st
him.

After a pause, I hinted,--

"There was a question just now, Mr. Jaggers, which you desired me to
waive for a moment. I hope I am doing nothing wrong in asking it again?"

"What is it?" said he.

I might have known that he would never help me out; but it took me aback
to have to shape the question afresh, as if it were quite new. "Is it
likely," I said, after hesitating, "that my patron, the fountain-head
you have spoken of, Mr. Jaggers, will soon--" there I delicately
stopped.

"Will soon what?" asked Mr. Jaggers. "That's no question as it stands,
you know."

"Will soon come to London," said I, after casting about for a precise
form of words, "or summon me anywhere else?"

"Now, here," replied Mr. Jaggers, fixing me for the first time with
his dark deep-set eyes, "we must revert to the evening when we first
encountered one another in your village. What did I tell you then, Pip?"

"You told me, Mr. Jaggers, that it might be years hence when that person
appeared."

"Just so," said Mr. Jaggers, "that's my answer."

As we looked full at one another, I felt my breath come quicker in my
strong desire to get something out of him. And as I felt that it came
quicker, and as I felt that he saw that it came quicker, I felt that I
had less chance than ever of getting anything out of him.

"Do you suppose it will still be years hence, Mr. Jaggers?"

Mr. Jaggers shook his head,--not in negativing the question, but in
altogether negativing the notion that he could anyhow be got to answer
it,--and the two horrible casts of the twitched faces looked, when
my eyes strayed up to them, as if they had come to a crisis in their
suspended attention, and were going to sneeze.

"Come!" said Mr. Jaggers, warming the backs of his legs with the backs
of his warmed hands, "I'll be plain with you, my friend Pip. That's a
question I must not be asked. You'll understand that better, when I tell
you it's a question that might compromise me. Come! I'll go a little
further with you; I'll say something more."

He bent down so low to frown at his boots, that he was able to rub the
calves of his legs in the pause he made.

"When that person discloses," said Mr. Jaggers, straightening himself,
"you and that person will settle your own affairs. When that person
discloses, my part in this business will cease and determine. When that
person discloses, it will not be necessary for me to know anything about
it. And that's all I have g