What nervous folly made me start, and awfully connect it with the footstep of my dead sister, matters not. It was past in a moment, and I listened again, and heard the footstep stumble in coming on. Remembering then, that the staircase-lights were blown out, I took up my reading-lamp and went out to the stair-head. Whoever was below had stopped on seeing my lamp, for all was quiet.

     "There is some one down there, is there not?" I called out, looking down.

     "Yes," said a voice from the darkness beneath.

     "What floor do you want?"

     "The top. Mr. Pip."

     "That is my name.--There is nothing the matter?"

     "Nothing the matter," returned the voice. And the man came on.

     I stood with my lamp held out over the stair-rail, and he came slowly within its light. It was a shaded lamp, to shine upon a book, and its circle of light was very contracted; so that he was in it for a mere instant, and then out of it. In the instant, I had seen a face that was strange to me, looking up with an incomprehensible air of being touched and pleased by the sight of me.