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nothing to do with my adoptive mother! It is my own act. I want to change my life. Say no more. We will never understand each other.”
    “Drummle is a mean, stupid brute!” I shouted. I was desperate.
    “Don’t think I will make Bentley’slife a happy one,” said Estella. “Come! Here is my hand. Let us part friends.”
    “Oh, Estella,” I said.
    But there was no use in pleading. I held her hand to my lips. My bitter tears fell onto her smooth skin. I knew in my soul that whatever happened, Estella would always be a part of me.

Chapter Nine

My Benefactor
    By my twenty-third birthday, I still did not know the name of my benefactor. Herbert and I were living at Garden Court, down by the river.
    Outside, a storm had been raging for days. The wind and rain drenched everything in its path. Today had been the worst of all.
    I stayed indoors all day. I tried to keep busy. In the evening, I sat in my room reading. Herbert was in France on business. I missed his cheerful face.
    Suddenly I heard a footstep on the stair.
    I took my reading lamp into the hall. The footsteps stopped.
    “Is someone down there?” I called.
    “Yes,” said a voice from the darkness below.
    “What floor do you want?” I asked.
    “I want Mr. Pip’s floor,” the stranger replied.
    “I am Mr. Pip,” I said.
    I held the lamp over the railing, and the man came up the stairs. I could not see his face, but I could see that he wore seaman’s clothes. His hair was long and gray. He looked about sixty years old.
    The man climbed the last stair. He looked at me as if he knew me. I did not recognize him.
    “What is your business?” I asked.
    “My business?” repeated the man. “I will tell you.”
    The seaman entered my room and looked around with pleasure. He took off his coat and hat and held out both his hands to me.
    “What do you want?” I asked. I feared he might be crazy.
    “I have waited many years for thisday, and come so far. Give me a minute, please.”
    He sat down and covered his forehead with one hand. Suddenly he looked over his shoulder.
    “There’s no one here with you, is there?” he asked nervously.
    “How can you, a stranger, come into my room and ask that question?”
    “You’re a game one,” he replied, shaking his head fondly at me. “I’m glad you growed up a game one!”
    Suddenly his face became familiar to me. It was the man in the graveyard! I stood face to face with my convict!
    He stood and held out his hands once again. I did not know what to do. I put my hands in his. He grabbed them.
    “You acted nobly, my boy,” he said. “Noble Pip! I have never forgotten what you did for me in the churchyard!”
    I pulled away. I was afraid he might hug me.
    “Keep away!” I said. “I don’t needthanks for what I did for you when I was a child. Just live a changed life. That is all the thanks I need.”
    I could see that my words hurt him. I tried to soften them.
    “You are wet and tired. Will you have a drink before you go?” I offered.
    I made my convict some hot rum- and-water. I did not want him to stay long, so I stood while he drank.
    My convict told me what had happened to him after we parted. He escaped the Hulks a second time and made his way to Australia, where he became a sheep farmer. He made a lot of money.
    “And you’ve done well, too,” he said. “How?”
    I started to tremble. “I—have a benefactor,” I said.
    “By chance, does your yearly income start with the number five?” he asked.
    My heart beat like a heavy hammer. My yearly income was five hundredpounds! But how could the convict know that? We hadn’t seen each other since that fateful night in the marsh.
    “You had a guardian before you turned twenty-one,” he continued. “Could the first letter of that man’s last name be a J? Could the man’s name be Jaggers?”
    I could not speak. I could hardly breathe. The horrible truth became clear to me. This convict was my benefactor!
    “Yes, Pip, dear boy, I’ve made a