of the pressure on my hand when I had spoken the last words he had heard on earth.
Estella was the next to break the silence that ensued between us.
“I have very often hoped and intended to come back, but have been prevented by many circumstances. Poor, poor old place!”
The silvery mist was touched with the first rays of the moonlight, and the same rays touched the tears that dropped from her eyes. Not knowing that I saw them, and setting herself to get the better of them, she said quietly—
“Were you wondering, as you walked along, how it came to be left in this condition?”
“Yes, Estella.”
“The ground belongs to me. It is the only possession I have not relinquished. Everything else has gone from me, little by little, but I have kept this. It was the subject of the only determined resistance I made in all the wretched years.”
“Is it to be built on?”
“At last, it is. I came here to take leave of it before its change. And you,” she said, in a voice of touching interest to a wanderer—“you live abroad still?”
“Still.”
“And do well, I am sure?”
“I work pretty hard for a sufficient living, and therefore—yes, I do well.”
“I have often thought of you,” said Estella.