Sending her out to attract and torment and do
mischief, Miss Havisham sent her with the malicious assurance that
she was beyond the reach of all admirers, and that all who staked
upon that cast were secured to lose. I saw in this that I, too,
was tormented by a perversion of ingenuity, even while the prize
was reserved for me. I saw in this the reason for my being staved
off so long and the reason for my late guardian's declining to
commit himself to the formal knowledge of such a scheme. In a word,
I saw in this Miss Havisham as I had her then and there before my
eyes, and always had had her before my eyes; and I saw in this, the
distinct shadow of the darkened and unhealthy house in which her
life was hidden from the sun.
The candles that lighted that room of hers were placed in sconces
on the wall. They were high from the ground, and they burnt with
the steady dulness of artificial light in air that is seldom
renewed. As I looked round at them, and at the pale gloom they
made, and at the stopped clock, and at the withered articles of
bridal dress upon the table and the ground, and at her own awful
figure with its ghostly reflection thrown large by the fire upon
the ceiling and the wall, I saw in everything the construction that
my mind had come to, repeated and thrown back to me.
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