36 The daylight came. I rose at dawn. I busied myself for an hour or two with arranging my things in my chamber, drawers, and wardrobe, in the order wherein I should wish to leave them during a brief absence. Meantime, I heard St. John quit his room. He stopped at my door. I feared he would knock. No, but a slip of paper was passed under the door. I took it up. It bore these words. 36 You left me too suddenly last night. Had you stayed but a little longer you would have laid your hand on the Christian's cross and the angel's crown. I shall expect your clear decision when I return this day fortnight. Meantime, watch and pray that you enter not into temptation. The spirit I trust is willing, but the flesh I see is weak. I shall pray for you hourly. Yours, St. John." 36 My spirit, I answered mentally, is willing to do what is right, and my flesh I hope is strong enough to accomplish the will of heaven, when once that will is distinctly known to me, at any rate it shall be strong enough to search, inquire, to grope an outlet from this cloud of doubt, and find the open day of certainty. It was the first of June. Yet the morning was overcast and chilly. Rain beat fast on my casement. I heard the front door open, and St. John pass out. Looking through the window, I saw him traverse the garden. He took the way over the misty moors in the direction of Whitcross. There he would meet the coach. In a few more hours I shall succeed you in that track, cousin, thought I. I, too, have a coach to meet at Whitcross. I, too, have some to seek and ask after an England before I depart for ever. It wanted yet two hours of breakfast time. I filled the interval in walking softly about my room and pondering the visitation which had given my plans their present bent. I recalled that inward sensation I had experienced, for I could recall it in all its unspeakable strangeness. I recalled the voice I had heard. Again I questioned whence it came, as vainly as before. It seemed in me, not in the external world. I asked was it a mere nervous impression, a delusion. I could not conceive or believe. It was more like an inspiration. The wondrous shock of feeling had come like the earthquake which shook the foundations of Paul and Silas's prison. It had opened the doors of the soul's cell and loosed its bands. It had wakened it out of its sleep, whence it sprang trembling, listening aghast. Then vibrated thrice a cry on my startled ear, and in my quaking heart and through my spirit, which neither feared nor shook, but exalted as if in joyer with the success of one effort had been privileged to make, independent of the cumbrous body. "'Ere many days,' I said, as I terminated my musings. I will know something of him whose voice seemed last night to summon me. Letters have proved of no avail. Personal inquiry shall replace them." At breakfast I announced to Diana and Mary that I was going a journey, and should be absent at least four days. "'Alone, Jane?' they asked. "'Yes. It was to see or hear news of a friend about whom I had for some time been uneasy. They might have said, as I have no doubt they thought, that they had believed me to be without friends, save them. For indeed I had often said so. But with their true natural delicacy they abstained from comment, except that Diana asked me if I was sure I was well enough to travel. I looked very pale, she observed. I replied that nothing ailed me save anxiety of mind, which I hoped soon to alleviate. It was easy to make my further arrangements, for I was troubled with no inquiries, no semises. Having once explained to them that I could not now be explicit about my plans, they kindly and wisely acquiesced in the silence with which I pursued them. According to me the privilege of free action I should under similar circumstances have accorded them. I left Morehouse at three o'clock p.m., and soon after four I stood at the foot of the signpost of Whitcross, waiting the arrival of the coach which was to take me to distant Thornfield. Amidst the silence of those solitary roads and desert hills, I heard it approach from the great distance. It was the same vehicle whence, a year ago, I had alighted one summer evening on this very spot, how desolate and hopeless and objectless. It stopped as I beckoned. I entered, not now obliged to part with my whole fortune as the price of its accommodation. Once more on the road to Thornfield I felt like the messenger pigeon flying home. It was a journey of six and thirty hours. I had set out from Whitcross on a Tuesday afternoon, and early on the succeeding Thursday morning the coach stopped to water the horses at a wayside inn, situated in the midst of scenery whose green hedges and large fields and low pastoral hills—how mild a feature and a verdant of hue compared with the stern north-midland moors of Morton—met my eye like the lineaments of a once familiar face. Yes, I knew the character of this landscape. I was sure we were very near my borne. How far is Thornfield Hall from here? I asked of the Osler. Just two miles, Mum, across the fields. My journey is closed, I thought to myself. I got out of the coach, gave a box I had into the Osler's charge, to be kept till I called for it, paid my fare, satisfied the coachman, and was going. The brightening day gleamed on the sign of the inn, and I read in gilt letters the Rochester arms. My heart leapt up. I was already on my master's very lands. It fell again. The thought struck it. Your master himself may be beyond the British Channel, for ought you know. And then if he is at Thornfield Hall, towards which you hasten, who besides him is there? His lunatic wife, and you have nothing to do with him. You dare not speak to him, or seek his presence. You have lost your labour. You had better go no further. Urged the monitor. Ask information of the people at the inn. They can give you all you seek. They can solve your doubts at once. Go up to that man and inquire of Mr. Rochester to be at home. The suggestion was sensible, and yet I could not force myself to act on it. I so dreaded a reply that would crush me with despair. To prolong doubt was to prolong hope. I might yet once more see the hall under the ray of her star. There was the style before me, the very fields through which I had hurried, blind, deaf, distracted with revengeful fury, tracking and scourging me, on the morning I fled from Thornfield. ere I well knew what course I had resolved to take, I was in the midst of them. How fast I walked! How I ran sometimes! How I looked forward to catch the first view of the well-known woods! With what feelings I welcomed single trees I knew, and familiar glimpses of meadow and hill between them. At last the woods rose. The rookery clustered dark. A loud calling broke the morning stillness. Strange delight inspired me. On, I hastened. Another field crossed, a lane threaded, and there were the courtyard walls, the back offices, the house itself the rookery still hid. My first view of it shall be in front, I determined, where its bold battlements will strike the eye nobly at once, and where I can single out my master's very window. Perhaps he will be standing at it. He rises early. Perhaps he is now walking in the orchard, or on the pavement in front. Could I but see him? But a moment! Surely in that case I should not be so mad as to run to him. I cannot tell. I am not certain. And if I did, what then? God bless him! What then? Who would be hurt by my once more tasting the life his glance can give me? My rave. Perhaps at this moment he is watching the sunrise over the Pyrenees, or on the tideless sea of the south. I had coasted along the lower wall of the orchard, turned its angle. There was a gate just there, opening into the meadow between two stone pillars crowned by stone balls. From behind one pillar I could peep round quietly at the full front of the mansion. I advanced my head with precaution, desirous to ascertain if any bedroom window-blinds were yet drawn up. Battlements, windows, long front, all from this sheltered station were at my command. The crows sailing overhead perhaps watched me while I took this survey. I wonder what they thought. They must have considered I was very careful and timid at first, and that gradually I grew very bold and reckless.  