Page 322 - GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Great Expectations

asked Herbert whether his father was so inveterate against
her?
‘It’s not that,’ said he, ‘but she charged him, in the
presence of her intended husband, with being

disappointed in the hope of fawning upon her for his own
advancement, and, if he were to go to her now, it would
look true - even to him - and even to her. To return to
the man and make an end of him. The marriage day was
fixed, the wedding dresses were bought, the wedding tour
was planned out, the wedding guests were invited. The
day came, but not the bridegroom. He wrote her a
letter—‘
‘Which she received,’ I struck in, ‘when she was
dressing for her marriage? At twenty minutes to nine?’
‘At the hour and minute,’ said Herbert, nodding, ‘at
which she afterwards stopped all the clocks. What was in
it, further than that it most heartlessly broke the marriage
off, I can’t tell you, because I don’t know. When she
recovered from a bad illness that she had, she laid the
whole place waste, as you have seen it, and she has never
since looked upon the light of day.’
‘Is that all the story?’ I asked, after considering it.
‘All I know of it; and indeed I only know so much,
through piecing it out for myself; for my father always

321 of 865