"Why must it be done without his knowledge?" she asked, settling
her hands upon her stick, that she might regard me the more
attentively.
"Because," said I, "I began the service myself, more than two years
ago, without his knowledge, and I don't want to be betrayed. Why I
fail in my ability to finish it, I cannot explain. It is a part of
the secret which is another person's and not mine."
She gradually withdrew her eyes from me, and turned them on the
fire. After watching it for what appeared in the silence and by the
light of the slowly wasting candles to be a long time, she was
roused by the collapse of some of the red coals, and looked towards
me again - at first, vacantly - then, with a gradually
concentrating attention. All this time, Estella knitted on. When
Miss Havisham had fixed her attention on me, she said, speaking as
if there had been no lapse in our dialogue:
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