What affectation of diffidence was this at first? They might have demanded.  Here an illustration, reader. A lover finds his mistress asleep on a mossy bank. He wishes to catch climps of her fair face without waking her. He steals softly over the grass, careful to make no sound. He pauses, fancying she has stirred. He withdraws, not for worlds would he be seen. All is still. He again advances. He bends above her. A light veil rests on her features. He lifts it, bends lower. Now his eyes anticipate the vision of beauty, warm and blooming and lovely in rest. How hurried was their first glance. But how they fix? How he starts? How he suddenly and vehemently clasps in both arms, the form he dared not a moment since touch with his finger? How he calls a loud name, and drops his burden, and gazes on it wildly? He thus grasps, and cries, and gazes, because he no longer fears to waken by any sound he can utter, but any movement he can make. He thought his love slept sweetly. He finds she is stone dead. I looked with timorous joy towards a stately house. I saw a blackened ruin. No need to cower behind a gatepost indeed, to peep up at chamber lattices, fearing life was a stir behind them. No need to listen for doors opening, to fancy steps on the pavement or the gravel walk. The lawn, the gardens, trodden in waste, the portal yawned void. The front was, as I had once seen it in a dream, but a well-like wall, very high and very fragile-looking, perforated with painless windows. No roof, no battlements, no chimneys, all had crashed in. And there was the silence of death about it, the solitude of a lonesome wild. No wonder that letters addressed to people here had never received an answer, as well dispatch epistles to a vault and a church aisle. The grim blackness of the stones told by what fate the hall had fallen, by conflagration. But how kindled! What story belonged to this disaster? What loss, besides mortar and marble and woodwork, had followed upon it? Had life been wrecked as well as property? If so, whose? Dreadful question!  In wandering round the shattered walls and through the devastated interior, I gathered evidence that the calamity was not of late occurrence. Winter snows, I thought, had drifted through that void arch, winter rains beating in at those hollow casements. For amidst the drenched piles of rubbish, spring had cherished vegetation, grass and weed grew here and there between the stones and fallen rafters. And oh! where, meantime, was the hapless owner of this wreck? In what land? Under what auspices? My eye involuntarily wandered to the grey church tower near the gates, and I asked, is he with Damer de Rochester sharing the shelter of his narrow marble house? Some answer must be had to these questions. I could find it nowhere but at the inn, and thither ere long I returned. The host himself brought my breakfast into the parlor.  I had some questions to ask him. But when he complied, I scarcely knew how to begin. Such horror had I of the possible answers. And yet the spectacle of desolation I had just left prepared me in a measure for a tale of misery. The host was a respectable-looking middle-aged man. You know Thornfield Hall, of course. I managed to say it last. Yes, Mom. I lived there once. Did you? Not in my time, I thought. You are a stranger to me. I was the late Mr. Rochester's butler, he added. The late? I seemed to have received with full force the blow I had been trying to evade. The late? I gasped. Is he dead? I mean the present gentleman, Mr. Edward's father, he explained. I breathed again. My blood resumed its flow, fully assured by these words that Mr. Edward, my Mr. Rochester—God bless him wherever he was—was at least alive, was in short the present gentleman, gladdening words. It seemed I could hear all that was to come, whatever the disclosures might be, with comparative tranquillity. Since he was not in the grave, I could bear, I thought, to learn he was at the antipodes. Is Mr. Rochester living at Thornfield Hall now? I asked, knowing, of course, what the answer would be, but yet desirous of deferring the direct question as to where he really was. No, Mom. Oh, no! No one is living there. I suppose you are a stranger in these parts, so you would have heard what happened last autumn. Thornfield Hall is quite a ruin. It was burned down just about harvest time. A dreadful calamity. Such an immense quantity of valuable property destroyed. Hardly any of the furniture could be saved. The fire broke out at dead of night, and before the engines arrived from Milkit, the building was one mass of flame. It was a terrible spectacle. I witnessed it myself. At dead of night, I muttered. Yes, that was ever the hour of fatality at Thornfield. Was it known how it originated? I demanded. They guessed, Mom. They guessed. Indeed, I should say it was ascertained, beyond a doubt. You are not perhaps aware—he continued, edging his chair a little nearer the table, and speaking low—that there was a lady—ah, a lunatic—kept in the house. I have heard something of it. She was kept in very close confinement, Mom.  No one saw her. They only knew by rumour that such a person was at the hall, and who or what she was, it was difficult to conjecture. They say Mr. Edward had brought her from abroad, and some believed she had been as mistress.  I faired now to hear my own story. I endeavour to recall him to the main fact. And this lady— This lady, Mom, he answered, turned out to be Mr. Rochester's wife. The discovery was brought about in the strangest way. There was a young lady, a governess at the hall, that Mr. Rochester fell in—put the fire. I suggested. I'm coming to that, Mom. The Mr. Edward fell in love with. The servants say they never saw anybody so much in love as he was. He was after her continually. They used to watch him—servants, will you know, Mom—and he set store in her past everything. For all nobody but him thought it so very handsome.  