But I had quite determined that it would be a
heartless fraud to take more money from my patron in the existing
state of my uncertain thoughts and plans. Therefore, I had sent him
the unopened pocket-book by Herbert, to hold in his own keeping,
and I felt a kind of satisfaction--whether it was a false kind or
a true, I hardly know--in not having profited by his generosity
since his revelation of himself.
As the time wore on, an impression settled heavily upon me that
Estella was married. Fearful of having it confirmed, though it was
all but a conviction, I avoided the newspapers, and begged Herbert
(to whom I had confided the circumstances of our last interview)
never to speak of her to me. Why I hoarded up this last wretched
little rag of the robe of hope that was rent and given to the
winds, how do I know? Why did you who read this, commit that not
dissimilar inconsistency of your own last year, last month, last
week?
It was an unhappy life that I lived; and its one dominant anxiety,
towering over all its other anxieties, like a high mountain above a
range of mountains, never disappeared from my view. Still, no new
cause for fear arose. Let me start from my bed as I would, with the
terror fresh upon me that he was discovered; let me sit listening,
as I would with dread, for Herbert's returning step at night, lest
it should be fleeter than ordinary, and winged with evil news,--for
all that, and much more to like purpose, the round of things went
on.
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