Still, I love you. I have loved you ever since I first saw you in

this house."

Looking at me perfectly unmoved and with her fingers busy, she

shook her head again.

"It would have been cruel in Miss Havisham, horribly cruel, to

practise on the susceptibility of a poor boy, and to torture me

through all these years with a vain hope and an idle pursuit, if

she had reflected on the gravity of what she did. But I think she

did not. I think that in the endurance of her own trial, she forgot

mine, Estella."

I saw Miss Havisham put her hand to her heart and hold it there, as

she sat looking by turns at Estella and at me.

"It seems," said Estella, very calmly, "that there are sentiments,

fancies - I don't know how to call them - which I am not able to

comprehend. When you say you love me, I know what you mean, as a

form of words; but nothing more. You address nothing in my breast,

you touch nothing there. I don't care for what you say at all. I

have tried to warn you of this; now, have I not?"

I said in a miserable manner, "Yes."

"Yes. But you would not be warned, for you thought I did not mean

it. Now, did you not think so?"

"I thought and hoped you could not mean it. You, so young, untried,

and beautiful, Estella! Surely it is not in Nature."

"It is in my nature," she returned. And then she added, with a

stress upon the words, "It is in the nature formed within me. I

make a great difference between you and all other people when I say

so much. I can do no more."

"Is it not true," said I, "that Bentley Drummle is in town here,

and pursuing you?"

"It is quite true," she replied, referring to him with the

indifference of utter contempt.

"That you encourage him, and ride out with him, and that he dines

with you this very day?"

She seemed a little surprised that I should know it, but again

replied, "Quite true."

"You cannot love him, Estella!"

Her fingers stopped for the first time, as she retorted rather

angrily, "What have I told you? Do you still think, in spite of it,

that I do not mean what I say?"

"You would never marry him, Estella?"

She looked towards Miss Havisham, and considered for a moment with

her work in her hands. Then she said, "Why not tell you the truth?

I am going to be married to him."

I dropped my face into my hands, but was able to control myself

better than I could have expected, considering what agony it gave

me to hear her say those words. When I raised my face again, there

was such a ghastly look upon Miss Havisham's, that it impressed me,

even in my passionate hurry and grief.

"Estella, dearest dearest Estella, do not let Miss Havisham lead

you into this fatal step. Put me aside for ever - you have done so,

I well know - but bestow yourself on some worthier person than

Drummle. Miss Havisham gives you to him, as the greatest slight and

injury that could be done to the many far better men who admire

you, and to the few who truly love you. Among those few, there may

be one who loves you even as dearly, though he has not loved you as

long, as I. Take him, and I can bear it better, for your sake!"

My earnestness awoke a wonder in her that seemed as if it would

have been touched with compassion, if she could have rendered me at

all intelligible to her own mind.

"I am going," she said again, in a gentler voice, "to be married to

him. The preparations for my marriage are making, and I shall be

married soon. Why do you injuriously introduce the name of my

mother by adoption? It is my own act."

"Your own act, Estella, to fling yourself away upon a brute?"

"On whom should I fling myself away?" she retorted, with a smile.

"Should I fling myself away upon the man who would the soonest feel

(if people do feel such things) that I took nothing to him? There!

It is done. I shall do well enough, and so will my husband.