Throughout this part of our intercourse,--and it lasted, as will presently be seen, for what I then thought a long time,--she habitually reverted to that tone which expressed that our association was forced upon us. There were other times when she would come to a sudden check in this tone and in all her many tones, and would seem to pity me.

     "Pip, Pip," she said one evening, coming to such a check, when we sat apart at a darkening window of the house in Richmond; "will you never take warning?"

     "Of what?"

     "Of me."

     "Warning not to be attracted by you, do you mean, Estella?"

     "Do I mean! If you don't know what I mean, you are blind."

     I should have replied that Love was commonly reputed blind, but for the reason that I always was restrained--and this was not the least of my miseries--by a feeling that it was ungenerous to press myself upon her, when she knew that she could not choose but obey Miss Havisham. My dread always was, that this knowledge on her part laid me under a heavy disadvantage with her pride, and made me the subject of a rebellious struggle in her bosom.