That evening I visited the house, and met Clara, a lovely girl, obviously in love with Herbert. How lucky she and Herbert were! I thought of Estella, and felt very sad.

"Our friend is there now," said Wemmick, "and you can visit him tonight, but don't go back there after that. And remember, Mr Pip," he added firmly, "remember to get his cash. You don't know what may happen to him. Don't let anything happen to his cash."

I could not explain to Wemmick how I felt about Magwich's money, so I said nothing.

I spent a restless night at a hotel, worrying about the reasons for Wemmick's warning. Early in the morning I went to see him at the Castle. He told me he had heard I was being watched, and that someone was looking for Magwitch. He also knew that Compeyson was alive and in London. While I was absent, Wemmick had warned Herbert to move our guest to a safer place. Clara, the girl Herbert was in love with, lived with her old father in a house on the river, quite near the open sea, and Herbert had arranged to rent rooms for Magwitch in this house. It was further away from the centre of London and our home, and we could easily take Magwitch abroad by boat from there.

I decided to keep a rowing boat near our rooms, so that Herbert or I could row up and down the river, as far as Clara's house. If Magwitch saw us on the river, he could draw his bedroom curtain to show everything was all right.

"You didn't see that man sitting right behind you, Mr Pip?"

Magwitch seemed quieter and more likeable than the last time I had seen him. He accepted all our arrangements for him gratefully. I was almost sorry to say goodbye to him.

For the next few weeks, life went on as normal. Herbert went to work and visited Clara in the evenings. I rowed on the river, and waited for news from Wemmick.

I felt suddenly cold. "Who was he?" I asked.

"You remember, Mr Pip, that Christmas Day, when you were a boy? We went on to the marshes with the soldiers and found the escaped convicts fighting each other. Well, one of those two was looking over your shoulder tonight."

One evening, instead of reading alone in my room, I went to the theatre where Mr Wopsle was acting. He noticed me in the audience, and kept looking at me in a very strange way. After the play we met outside the theatre, and he asked immediately,

"The one with the bleeding face," he answered.

"Which one?" I asked, holding my breath.

So Compeyson was still following me! I knew Magwitch was in great danger. Later that evening Herbert and I discussed the problem, and promised each other to be more careful than ever.

Then Jaggers said, "Well, Pip! Our friend Drummle has won a great prize! He has married Estella!"

About a week later I met Mr Jaggers by chance in the street, and he invited me to dinner that evening. Wemmick was there too. Mr Jaggers told me Miss Havisham wished to see me on business, so I said I would go the next day.

I had been expecting this news for some time but it still came as a terrible shock.

"I wonder," continued Jaggers, "who will be the stronger in the end, the wife or the husband? He may beat her --"

Just then I noticed the housekeeper putting a dish on the table. I stared at her. I had seen exactly such eyes, and such hands, very recently! And suddenly I was absolutely certain that this woman was Estella's mother.

"Surely he isn't wicked enough to do that!" I cried.

"He may, or he may not. But she is certainly more intelligent than him. We shall see."

Later, as Wemmick and I left Jaggers' house together, I asked him about his employer's housekeeper. He told me that, many years before, she had been jealous of her husband and another woman, and had been accused of murdering this woman. Jaggers was her lawyer, and at her trial he managed to show that she was not strong enough to kill anyone. She was also suspected of killing her three-year-old daughter, who had disappeared. But because of Jaggers' clever arguing, she was judged innocent of murder. After the trial she left her husband and became Jaggers' housekeeper.