I never saw her myself, but I've heard Leah, the housemaid, tell of her. Leah liked her well enough. Mr. Rochester was about forty, and this governess not twenty, and you see, when gentipant of his age fall in love with girls, they are often as likes if they were bewitched. Well, he would marry her. You shall tell me this part of the story another time," I said. But now I have particular reason for wishing to hear all about the fire. Was it suspected that this lunatic, Mrs. Rochester, had any hand in it? You've hit it, Mom. It's quite certain that it was her and nobody but her that set it going. She had a woman to take care of her called Mrs. Poole—enable woman in her line and very trustworthy, but for one fault. A fault common to a deal of them nurses and matrons. She kept a private bottle of gin by her, and now and then took a drop over much. It is excusable, for she had a hard life of it. But still, it was dangerous. For when Mrs. Poole was fast asleep after the gin and water, the mad lady, who was as cunning as a witch, would take the keys out of her pocket and let herself out of a chamber, and go roaming about the house doing any wild mischief that came into her head. They say she had nearly burned her husband in his bed once. But I don't know about that. However, on this night she set fire first to the hangings of the room next to her own, and then she got down to a lower story and made her way to the chamber that had been the governess's. She was like as if she knew somehow matters had gone on, and had a spite at her. And she kindled the bed there. But there was nobody sleeping in it, fortunately. The governess had run away two months before, and for all Mr. Rochester sought her as if she had been the most precious thing he had in the world. He never could hear a word of her. And he grew savage, quite savage on his disappointment. He never was a wild man, but he got dangerous after he lost her. He would be alone, too. He sent Mrs. Fairfax, the housekeeper, away to her friends at a distance. But he did it handsomely, for he settled an annuity on her for life. And she deserved it. She was a very good woman. Miss Adele, a wart he had, was put to school.  What? Did he not leave England? Leave England? Bless you, no! He would not cross the door-stones of the house except at night, when he walked just like a ghost about the grounds and in the orchard as if he had lost his senses, which it is my opinion he had. For a more spirited, bolder, keener gentleman than he was before that midge of a governess crossed him, you never saw, Mum. He was not a man given to wine, or cards, or racing, as summer, and he was not so very handsome, but he had a courage and a will of his own, if ever man had. I knew him from a bore, you see, and for my part I have often wished that Miss Air had been sunk in the sea before she came to Thornfield Hall. Then Mr. Rochester was at home when the fire broke out. Yes, indeed was he, and he went up to the attics, and all was burning above and below, and got the servants out of their beds, and helped them down himself, and went back to get his mad wife out of her cell. And then they called out to him that she was on the roof, and where she was standing, waving her arms above the battlements, and shouting out so they could hear her a mile off. I saw her and heard her with my own eyes. She was a big woman, and had long black hair. We could see it streaming against the flames as she stood. I witnessed, and several more witnessed, Mr. Rochester ascend through the skylight to the roof. We heard him call Bertha. We saw him approach her. And then, Mum, she yelled and gave a spring, and the next minute she lay smashed on the pavement. Dead? Dead.  Good God! You may well say so, Mum. It was frightful. He shuddered. And afterwards, I urged. Well, Mum, afterwards the house was burnt to the ground. There are only some bits of walls standing now. Were any other lives lost? No. Perhaps it would have been better if there had. What do you mean? Poor Mr. Edward! he ejaculated. A little thought ever to have seen it. Some say it was a just judgment on him for keeping his first marriage secret, and wanting to take another wife while he had one living. But I pity him for my part. You said he was alive? I exclaimed. Yes, yes, he is alive, but many think he had better be dead. Why? How? My blood was again running cold. Where is he? I demanded. Is he in England? Aye, aye, he's in England. He can't get out of England. I fancy he's a fixture now. What agony was this? And the man seemed resolved to protract it. He is stone-blind, he said at last. Yes, he is stone-blind, is Mr. Edward. I had dreaded worse. I had dreaded he was mad. I summoned strength to ask what had caused this calamity. It was all his own courage, and a body may say his kindness in a way, Mum. He wouldn't leave the house till everyone else was out before him. As he came down the great staircase at last, after Mrs. Rochester had flung herself from the battlements, there was a great crash. All fell. He was taken out from under the ruins, alive, but sadly hurt. A beam had fallen in such a way as to protect him partly. But one eye was knocked out, and one hand so crushed that Mr. Carter, the surgeon, had to amputate it directly. The other eye inflamed. He lost the sight of that also. He is now helpless indeed. Blind and a cripple. Where is he? Where does he live now?  Who is with him? Old John, his wife, he would have none else. He is quite broken down, they say. Have you any sort of conveyance? We have a shares, Mum, of very handsome shares. Let it be got ready instantly, and if your post-boy can drive me to Ferdin before dark this day, I'll pay both you and him twice the higher you usually demand. CHAPTER 37 The manor-house of Ferdin was a building of considerable antiquity, moderate size, and no architectural pretensions, deep buried in a wood. I had heard of it before. Mr. Rochester often spoke of it, and sometimes went there. His father had purchased the estate for the sake of the game covers. He would have let the house, but could find no tenant, in consequence of its ineligible and insilubrious sight. Ferdin then remained uninhabited and unfurnished, with the exception of some two or three rooms fitted up for the accommodation of the squire when he went there in the season to shoot. To this house I came, just air-dark, on an evening marked by the characteristics of sad sky, cold gale, and continued small penetrating rain. The last mile I performed on foot, having dismissed the shares and driver with the double remuneration I had promised. Even when within a very short distance of the manor-house, you could see nothing of it. So thick and dark grew the timber of the gloomy wood about it. Iron gates between granite pillars showed me where to enter, and passing through them I found myself at once in the twilight of close-ranked trees. There was a grass-grown track descending the forest aisle between whore-and-notty shafts and under-branched arches. I followed it, expecting soon to reach the dwelling, but it stretched on and on—it would far and farther. No sign of habitation or grounds was visible. I thought I had taken a wrong direction and lost my way. The darkness of natural as well as of silven dusk gathered over me. I looked round in search of another road. There was none. All was into woven stem, columnar trunk, dense summer foliage, no opening anywhere. I proceeded. At last my way opened, the trees thinned a little. Presently I beheld railing. Then the house, scarce by this dim light distinguishable from the trees, so dank and green were its decaying walls. Entering a portal, fastened only by a latch, I stored amidst a space of enclosed ground from which the wood swept away in a semicircle. There were no flowers, no garden-beds, only a broad gravel-walk girdling a grass-plat, and this set in the heavy frame of the forest. The house presented two-pointed gables in its front. The windows were lattice and narrow. The front door was narrow too, one step led up to it. The whole looked, as the host of the Rochester arms had said, quite a desolate spot. It was as still as a church on a weak day. The pattering rain on the forest leaves was the only sound audible in its viscinege. Can there be life here? I asked. Yes, life of some kind there was, for I heard a movement. That narrow front door was unclosing, and some shape was about to issue from the grange. It opened slowly. A figure came out into the twilight and stood on the step, a man without a hat. He stretched forth his hand as if to feel whether it rained. Dusk as it was, I had recognized him. It was my master, Edward Fairfax Rochester, and no other.  