Doing as I had often done, I went in, and stood touching the old
chimney-piece, where she could see me when she raised her eyes. There
was an air or utter loneliness upon her, that would have moved me to
pity though she had wilfully done me a deeper injury than I could charge
her with. As I stood compassionating her, and thinking how, in the
progress of time, I too had come to be a part of the wrecked fortunes of
that house, her eyes rested on me. She stared, and said in a low voice,
"Is it real?"

"It is I, Pip. Mr. Jaggers gave me your note yesterday, and I have lost
no time."

"Thank you. Thank you."

As I brought another of the ragged chairs to the hearth and sat down, I
remarked a new expression on her face, as if she were afraid of me.

"I want," she said, "to pursue that subject you mentioned to me when you
were last here, and to show you that I am not all stone. But perhaps you
can never believe, now, that there is anything human in my heart?"

When I said some reassuring words, she stretched out her tremulous right
hand, as though she was going to touch me; but she recalled it again
before I understood the action, or knew how to receive it.