My first thought was one of great thankfulness that I had never breathed
this last baffled hope to Joe. How often, while he was with me in my
illness, had it risen to my lips! How irrevocable would have been his
knowledge of it, if he had remained with me but another hour!
"Dear Biddy," said I, "you have the best husband in the whole world,
and if you could have seen him by my bed you would have--But no, you
couldn't love him better than you do."
"No, I couldn't indeed," said Biddy.
"And, dear Joe, you have the best wife in the whole world, and she will
make you as happy as even you deserve to be, you dear, good, noble Joe!"
Joe looked at me with a quivering lip, and fairly put his sleeve before
his eyes.
"And Joe and Biddy both, as you have been to church to-day, and are in
charity and love with all mankind, receive my humble thanks for all you
have done for me, and all I have so ill repaid! And when I say that I am
going away within the hour, for I am soon going abroad, and that I shall
never rest until I have worked for the money with which you have kept me
out of prison, and have sent it to you, don't think, dear Joe and Biddy,
that if I could repay it a thousand times over, I suppose I could cancel
a farthing of the debt I owe you, or that I would do so if I could!"
They were both melted by these words, and both entreated me to say no
more.
"But I must say more. Dear Joe, I hope you will have children to love,
and that some little fellow will sit in this chimney-corner of a winter
night, who may remind you of another little fellow gone out of it for
ever. Don't tell him, Joe, that I was thankless; don't tell him, Biddy,
that I was ungenerous and unjust; only tell him that I honored you both,
because you were both so good and true, and that, as your child, I said
it would be natural to him to grow up a much better man than I did."
"I ain't a going," said Joe, from behind his sleeve, "to tell him
nothink o' that natur, Pip. Nor Biddy ain't. Nor yet no one ain't."
"And now, though I know you have already done it in your own kind
hearts, pray tell me, both, that you forgive me! Pray let me hear you
say the words, that I may carry the sound of them away with me, and then
I shall be able to believe that you can trust me, and think better of
me, in the time to come!"