It was a sudden meeting, and one in which rapture was kept well in check by pain. I had no difficulty in restraining my voice from exclamation, my step from hasty advance. His form was of the same strong and stalwart contour as ever. His port was still erect, his hair was still raven black, nor his features altered or sunk. Not in one year's space, by any sorrow, could his athletic strength be quelled, or his vigorous prime belighted. But in his countenance I saw a change. That looked desperate and brooding. That reminded me of some wronged and fettered wild beast or bird, dangerous to approach in his sullen woe. The caged eagle, whose gold-ringed eyes cruelty has extinguished, might look as looked that cyclous Samson.   A soft hope blessed with my sorrow, that soon I should dare to drop a kiss on that brow of rock, and on those lips so sternly sealed beneath it. But not yet. I would not accost him yet. He descended the one step, and advanced slowly and gropingly towards the grass-plat. Where was his daring stride now? Then he paused, as if he knew not which way to turn. He lifted his hand and opened his eyelids, gazed blank and with a straining effort on the sky, and toward the amphitheater of trees, one saw that all to him was void darkness. He stretched his right hand. The left arm, the mutilated one, he kept hidden in his bosom. He seemed to wish by touch to gain an idea of what lay around him. He met, but vacancy still. For the trees were some yards off from where he stood. He relinquished the endeavour, folded his arms, and stood quiet and mute in the rain, now falling fast on his uncovered head. At this moment John approached him from some quarter. "'Will you take my arms, sir?' he said. "'There is a heavy shower coming on. How do you not better go in?' "'Bled me alone,' was the answer. John withdrew without having observed me. Mr. Rochester now tried to walk about. Veinly, all was too uncertain. He groped his way back to the house, and re-entering it closed the door. I now drew near and knocked. John's wife opened for me. "'Mary,' I said, "'how are you?' She started as if she had seen a ghost. I calmed her. To her hurried, "'Is it really you, miss? Come at this late hour to this lonely place?' I answered by taking her hand, and then I followed her into the kitchen, where John now sat by a good fire. I explained to them in few words that I had heard all what had happened since I left Thornfield, and that I was come to see Mr. Rochester. I asked John to go down to the Turnpike House, where I dismissed the shares, and bring my trunk, which I had left there. And while I removed my bonnet and shawl, I questioned Mary as to whether I could be accommodated at the manor-house for the night, and finding that arrangements to that effect, though difficult, would not be impossible, I informed her I should stay. Just at that moment the parlor bell rang. "'When you go in,' said I, tell your master that a person wishes to speak to him, but do not give my name.' "'I don't think he will see you,' she answered. He refuses everybody.' When she returned I inquired what he had said. "'You are to send in your name and your business,' she replied. She then proceeded to fill a glass with water and place it on a tray together with candles. "'Is that what he rang for?' I asked. Yes, he always has candles brought in at dark, though he is blind. Give the tray to me. I will carry it in.' I took it from her hand. She pointed me out to the parlor door. The tray shook as I held it. The water spilled from the glass. My heart struck my ribs loud and fast. Mary opened the door for me and shut it behind me. This parlor looked gloomy, a neglected handful of fire burnt low in the grate, and leaning over it with his head supported against the high old-fashioned mantelpiece, appeared the blind tenant of the room. His old dog, Pilate, lay on one side, removed out of the way, and coiled up as if afraid of being inadvertently trodden upon. Pilate pricked up his ears when I came in. Then he jumped up with a yelp and a wine and bounded towards me. He almost knocked the tray from my hands. I set it on the table. Then patted him and said softly, "'Lie down.'" Mr. Rock just turned mechanically to see what the commotion was, but as he saw nothing, he returned and sighed. "'Give me the water, Mary,' he said. I approached him with the now only half-filled glass. Pilate followed me, still excited. "'What is the matter?' inquired. "'Down, Pilate,' I again said. He checked the water on its way to his lips, and seemed to listen. He drank and put the glass down. "'This is you, Mary, is it not?' "'Mary is in the kitchen,' I answered. He put out his hand with a quick gesture, but not seeing where I stood, he did not touch me. "'Who is this? Who is this?' he demanded, trying as it seemed to see with those sightless eyes, unavailing and distressing attempt. "'Answer me. Speak again,' he ordered, imperiously and aloud. "'Will you have a little more water, sir?' I spilt half of what was in the glass, I said. "'Who is it? What is it? Who speaks?' Pilate knows me, and John and Mary know I am here. I came only this evening,' I answered. "'Great God! What delusion has come over me? What sweet madness has seized me?' "'No delusion. No madness. Your mind, sir, is too strong for delusion. Your health too sound for frenzy. And where is the speaker? Is it only a voice? Oh, I cannot see, but I must feel, or my heart will stop, and my brain burst. "'Whatever. Whoever you are. Be perceptible to the touch, or I cannot live.' He groped. I arrested his wondering hand, and prisoned it in both mine. "'Her very fingers,' he cried, her small, slight fingers. If so, there must be more of her. The muscular hand broke from my custody. My arm was seized, my shoulder, neck, waist. I was entwined and gathered to him. "'Is it Jane? What is it? This is her shape, this is her size?' "'And this is her voice,' I added. She is all here, her heart too. "'God bless you, sir. I am glad to be so near you again.' "'Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre,' was all he said. "'My dear master,' I answered, "'I am Jane Eyre. I have found you out. I am come back to you.' "'In truth. In the flesh. My living Jane.' "'You touch me, sir. You hold me, and fast enough. I am not cold like a corpse, nor vacant like air, am I?' "'My living darling. These are certainly her limbs, and these her features. But I cannot be so blessed after all my misery. It is a dream. Such dreams as I have had at night when I have clasped her once more to my heart as I do now, and kissed her as thus, and felt that she loved me, and trusted that she would not leave me. "'Which I never will, sir, from this day. Never will,' says the vision. But I always woke and found it an empty mockery, and I was desolate and abandoned, my life dark, lonely, hopeless, my soul a thirst and forbidden to drink, my heart famished, and never to be fed. Gentle, soft dream nestling in my arms now, you will fly, too, as your sisters have all fled before you.  