Why does Pip find the person who comes to his apartment in Chapter XXXIX (39) so abhorrent? Why, when he learns what the man has done for him and what he wants to do, does Pip say, "The abhorrence in which I held the man, the dread I had of him....

A rough sea-worn man of sixty comes to Pip's home on a stormy night. Pip invites him in, treats him with courteous disdain, but then begins to recognize him as the convict that he fed in the marshes when he was a child.

The man reveals that he is Pip's benefactor. He has been living in Australia all these years and making money as a sheep herder. But since the day that Pip helped him, he swore to himself that every cent he earned would go to Pip.

"I've made a gentleman out of you," the man exclaims. Pip is horrified. All of his expectations are demolished. He has been living his life off the hard workings of a convict. There is no grand design by Miss Havisham to make Pip happy and rich, living in harmonious marriage to Estella.

The convict tells Pip that he has come back to see him under threat of his life, since the law will execute him if they find him in England. Pip gives the convict Herbert's empty bed, then sits by the fire by himself, pondering his miserable position.