The bill paid, and the waiter remembered, and the ostler not forgotten, and the chambermaid taken into consideration,--in a word, the whole house bribed into a state of contempt and animosity, and Estella's purse much lightened,--we got into our post-coach and drove away. Turning into Cheapside and rattling up Newgate Street, we were soon under the walls of which I was so ashamed.

     "What place is that?" Estella asked me.

     I made a foolish pretence of not at first recognizing it, and then told her. As she looked at it, and drew in her head again, murmuring, "Wretches!" I would not have confessed to my visit for any consideration.

     "Mr. Jaggers," said I, by way of putting it neatly on somebody else, "has the reputation of being more in the secrets of that dismal place than any man in London."

     "He is more in the secrets of every place, I think," said Estella, in a low voice.

     "You have been accustomed to see him often, I suppose?"

     "I have been accustomed to see him at uncertain intervals, ever since I can remember. But I know him no better now, than I did before I could speak plainly. What is your own experience of him? Do you advance with him?"