Embrace me, Jane.' "'There, sir. And there.' I pressed my lips to his once brilliant and now rayless eyes. I swept his hair from his brow, and kissed that, too. He suddenly seemed to arouse himself, the conviction of the reality of all this seized him. It is you. Is it, Jane? You are come back to me, then. I am. And you do not lie dead in some ditch under some stream, and you are not a pining outcast among strangers. "'No, sir. I am an independent woman now.' "'Independent? What do you mean, Jane?' My uncle and Madeira is dead, and he left me five thousand pounds. "'Ah! This is practical. This is real,' he cried. I should never dream that. Besides, there is that peculiar voice of hers, so animating and pecan't as well as soft. It cheers my withered heart. It puts life into it. "'What, Janet? Are you an independent woman? A rich woman?  But as you are rich, Jane, you have now no doubt friends who will look after you, and to not suffer you to devote yourself to a blind lame-ter like me. I told you I am independent, sir, as well as rich. I am my own mistress. And you will stay with me. Certainly, unless you object, I will be your neighbour, your nurse, your housekeeper. I find you lonely.  Cease to look so melancholy, my dear master, you shall not be left desolate so long as I live.' He replied not. He seemed serious, abstracted. He sighed. He half opened his lips as if to speak. He closed them again. I felt a little embarrassed. Perhaps I had too rashly overleaped conventionalities, and he, like singins, saw in propriety in my inconsiderateness. I had indeed made my proposal from the idea that he wished and would ask me to be his wife. An expectation, not the less certain because unexpressed, had buoyed me up, that he would claim me at once as his own. But no hint to that effect escaping him and his countenance becoming more overcast. I suddenly remembered that I might have been all wrong, and was perhaps playing the fool unwittingly, and I began gently to withdraw myself from his arms. But he eagerly snatched me closer. No. No, Jane, you must not go.  I cannot give up those joys. I have little left in myself. I must have you. The world may laugh, may call me absurd, selfish, but it does not signify. My very soul demands you. It will be satisfied, or it will take deadly vengeance on its frame.  But you understand one thing by staying with me, and I understand another. You perhaps could make up your mind to be about my hand and chair, to wait on me as a kind little nurse, for you have an affectionate heart and a generous spirit which prompt you to make sacrifices for those you pity, and that ought to suffice for me, no doubt. I suppose I should now entertain none but fatherly feelings for you. Do you think so? Come, tell me. I will think what you like, sir. I am content to be only your nurse, if you think it better. But you cannot always be my nurse, Janet. You are young. You must marry one day. I do not care about being married. You should care, Janet. If I were what I once was, I would try to make you care. But a sightless block. He relapsed again into gloom. I, on the contrary, became more cheerful and took fresh courage. These last words gave me an insight as to where the difficulty lay, and as it was no difficulty with me, I felt quite relieved from my previous embarrassment. I resumed a lively vein of conversation. It is time someone undertook to rehumanise you, said I, parting his thick and long uncut locks. For I see you are being metamorphosed into a lion, or something of that sort. You have a faux air of nebicadnezzar in the fields about you, that is certain. Your hair reminds me of eagle's feathers. Whether your nails are grown in like birds' claws or not, I have not yet noticed. On this arm I have neither hand nor nails, he said, drawing the mutilated limb from his breast and showing it to me. It is a mere stump, a ghastly sight. Don't you think so, Jane? It is a pity to see it, and a pity to see your eyes, and the scar of fire on your forehead. And the worst of it is one is in danger of loving you too well for all this, and making too much of you. I thought it would be revolted, Jane, when you saw my arm and my sickotry'st visage. Did you? Don't tell me so, lest I should say something disparaging to your judgment. Now let me leave you an instant to make a better fire, and have the hearth swept up. Can you tell when there is a good fire? Yes, with the right eye I see a glow, a ruddy haze. And you see the candles, very dimly, each as a luminous cloud. Can you see me? No, my fairy, but I am only too thankful to hear and feel you. When do you take supper? I never take supper. But you shall have some to-night. I am hungry.  Summoning Mary, I soon had the room in a more cheerful order. I prepared him likewise, a comfortable repast. My spirits were excited, and with pleasure and ease I talked to him during supper and for a long time after. There was no harassing restraint, no repressing of glee and vivacity with him, for with him I was perfectly at ease, because I knew I suited him. All I said or did seemed either to console or revive him. Delightful consciousness! It brought to life and light my whole nature. In his presence I thoroughly lived, and he in mine. Blind as he was, smiles played over his face. Joy dawned on his forehead. His liniments softened and warmed. After supper he began to ask me many questions of where I had been, what I had been doing, how I had found him out. But I gave him only partial replies. It was too late to enter into particulars that night. Besides, I wished to touch no deep-thrilling chord, to open no fresh well of emotion in his heart. My sole present aim was to cheer him. Chared, as I have said, he was, and yet but by fits. If a moment's silence broke the conversation he would turn restless, touch me, then say, Jane, you are all together a human being, Jane, you are certain of that. I conscientiously believe so, Mr. Rochester. Yet how, on this dark and dull full evening, could you so suddenly rise on my lone half? I stretched my hand to take a glass of water from a highling, and it was given me by you. I asked a question expecting John's wife to answer me, and your voice spoke in my ear. Because I had come in and married stead with the tray. And there is enchantment in the very hour I am now spending with you, who can tell what a dark, dreary, hopeless life I have dragged on for months past, doing nothing, expecting nothing, merging night and day, feeling but the sensation of cold when I let the fire go out, of hunger when I forgot to eat, and then a ceaseless sorrow, and at times a very delirium of desire to behold my Jane again. Yes, for her restoration I long far more than for that of my lost sight. How can it be that Jane is with me and says she loves me? Will she not depart as suddenly as she came? Tomorrow I fear I shall find her no more. A common place, practical reply, out of the train of his own disturbed ideas, was, I was sure, the best and most reassuring for him in his frame of mind, I passed my finger over his eyebrows, and remarked that they were scorched, and that I would apply something which would make them grow as broad and black as ever. Whereas the use of doing me any good in any way, beneficent spirit, when at some fatal moment you will again desert me, passing like a shadow, wither and how to me unknown, and for me remaining afterwards undiscoverable. Have you a pocket-comb about you, sir? What for, Jane? Just to comb out this shaggy black mane, I find you rather alarming when I examine you close at hand. You talk of me being like a fairy, but I am sure you are more like a brownie. Am I hideous, Jane? Very, sir. You always were, you know. The wickedness has not been taken out of you wherever you have sojourned. Yet I have been with good people, far better than you, a hundred times better people, possessed of ideas and views you never entertained in your life, quite more refined and exalted. Who the deuce have you been with?  