"And you remember that we came up with
the two in a ditch, and that there was a scuffle
between them, and that one of them had been
severely handled and much mauled about the
face, by the other?"

"I see it all before me."

"And that the soldiers lighted torches, and
put the two in the centre, and that we went on
to see the last of them, over the black marshes,
with the torchlight shining on their faces—I
am particular about that; with the torchlight
shining on their faces, when there was an outer
ring of dark night all about us?"

"Yes," said I. "I remember all that."

"Then, Mr. Pip, one of those two prisoners
sat behind you to-night. I saw him over your
shoulder."

"Steady!" I thought. I asked him then,
"Which of the two do you suppose you saw?"

"The one who had been mauled," he
answered readily, "and I'll swear I saw him!
The more I think of him, the more certain I am
of him."

"This is very curious!" said I, with the best
assumption I could put on, of its being nothing
more to me. "Very curious indeed!"

I cannot exaggerate the enhanced disquiet
into which this conversation threw me, or the
special and peculiar terror I felt at Compeyson's
having been behind me "like a ghost." For,
if he had ever been out of my thoughts for a few
moments together since the hiding had begun, it
was in those very moments when he was closest
to me; and to think that I should be so
unconscious and off my guard after all my care,
was as if I had shut an avenue of a hundred
doors to keep him out, and then had found him
at my elbow. I could not doubt either that he
was there, because I was there, and that
however slight an appearance of danger there might
be about us, danger was always near and
active.

I put such questions to Mr.Wopsle as, When
did the man come in? He could not tell me
that; he saw me, and over my shoulder he saw
the man. It was not until he had seen him for
some time that he began to identify him; but
he had from the first vaguely associated him
with me, and known him as somehow belonging
to me in the old village time. How was he
dressed? Prosperously, but not noticeably
otherwise; he thought, in black. Was his face
at all disfigured? No, he believed not. I
believed not, too, for, although in my brooding
I had taken no especial notice of the
people behind me, I thought it likely that a face
at all disfigured would have attracted my
attention.

When Mr. Wopsle had imparted to me all
that he could recall or I extract, and when I
had treated him to a little appropriate
refreshment after the fatigues of the evening, we
parted. It was between twelve and one o'clock
when I reached the Temple, and the gates were
shut. No one was near me when I went in and
went home.

Herbert had come in, and we held a very
serious council by the fire. But there was
nothing to be done, saving to communicate to
Wemmick what I had that night found out, and
to remind him that we waited for his hint. As
I thought that I might compromise him if I went
too often to the Castle, I made this communication
by letter. I wrote it before I went to bed,
and went out and posted it; and again no one
was near me. Herbert and I agreed that we
could do nothing else but be very cautious.
And we were very cautious indeed—more
cautious than before, if that were possible—and I
for my part never went near Chinks's Basin,
except when I rowed by, and then I only looked at
Mill Pond Bank as I looked at anything else.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

THE second of the two meetings referred to
in the last chapter, occurred about a week after
the first. I had again left my boat at the wharf
below Bridge; the time was an hour earlier in
the afternoon; and, undecided where to dine, I
had strolled up into Cheapside, and was strolling
along it, surely the most unsettled person in all
the busy concourse, when a large hand was laid
upon my shoulder, by some one overtaking me.
It was Mr. Jaggers's hand, and he passed it
through my arm.

"As we are going in the same direction, Pip,
we may walk together. Where are you bound
for?"

"For the Temple, I think," said I.

"Don't you know?" said Mr. Jaggers.

"Well," I returned, glad for once to get the
better of him in cross-examination, "I do not
know, for I have not made up my mind."

"You are going to dine?" said Mr. Jaggers.
"You don't mind admitting that, I suppose?"

"No," I returned, "I don't mind admitting
that."

"And are not engaged?"

"I don't mind admitting also, that I am not
engaged."

"Then," said Mr. Jaggers, "come and dine
with me."

I was going to excuse myself, when he added,
"Wemmick's coming." So I changed my
excuse into an acceptance—the few words I had
uttered serving for the beginning of either—
and we went along Cheapside and slanted off
to Little Britain, while the lights were springing
up brilliantly in the shop-windows, and the
street lamp-lighters, scarcely finding ground
enough to plant their ladders on in the midst of
the afternoon's bustle, were skipping up and
down and running in and out, opening more red
eyes in the gathering fog than my rushlight
tower at the Hummums had opened white eyes
in the ghostly wall.

At the office in Little Britain there was the
usual letter-writing, bad-washing,
candle-snuffing, and safe-locking, that closed the
business ot the day. As I stood idle by Mr.
Jaggers's fire, its rising and falling flame made
the two casts on the shelf look as if they were
playing a diabolical game at bo-peep with me;
while the pair of coarse fat office candles that