Too heavily out of sorts to care much at the time whether it were

he or no, or after all to touch the breakfast, I washed the weather

and the journey from my face and hands, and went out to the

memorable old house that it would have been so much the better for

me never to have entered, never to have seen.

Chapter 44

In the room where the dressing-table stood, and where the wax

candles burnt on the wall, I found Miss Havisham and Estella; Miss

Havisham seated on a settee near the fire, and Estella on a cushion

at her feet. Estella was knitting, and Miss Havisham was looking

on. They both raised their eyes as I went in, and both saw an

alteration in me. I derived that, from the look they interchanged.

"And what wind," said Miss Havisham, "blows you here, Pip?"

Though she looked steadily at me, I saw that she was rather

confused. Estella, pausing a moment in her knitting with her eyes

upon me, and then going on, I fancied that I read in the action of

her fingers, as plainly as if she had told me in the dumb alphabet,

that she perceived I had discovered my real benefactor.

"Miss Havisham," said I, "I went to Richmond yesterday, to speak to

Estella; and finding that some wind had blown her here, I

followed."

Miss Havisham motioning to me for the third or fourth time to sit

down, I took the chair by the dressing-table, which I had often

seen her occupy. With all that ruin at my feet and about me, it

seemed a natural place for me, that day.

"What I had to say to Estella, Miss Havisham, I will say before

you, presently - in a few moments. It will not surprise you, it

will not displease you. I am as unhappy as you can ever have meant

me to be."

Miss Havisham continued to look steadily at me. I could see in the

action of Estella's fingers as they worked, that she attended to

what I said: but she did not look up.

"I have found out who my patron is. It is not a fortunate

discovery, and is not likely ever to enrich me in reputation,

station, fortune, anything. There are reasons why I must say no

more of that. It is not my secret, but another's."

As I was silent for a while, looking at Estella and considering how

to go on, Miss Havisham repeated, "It is not your secret, but

another's. Well?"

"When you first caused me to be brought here, Miss Havisham; when I

belonged to the village over yonder, that I wish I had never left;

I suppose I did really come here, as any other chance boy might

have come - as a kind of servant, to gratify a want or a whim, and

to be paid for it?"

"Ay, Pip," replied Miss Havisham, steadily nodding her head; "you

did."

"And that Mr. Jaggers--"

"Mr. Jaggers," said Miss Havisham, taking me up in a firm tone, "had

nothing to do with it, and knew nothing of it. His being my lawyer,

and his being the lawyer of your patron, is a coincidence. He holds

the same relation towards numbers of people, and it might easily

arise. Be that as it may, it did arise, and was not brought about

by any one."

Any one might have seen in her haggard face that there was no

suppression or evasion so far.

"But when I fell into the mistake I have so long remained in, at

least you led me on?" said I.

"Yes," she returned, again nodding, steadily, "I let you go on."

"Was that kind?"

"Who am I," cried Miss Havisham, striking her stick upon the floor

and flashing into wrath so suddenly that Estella glanced up at her

in surprise, "who am I, for God's sake, that I should be kind?"

It was a weak complaint to have made, and I had not meant to make

it. I told her so, as she sat brooding after this outburst.

"Well, well, well!" she said. "What else?"

"I was liberally paid for my old attendance here," I said, to

soothe her, "in being apprenticed, and I have asked these questions

only for my own information. What follows has another (and I hope

more disinterested) purpose.