Who have you been with, Jane? You shall not get it out of me to-night, sir.  By the by I must not mind to rise on your hearth with only a glass of water, then. I must bring an egg at the least, to say nothing of fried ham.  If Saul could have had you for his David, the evil spirit would have been exercised without the aid of the harp. There, sir, you are red up and made decent. Now I'll leave you. I have been travelling these last three days, and I believe I am tired. Good night. Just one word, Jane. Were there only ladies in the house where you have been? I laughed and made my escape, still laughing as I ran upstairs. A good idea, I thought with glee. I see I have the means of fretting him out of his melancholy for some time to come. Very early the next morning I heard him up in a stir, wandering from one room to another. As soon as Mary came down I heard the question, is Miss Ur here? Then, which room did you put her into? Was it dry? Is she up? Go and ask if she wants any thing, and when she will come down. I came down as soon as I thought there was a prospect of breakfast. Entering the room very softly, I had a view of him before he discovered my presence. It was mournful indeed to witness the subjugation of that vigorous spirit to a corporeal infirmity. He sat in his chair, still, but not at rest, expectant evidently, the lines of now habitual sadness marking his strong features. His countenance reminded one of a lamp quenched, waiting to be relit. And alas, it was not himself that could now kindle the lustre of animated expression. He was dependent on another for that office. I had meant to be gay and careless, but the powerlessness of the strong man touched my heart the quick. Still, I accosted him with what vivacity I could. It is a bright sunny morning, sir," I said. The rain is over and gone, and there is a tender shining after it. You shall have a walk soon." I had wakened the glow. His features beamed. Oh, you are indeed there, my skylark! Come to me. You are not gone, not vanished. I heard one of your kind an hour ago, singing high over the wood. But its song had no music for me, any more than the rising sun had raised. All the melody on earth is concentrated in my jane's tongue to my ear. I am glad it is not naturally silent one. All the sunshine I can feel is in her presence. The water stood in my eyes to hear the saval of his dependence. Just as if a royal eagle chained to a perch should be forced to entreat a sparrow to become its purveyor. But I would not be lacrimose. I dashed off the salt-drops and busied myself with preparing breakfast. Most of the morning was spent in the open air. I led him out of the wet and wild wood into some cheerful fields. I described to him how brilliantly green they were, how the flowers and hedges looked refreshed, how sparklingly blue was the sky. I sought a seat for him in a hidden and lovely spot, a dry stump of a tree. Nor did I refuse to let him, when seated, place me on his knee. Why should I, when both he and I were happier near than apart? Pilot lay beside us. All was quiet. He broke out suddenly while clasping me in his arms. Cruel, cruel deserter! Oh, Jane! What did I feel when I discovered you had fled from Thornfield, and when I could nowhere find you? And after examining your apartment, ascertained that you would take in no money, nor anything which could serve as an equivalent? A pearl necklace I had given you lay untouched in its little casket. Your trunks were left corded and locked as they had been prepared for the bridal tour. What could my darling do, I asked, left destitute and penniless? And what did she do? Let me hear now. Thus urged, I began the narrative of my experience for the last year. I softened considerably what related to the three days of wandering and starvation, because to have told him all would have been to inflict unnecessary pain. The little I did say, lacerated his faithful heart deeper than I wished. I should not have left him thus, he said, without any means of making my way. I should have told him my intention. I should have confided in him. He would never have forced me to be his mistress. Violent as he had seemed in his despair, he in truth loved me far too well and too tenderly to constitute himself my tyrant. He would have given me half his fortune, without demanding so much as a kiss in return, rather than I should have flung myself friendless on the wide world. I had endured. He was certain, more than I had confessed to him. Well, whatever my sufferings had been, they were very short, I answered. And then I proceeded to tell him how I had been received at Morehouse, how I had obtained the office of school-mistress, et cetera, the accession of fortune, the discovery of my relations, followed in due order. Of course, St. John River's name came infrequently in the progress of my tale. When I had done, that name was immediately taken up. This St. John, then, is your cousin? Yes. You have spoken of him often. Do you like him? He was a very good man, sir. I could not help liking him. A good man? Does that mean a respectable, well-conducted man of fifty? Or what does it mean? St. John was only twenty-nine, sir. Je n'encore, is the French say. Is he a person of low stature, phlegmatic, and plain? A person whose goodness consists rather in his guiltlessness of vice and in his prowess and virtue? He is untiringly active, great and exalted deeds of what he lives to perform. But his brain, that is probably rather soft. He means well. But you shrug your shoulders to hear him talk. He talks little, sir. What he does say is ever to the point. His brain is first rate. I should think not impressable, but vigorous. Is he an able man, then? Truly able. A thoroughly educated man. St. John is an accomplished and profound scholar. His manners, I think, you said, are not to your taste, priggish and parsonic. I never mentioned his manners, but unless I had a very bad taste, they must suit it. They are polished, calm, and gentlemen-like.  St. John rests as well. He is a handsome man—tall, fair, with blue eyes and a Grecian profile. Aside—damn him. To me. Did you like him, Jane? Yes, Mr. Rochester, I liked him. But you asked me that before. I perceived, of course, the drift of my interlocutor. Jealousy had got hold of him. She stung him. But the sting was salutary. It gave him respite from the gnawing fang of melancholy. I would not, therefore, immediately charm the snake. Perhaps you would not rather sit any longer on my knee, monsieur. Was the next somewhat unexpected observation. Why not, Mr. Rochester? The picture you have just drawn is suggestive of rather a too overwhelming contrast. Your words have delineated very prettily a graceful Apollo. He is present to your imagination—tall, fair, blue-eyed, with a Grecian profile.  