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gentleman of you!” the convict said. “I swore I would. I lived rough so you could live smooth. I worked hard so you wouldn’t have to work. Pip, you are the gentleman I could never be!”
    I recoiled from him as if he were a snake. It pained me to know that a criminal had paid for the life I lived.
    My great expectations were dust. Miss Havisham wasn’t my benefactor. Estella was never intended for me. It was all a dream! What hurt the mostwas knowing that I had deserted Joe—for a convict.
    The convict took my hands again. My blood ran cold.
    “Where will I stay?” he asked. “I must stay somewhere, dear boy.”
    “To sleep?”
    “Yes. To sleep long and sound, for I’ve been at sea months and months.”
    I gave the man Herbert’s room. Even though I despised him, I could not let him wander the streets.
    My sleep that night was filled with nightmares.
    At breakfast the convict told me his name was Abel Magwitch. Then he dropped a thick wallet onto the table. It was full of money!
    “It’s all yours, dear boy,” he said. “Buy horses. I won’t have my gentleman walking in the mud. Buy horses to ride and horses to drive!”
    “Stop!” I cried. “I don’t want yourmoney. I want to know if the police are looking for you and how long you will be staying. You’re only visiting, aren’t your
    “I’ve come for good,” he said, lighting his pipe. “I can disguise myself, but the police will hang me if I’m caught. You tell me where I’ll live.”
    I hid Magwitch in my room. When Herbert got home, I told him the whole story. The convict shoved a Bible at him.
    “Take it in your right hand,” he said. “Swear you won’t tell a soul you saw me. Kiss it!”
    Now Herbert shared my awful secret. Our life together had taken a terrible turn.

Chapter Ten

The Other Convict
    “You must get him out of England,” Herbert told me when we were alone. “You will have to go with him, or else he won’t go.”
    As long as Magwitch lived in England, I was not free. I knew how much he wanted me to be “his gentleman.” I could not play the part anymore. I decided never to take another penny from this man. But I couldn’t let Magwitch be captured. He had done so much for me. I could not let him die.
    Magwitch stayed in the privacy of our rooms all day. He only slipped outside for some fresh air at night, under cover of darkness.
    One night, the gatekeeper told me he had seen a man with a scar watching our place. He had a rough-looking face and tattered clothes. He skulked around our house and under our windows.
    He must be after Magwitch
! I thought.
    The very next morning, I asked Magwitch about the scar-faced man.
    Magwitch filled his pipe and started his story.
    “The man’s name is Compeyson. I met him at the races years ago. He was a gentleman. He knew how to dress. But he was no better than a common thief!
    “Compeyson took me on as a partner. He set up the swindles—and the forgery, and the stolen money—and I did the dirty work. He had brains, but no heart!
    “When we were caught, Compeyson looked like a gentleman. I looked like a common wretch. He swore the only guilty one was me. He got seven years,while I got fourteen. I swore I would smash his face one day!”
    Magwitch pounded his fist on the table. He stopped to catch his breath.
    “I escaped the prison ship, and so did Compeyson. I caught him on the marshes, and we fought the night I first met you. I made sure he was sent back to the Hulks. I never heard from him again.”
    Magwitch told me that Compeyson was a friend of Miss Havisham’s half-brother.
He
was the man who’d pretended to love her. He was the one who left her on her wedding day!
    The pieces of this strange puzzle were starting to fit together.
    Herbert and I had to get Magwitch away from Compeyson. In a week, we moved him to Herbert’s girlfriend’s house at Mill Pond Bank. He would be safer there. The house was right on the river. Magwitch and I were catching asteamer out