she could see me when she raised her eyes. There
was an air or utter loneliness upon her, that would have moved me to
pity though she had wilfully done me a deeper injury than I could charge
her with. As I stood compassionating her, and thinking how, in the
progress of time, I too