I never thought of it before, but you certainly are rather like Vulcan, sir. Well, you can leave me, ma'am, but before you go—and he retained me by a firmer grasp than ever—you will be pleased just to answer me a question or two. He paused. What questions, Mr. Rochester? Then followed this cross-examination. St. John made you schoolmistress of Morton before he knew you were his cousin? Yes. You would often see him. He would visit the school sometimes. Daily. He would approve your plans, Jane.  He approved of them, yes. He would discover many things in you he could not have expected to find. Some of your accomplishments are not ordinary. I don't know about that. You had a little cottage near the school, you say. Did he ever come to see you? Now and then. Of an evening. Once or twice. A pause. How long did you reside with him and his sisters after the cousinship was discovered? Five months. Did Rivers spend much time with the ladies of his family? Yes. The back parlor was both his study and ours. He sat near the window, and we by the table. Did he study much? A good deal. What? Hindostani. And what did you do meantime? I learned German at first. Did he teach you? He did not understand German. Did he teach you nothing? A little Hindostani. Rivers taught you Hindostani? Yes, sir. And his sisters also? No. Only you. Only me. Did you ask to learn? No. He wished to teach you. Yes. A second pause. Why did he wish it? Of what use could Hindostani be to you? He intended me to go with him to India. Ah! Here I reached the root of the matter. He wanted you to marry him. He asked me to marry him? That is a fiction. An impudent invention to vex me. I beg your pardon. It is a literal truth. He asked me more than once, and was as stiff about urging his point as ever you could be. Miss Air, I repeat it. You can leave me. How often am I to say the same thing? Why do you remain pertinaciously perched on my knee when I have given you notice to quit? Because I am comfortable there. No, Jane. You are not comfortable there, because your heart is not with me. It is with this cousin, this singin'. Oh! till this moment I thought my little Jane was all mine. I had a belief she loved me even when she left me. This was an atom of sweet and much bitter. Long as we have been parted, hot tears as I have wept over our separation, I never thought that while I was mourning her, she was loving another. But it is useless grieving. Jane, leave me. Go and marry Rivers. Shake me off, then, sir. Push me away, for I'll not leave you of my own accord. Jane, I ever like your tone of voice. It still renews hope. It sounds so truthful. When I hear it, it carries me back a year. I forget that you have formed a new tie.  Where must I go, sir? Your own way with the husband you have chosen. Who is that? You know this singin' Rivers. He is not my husband, nor ever will be. He does not love me. I do not love him. He loves—as he can love, and that is not as you love—a beautiful young lady called Rosamond. He wished to marry me only because he thought I should make a suitable missionary's wife, which she would not have done. He is good and great, but severe. And for me cold as an iceberg. He is not like you, sir. I am not happy at his side, nor near him, nor with him. He has no indulgence for me, no fondness.  Then I must leave you, sir, to go to him. I shuddered involuntarily, and clung instinctively closer to my blind but beloved master. He smiled. What, Jane, is this true? Is such really the state of matters between you and Rivers? Absolutely, sir. Oh, you need not be jealous.  I thought anger would be better than grief. But if you wished me to love you, could you but see how much I do love you? You would be proud and content. All my heart is yours, sir. It belongs to you, and with you it would remain, were faked to exile the rest of me from your presence for ever. Again, as he kissed me, painful thoughts darkened his aspect. My seared vision, my crippled strength, he murmured regretfully. I caressed in order to soothe him. I knew of what he was thinking, and wanted to speak for him, but dared not. As he turned aside his face a minute, I saw a tear slide from under the seared eyelid, and trickle down the manly cheek. My heart swelled. I am no better than the old lightning-struck chestnut-tree in Thornfield Orchard, Hiramark-Darelong. And what right would that ruin have to bid a budding wood-bind cover its decay with freshness? You are no ruin, sir. No lightning-struck tree. You are green and vigorous.  Again he smiled. I gave him comfort. You speak of friends, Jane, he asked. Yes, of friends. I answered rather hesitatingly, for I knew I meant more than friends, but could not tell what other word to employ. He helped me. Ah, Jane, but I want a wife. Do you, sir? Yes, is it news to you? Of course, you said nothing about it before. Is it unwelcome news? That depends on circumstances, sir, on your choice. Which you shall make for me, Jane, I will abide by your decision. Choose then, sir, her who loves you best. I will at least choose her I love best. Jane, will you marry me? Yes, sir. A poor, blind man whom you will have to lead about by the hand. Yes, sir.  Yes, sir. Truly, Jane. Most truly, sir. Oh, my darling, God bless you and reward you. Mr. Rochester, if ever I did a good deed in my life, if ever I thought a good thought, if ever I prayed a sincere and blameless prayer, if ever I wished a righteous wish, I am rewarded now. To be your wife is for me to be as happy as I can be on earth. Because you delight in sacrifice. Sacrifice? What do I sacrifice? Famine for food, expectation for content. To be privileged to put my arms round what I value, to press my lips to what I love, to repose on what I trust. Is that to make a sacrifice? If so, then certainly I delight in sacrifice. And to bear with my infirmities, Jane, to overlook my deficiencies. Which are none, sir, to me. I love you better now, when I can really be useful to you, than I did in your state of proud independence, when you disdained every part but that of the giver and protector. Here the two I have hated to be helped, to be led. Henceforth, I feel I shall hate it no more. I did not like to put my hand into a hirelings, but it is pleasant to feel it circled by Jane's little fingers. I preferred utter loneliness to the constant attendance of servants, but Jane's soft ministry will be a perpetual joy. Jane suits me. Do I suit her? To the finest fibre of my nature, sir. The case being so, we have nothing in the world to wait for. We must be married instantly. He looked and spoke with eagerness. His old impetuosity was rising. We must become one flesh without any delay, Jane. There is but the license to get. Then we marry. Mr. Rochester, I have just discovered the sun is far declined from its meridian, and Pirate has actually gone home to his dinner. Let me look at your watch. Fasten it into your girdle, Janet, and keep it henceforward. I have no use for it. It is nearly four o'clock in the afternoon, sir. Don't you feel hungry? The third day from this must be our wedding-day, Jane. Never mind, fine clothes and jewels now. All that is not with the Philip. The sun is dried up, or the rain drops, sir. The breeze is still. It is quite hot.  