softened by the softened aspect of the man, and
felt a touch of reproach. "I hope," said I,
hurriedly putting something into a glass for
myself, and drawing a chair to the table, "that
you will not think I spoke harshly to you just
now. I had no intention of doing it, and I am
sorry for it if I did. I wish you well, and
happy!"

As I put my glass to my lips, he glanced with
surprise at the end of his neckerchief, dropping
from his mouth when he opened it, and stretched
out his hand. I gave him mine, and then he
drank, and drew his sleeve across his eyes and
forehead.

"How are you living?" I asked him.

"I've been a sheep-farmer, stock-breeder,
other trades besides, away in the new world,"
said he; "many a thousand miles of stormy
water off from this."

"I hope you have done well?"

"I've done wonderful well. There's others
went out alonger me as has done well too, but
no man has done nigh as well as me. I'm famous
for it."

"I am glad to hear it."

"I hope to hear you say so, my dear boy."

Without stopping to try to understand those
words or the tone in which they were spoken, I
turned off to a point that had just come into my
mind.

"Have you ever seen a messenger you once
sent to me," I inquired, "since he undertook
that trust?"

"Never set eyes upon him. I warn't likely
to it."

"He came faithfully, and he brought me the
two one-pound notes. I was a poor boy then, as
you know, and to a poor boy they were a little
fortune. But, like you, I have done well since,
and you must let me pay them back. You can
put them to some other poor boy's use." I
took out my purse.

He watched me as I laid my purse upon the
table and opened it, and he watched me as I
separated two one-pound notes from its contents.
They were clean and new, and I spread them
out and handed them over to him. Still watching
me, he laid them one upon the other, folded
them long-wise, gave them a twist, set fire to
them at the lamp, and dropped the ashes into
the tray.

"May I make so bold," he said then, with a
smile that was like a frown, and with a frown
that was like a smile, "as ask you how you have
done well, since you and me was out on them
lone shivering marshes?"

"How?"

"Ah!"

He emptied his glass, got up, and stood at
the side of the fire, with his heavy brown hand
on the mantelshelf. He put a foot up to the
bars, to dry and warm it, and the wet boot
began to steam; but he neither looked at it,
nor at the fire, but steadily looked at me. It
was only now that I began to tremble.

When my lips had parted and had shaped some
words that were without sound, I forced myself
to tell him (though I could not do it distinctly),
that I had been chosen to succeed to some
property.

"Might a mere warmint ask what property?"
said he.

I faltered, "I don't know."

"Might a mere warmint ask whose property?"
said he.

I faltered again, "I don't know."

"Could I make a guess, I wonder," said the
Convict, "at your income since you come of
age! As to the first figure now. Five?"

With my heart beating like a heavy hammer
of disordered action, I rose out of my chair, and
stood with my hand upon the back of it, looking
wildly at him.

"Concerning a guardian," he went on.
"There ought to have been some guardian, or
such-like, while you was a minor. Some lawyer,
maybe. As to the first letter of that lawyer's
name now. Would it be J?"

All the truth of my position came flashing on
me; and its disappointments, dangers, disgraces,
consequences of all kinds, rushed in in such a
multitude that I was borne down by them and
had to struggle for every breath I drew.

"Put it," he resumed, "as the employer of
that lawyer whose name begun with a J, and
might be Jaggers—put it as he had come over
sea to Portsmouth, and had landed there, and
had wanted to come on to you. 'However, you
have found me out,' you says just now. Well!
However did I find you out? Why, I wrote
from Portsmouth to a person in London, for
particulars of your address. That person's
name? Why, Wemmick."

I could not have spoken one word, though it
had been to save my life. I stood, with a hand
on the chair-back and a hand on my breast,
where I seemed to be suffocating—I stood so,
looking wildly at him, until I grasped at the
chair, when the room began to surge and turn.
He caught me, drew me to the sofa, put me up
against the cushions, and bent on one knee
before me: bringing the face that I now well
remembered, and that I shuddered at, very near
to mine.

"Yes, Pip, dear boy, I've made a gentleman
on you! It's me wot has done it! I swore
that time, sure as ever I earned a guinea, that
guinea should go to you. I swore arterwards,
sure as ever I spec'lated and got rich, you should
get rich. I lived rough, that you should live
smooth; I worked hard, that you should be
above work. What odds, dear boy? Do I tell
it, fur you to feel a obligation? Not a bit. I
tell it, fur you to know as that there hunted
dunghill dog wot you kep life in, got his head so
high that he could make a gentleman—and, Pip,
you're him!"

The abhorrence in which I held the man, the
dread I had of him, the repugnance with which
I shrank from him, could not have been exceeded
if he had been some terrible beast.

"Look'ee here, Pip. I'm your second father.
You're my son—more to me nor any son. I've
put away money, only for you to spend. When