Miss Havisham

I sent for Mr. Pip and his arrival was quite sudden and he quickly responded to the invitation. I had at this point realized what a mistake it was to have treated this young man in such a horiffic fashion and when I expected him to lash out and punish me, he simply turned to other cheek and had forgiven me in an instant! This human decency completely rattled me and I broke down in tears, extremely ashamed of the atrocity that I had committed. We completed the transaction on behalf of Herbert for nine-hundred pounds, and Pip said this put him much more at peace. I figured it was the least I could do since I caused him so much pain and misery in the past. I also explained to Pip the story of my adoption of Estella, and how it was my fault that ice was in the place of her heart. Then the boy had gone, me going back to my reveries and before I knew it, I had caught on fire because of my carelessness around my fireplace. Luckily Pip had cared enough to come back and check on me, and when I was sprinting about the room on fire, he tackled me with a blanket to tame the fire. I was completely frantic, and was told I nearly died from a nervous attack than the wretched flames themselves. My ghastly condition has slightly improved, but I am still not in the best of shapes.

"She read me what she had written, and it was direct and clear, and evidently intended to absolve me from any suspicion of profiting by the receipt of the money. I took the tablets from her hand, and it trembled again, and it trembled more as she took off the chain to which the pencil was attached, and put it in mine. All this she did, without looking at me.
'My name is on the first leaf. If you can ever write under my name, "I forgive her," though ever so long after my broken heart is dust-pray do it!'
'O Miss Havisham,' said I, 'I can do it now. There have been sore mistakes; and my life has been a blind and thankless one; and I want forgiveness and direction far too much, to be bitter with you.'
She turned her face to me for the first time since she had averted it, and, to my amazement, I may even add to my terror, dropped on her knees at my feet; with her folded hands raised to me in the manner in which, when her poor heart was young and fresh and whole, they must often have been raised to heaven from her mother's side." (422-423)

"She answered in a low whisper and with caution: 'I had been shut up in these rooms a long time (I don't know how long; you know what time the clocks keep here), when I told him that I wanted a little girl to rear and love, and save from my fate. I had first seen him when I sent for him to lay this place waste for me; having read of him in the newspapers, before I and the world parted. He told me that he would look about him for such an orphan child. One night he brought her here asleep, and I called her Estella.' " (425)

"I looked into the room where I had left her, and I saw her seated in the ragged chair upon the hearth close to the fire, with her back towards me. In the moment when I was withdrawing my head to go quietly away, I saw a great flaming light spring up. In the same moment, I saw her running at me, shrieking, with a whirl of fire blazing all about her, and soaring at least as many feet above her head as she was high." (427)