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I explained my agreement with Clarrikers to make Herbert a partner. Nine hundred pounds still had to be paid.

"Tell me, Pip," she said, stretching out her hand to me, "how can I help your friend? You said something about it last time."

"can't I help you yourself, Pip?"

"There is nothing you can do," I answered.

When I went to see Miss Havisham the next day, as she had requested, her house looked darker than ever, and I realized how lonely she was without Estella. She looked sadly at me.

"And you will be happier if I pay this?"

"Much happier."

"Oh Miss Havisham," I said, "I can do it now. We have all made mistakes. I can't be bitter with anyone."

She wrote a cheque which she handed to me. "Mr Jaggers will give you the money. And -- here, Pip," handing me another piece of paper, "here is a note with my name on. If, one day, you can write under my name 'I forgive her', please do it."

"What have I done, Pip!" she cried, dropping to her knees in front of me. "I should never have brought up Estella like that, or allowed you to be hurt!"

I sent for a doctor, who cleaned her wounds. Her bed was placed on the great dining table, where her wedding cake had been, and she lay there, covered with a white sheet, half conscions. I could not stay, but left her in the care of the doctor and several nurses, and returned to London.

"Could I ask you something about Estella? How and why did you adopt her?"

My hands and right arm had been badly burnt. But although I was in great pain, I was desperate to know if Magwitch was safe.

We had no more to say to each other, and so I left. But on my way through the old garden I had a strange feeling that something was wrong, and I ran back upstairs to check that Miss Havisham was all right. As I opened the door of her room, I saw her sitting close to the fire. Suddenly a great flame lit the room. She turned and rushed towards me, screaming, her hair and clothes on fire. Somehow I managed to cover her with my coat and put out the flames with my hands.

"I never knew her parents," she said quietly. "I asked Jaggers to find a little girl for me to adopt, and he brought Estella here, when she was about three."

"No," replied Herbert, after examining me carefully, "although you do look a little excited."

"How old was the child?" I asked, trying to control my excitement.

"She would have been about your age, if she had lived."

"Everything's fine, Handel," Herbert told me calmly, as he gently put bandages on my hands. "He seems much pleasanter than before. I actually like him now. Do you know, yesterday he was telling me about his past. Apparently at one time he was married to a young woman who was jealous of another woman. There was a fight, and his wife killed the other Luckily for her, she had a clever lawyer at her trial, and was never punished for the murder. She and Magwitch had a daughter, who Magwitch dearly loved Both wife and child disappeared after the trial, and he thought his wife must have killed their daughter."

The next day, although I felt ill and weak, because of my burns, I went straight to Jaggers' office. He admitted that Estella was his housekeeper's daughter, adopted by Miss Havisham to give her the chance of a better life. But even he, the great Jaggers, did not know that Magwitch was Estella's father.

"Herbert," I said, "am I ill or mad or anything?"

"Listen, Herbert. Magwitch is Estella's father."