"Nine hundred pounds."
"If I give you the money for this purpose, will you keep my secret
as you have kept your own?"
"Quite as faithfully."
"And your mind will be more at rest?"
"Much more at rest."
"Are you very unhappy now?"
She asked this question, still without looking at me, but in an
unwonted tone of sympathy. I could not reply at the moment, for my
voice failed me. She put her left arm across the head of her stick,
and softly laid her forehead on it.
"I am far from happy, Miss Havisham; but I have other causes of
disquiet than any you know of. They are the secrets I have
mentioned."
After a little while, she raised her head, and looked at the fire
Again.
"It is noble in you to tell me that you have other causes of
unhappiness, Is it true?"
"Too true."
"Can I only serve you, Pip, by serving your friend? Regarding that
as done, is there nothing I can do for you yourself?"
"Nothing. I thank you for the question. I thank you even more for
the tone of the question. But there is nothing."
She presently rose from her seat, and looked about the blighted
room for the means of writing. There were none there, and she took
from her pocket a yellow set of ivory tablets, mounted in tarnished
gold, and wrote upon them with a pencil in a case of tarnished gold
that hung from her neck.
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