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1In vain should I attempt to describe the astonishment and disquiet of Herbert, when he and I and Provis sat down before
2the fire, and I recounted the whole of the secret. Enough, that I saw my own feelings reflected in Herbert's face, and
3not least among them, my repugnance towards the man who had done so much for me. What would alone have set a division
4between that man and us, if there had been no other dividing circumstance, was his triumph in my story. Saving his
5troublesome sense of having been "low" on one occasion since his return,--on which point he began to hold forth to
6Herbert, the moment my revelation was finished,--he had no perception of the possibility of my finding any fault with my
7good fortune. His boast that he had made me a gentleman, and that he had come to see me support the character on his
8ample resources, was made for me quite as much as for himself. And that it was a highly agreeable boast to both of us,
9and that we must both be very proud of it, was a conclusion quite established in his own mind. "Though, look'ee here,
10Pip's comrade," he said to Herbert, after having discoursed for some time, "I know very well that once since I come
11back--for half a minute--I've been low. I said to Pip, I knowed as I had been low. But don't you fret yourself on that
12score. I ain't made Pip a gentleman, and Pip ain't a-going to make you a gentleman, not fur me not to know what's due to
13ye both. Dear boy, and Pip's comrade, you two may count upon me always having a genteel muzzle on. Muzzled I have been
14since that half a minute when I was betrayed into lowness, muzzled I am at the present time, muzzled I ever will be."
15Herbert said, "Certainly," but looked as if there were no specific consolation in this, and remained perplexed and
16dismayed. We were anxious for the time when he would go to his lodging and leave us together, but he was evidently
17jealous of leaving us together, and sat late. It was midnight before I took him round to Essex Street, and saw him
18safely in at his own dark door. When it closed upon him, I experienced the first moment of relief I had known since the
19night of his arrival. Never quite free from an uneasy remembrance of the man on the stairs, I had always looked about me
20in taking my guest out after dark, and in bringing him back; and I looked about me now. Difficult as it is in a large
21city to avoid the suspicion of being watched, when the mind is conscious of danger in that regard, I could not persuade
22myself that any of the people within sight cared about my movements. The few who were passing passed on their several
23ways, and the street was empty when I turned back into the Temple. Nobody had come out at the gate with us, nobody went
24in at the gate with me. As I crossed by the fountain, I saw his lighted back windows looking bright and quiet, and, when
25I stood for a few moments in the doorway of the building where I lived, before going up the stairs, Garden Court was as
26still and lifeless as the staircase was when I ascended it. Herbert received me with open arms, and I had never felt
27before so blessedly what it is to have a friend. When he had spoken some sound words of sympathy and encouragement, we
28sat down to consider the question, What was to be done? The chair that Provis had occupied still remaining where it had
29stood,--for he had a barrack way with him of hanging about one spot, in one unsettled manner, and going through one
30round of observances with his pipe and his negro-head and his jackknife and his pack of cards, and what not, as if it
31were all put down for him on a slate,--I say his chair remaining where it had stood, Herbert unconsciously took it, but
32next moment started out of it, pushed it away, and took another. He had no occasion to say after that that he had
33conceived an aversion for my patron, neither had I occasion to confess my own. We interchanged that confidence without
34shaping a syllable. "What," said I to Herbert, when he was safe in another chair,--"what is to be done?" "My poor dear
35Handel," he replied, holding his head, "I am too stunned to think." "So was I, Herbert, when the blow first fell. Still,
36something must be done. He is intent upon various new expenses,--horses, and carriages, and lavish appearances of all
37kinds. He must be stopped somehow." "You mean that you can't accept--" "How can I?" I interposed, as Herbert paused.
38"Think of him! Look at him!" An involuntary shudder passed over both of us. "Yet I am afraid the dreadful truth is,
39Herbert, that he is attached to me, strongly attached to me. Was there ever such a fate!" "My poor dear Handel," Herbert
40repeated. "Then," said I, "after all, stopping short here, never taking another penny from him, think what I owe him
41already! Then again: I am heavily in debt,--very heavily for me, who have now no expectations,--and I have been bred to
42no calling, and I am fit for nothing." "Well, well, well!" Herbert remonstrated. "Don't say fit for nothing." "What am I
43fit for? I know only one thing that I am fit for, and that is, to go for a soldier. And I might have gone, my dear
44Herbert, but for the prospect of taking counsel with your friendship and affection." Of course I broke down there: and
45of course Herbert, beyond seizing a warm grip of my hand, pretended not to know it. "Anyhow, my dear Handel," said he
46presently, "soldiering won't do. If you were to renounce this patronage and these favours, I suppose you would do so
47with some faint hope of one day repaying what you have already had. Not very strong, that hope, if you went soldiering!
48Besides, it's absurd. You would be infinitely better in Clarriker's house, small as it is. I am working up towards a
49partnership, you know." Poor fellow! He little suspected with whose money. "But there is another question," said
50Herbert. "This is an ignorant, determined man, who has long had one fixed idea. More than that, he seems to me (I may
51misjudge him) to be a man of a desperate and fierce character." "I know he is," I returned. "Let me tell you what
52evidence I have seen of it." And I told him what I had not mentioned in my narrative, of that encounter with the other
53convict. "See, then," said Herbert; "think of this! He comes here at the peril of his life, for the realisation of his
54fixed idea. In the moment of realisation, after all his toil and waiting, you cut the ground from under his feet,
55destroy his idea, and make his gains worthless to him. Do you see nothing that he might do, under the disappointment?"
56"I have seen it, Herbert, and dreamed of it, ever since the fatal night of his arrival. Nothing has been in my thoughts
57so distinctly as his putting himself in the way of being taken." "Then you may rely upon it," said Herbert, "that there
58would be great danger of his doing it. That is his power over you as long as he remains in England, and that would be
59his reckless course if you forsook him." I was so struck by the horror of this idea, which had weighed upon me from the
60first, and the working out of which would make me regard myself, in some sort, as his murderer, that I could not rest in
61my chair, but began pacing to and fro. I said to Herbert, meanwhile, that even if Provis were recognised and taken, in
62spite of himself, I should be wretched as the cause, however innocently. Yes; even though I was so wretched in having
63him at large and near me, and even though I would far rather have worked at the forge all the days of my life than I
64would ever have come to this! But there was no staving off the question, What was to be done? "The first and the main
65thing to be done," said Herbert, "is to get him out of England. You will have to go with him, and then he may be induced
66to go." "But get him where I will, could I prevent his coming back?"
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