I have worn it since the day I lost my only treasure, as a memento of her. We will go home through the wood. That will be the shadiest way. He pursued his own thoughts without heeding me. Jane, you think me, I dare say, an irreligious dog, but my heart swells with gratitude to the beneficent God of this earth just now. He sees not as man sees, but far clearer. Judges not as man judges, but far more wisely. I did wrong. I would have sullied my innocent flower, breathed guilt on its purity. The omnibutant snatched it from me. I and my stiff-necked rebellion almost cursed the dispensation. Instead of bending to the decree, I defied it. Divine justice pursued its course. Disasters came thick on me. I was forced to pass through the valley of the shadow of death. His chastisements are mighty, and one's smote me which has humbled me for ever. You know I was proud of my strength. But what is it now when I must give it over to foreign guidance as a child does its weakness? I've laid, Jane. Only—only of late. I began to see and acknowledge the hand of God in my doom. I began to experience remorse, repentance, the wish for reconcilement to my maker. I began sometimes to pray. Very brief prayers they were, but very sincere. Some days since, nay, I can number them, fall. It was last Monday night. A singular mood came over me—one in which grief replaced frenzy, sorrow, sullenness. I had long had the impression that since I could nowhere find you, you must be dead. Late that night, perhaps it might be between eleven and twelve o'clock, ere I retired my dreary rest, I supplicated God, that if it seemed good to him, I might soon be taken from this life, and admitted to that world to come, where there was still hope of rejoining Jane. I was in my own room, and sitting by the window, it was open. It soothed me to feel the balmy night air, though I could see no stars, and only by a vague luminous haze knew the presence of a moon. I longed for thee, Janet. How I longed for thee both with soul and flesh. I asked of God, at once in anguish and humility, if I had not been long enough desolate, afflicted, tormented, and might not soon taste bliss and peace once more. That I merited all I endured I acknowledged, that I could scarcely endure more I pleaded, and the alpha and omega of my heart's wishes broke involuntarily from my lips the words, Jane, Jane, Jane! Did you speak those words aloud? I did, Jane. If any listener had heard me, he would have thought me mad. I pronounced them with such frantic energy. And it was last Monday night, somewhere near midnight. Yes, but the timers have no consequence. What followed is the strange point. You will think me superstitious. Some superstition I have in my blood, and always had. Nevertheless, this is true. True at least it is, that I heard what I now relate. As I exclaimed, Jane, Jane, Jane! A voice. I cannot tell whence the voice came. But I know whose voice it was. Replied, I am coming. Wait for me. And a moment after, went whispering on the wind the words, Where are you? I'll tell you, if I can, the idea, the picture these words opened to my mind. It is difficult to express what I want to express. Fern dean as buried as you see in heavy wood, where sound falls dull, and dies unreverberating. Where are you? seemed spoken amongst mountains, for I heard a hill-scent echo repeat the words. Cooler and fresher at the moment the gale seemed to visit my brow, I could have deemed that in some wild-loan scene I and Jane were meeting. In spirit, I believe we must have met. You no doubt were at that hour in unconscious sleep, Jane. Perhaps your soul wandered from its cell to comfort mine. For those were your accents, as certain as I live, they were yours. Reader. It was on Monday night, near midnight, that I, too, had received the mysterious summons, those with the very words by which I replied to it. I listened to Mr. Rochester's narrative, but made no disclosure in return. The coincidence struck me as too awful and inexplicable to be communicated or discussed. If I told anything, my tale would be such as must necessarily make a profound impression on the mind of my hearer, and that mind, yet from its sufferings too prone to gloom, needed not the deeper shade of the supernatural. I kept these things then, and pondered them in my heart. You cannot now wonder, continued my master, that when he rose upon me so unexpectedly last night, I had difficulty in believing you any other than a mere voice and vision, something that would melt to silence and annihilation, as the midnight whisper and mountain echo had melted before. Now I thank God. I know it to be otherwise. Yes, I thank God. He put me off his knee, rose, and reverently lifting his hat from his brow, and bending his sightless eyes to the earth, he stood in mute devotion. Only the last words of the worship were audible. I thank my maker, that in the midst of judgment he has remembered mercy. I humbly entreat my redeemer to give me strength to lead henceforth a purer life than I have done here the two. Then he stretched his hand out to be led. I took that dear hand, held it a moment to my lips, then let it pass round my shoulder. Being so much lower of stature than he, I served both for his prop and guide. We entered the wood and wended home wood. I married him. A quiet wedding we had. He and I, the parson and clerk, were alone present. When we got back from church, I went into the kitchen of the manor house, where Mary was cooking the dinner and John cleaning the knives, and I said, Mary, I have been married to Mr. Rochester this morning. The housekeeper and her husband were both of that decent, phlegmatic order of people, to whom one may at any time safely communicate a remarkable piece of news without incurring the danger of having one's ears pierced by some shrill ejaculation, and subsequently stunned by a torrent of wordy wonderment. Mary did look up, and she did stare at me. The ladle with which she was basting a pair of chickens roasting at the fire, did for some three minutes hang suspended in the air, and for the same space of time John's knives also had rest from the polishing process. But Mary, bending again over the roast, said only, Have you miss? Well, for sure. A short time after, she pursued, I see to go out with the master, but I didn't know you were gone to church to be wed, and she basted away. John, when I turned to him, was grinning from ear to ear. I told Mary how it would be, he said. I knew what Mr. Edward—John was an old servant, had unknown his master when he was the cadet of the house, therefore he often gave him his Christian name. I knew what Mr. Edward would do, and I was sure he would not wait long neither, and he's done right for all that I know. I wish you joy, miss," and he politely pulled his forelock. Thank you, John. Mr. Rochester told me to give you and Mary this. I put into his hand a five-pound note. Without waiting to hear more, I left the kitchen. In passing the door of that sanctum some time after, I caught the words. She'll happen do better for him, nor only it of grand ladies. And again. If she bent one of the handsomest, she's known foul and very good-natured, and at his end she's fair, beautiful—anybody may see that. I wrote to Morehouse and to Cambridge immediately to say what I had done, fully explaining also why I had thus acted. Diana and Mary approved the step unreservedly. Diana announced that she would just give me time to get over the honeymoon, and then she would come and see me. She had better not wait till then, Jane. said Mr. Rochester, when I read her letter to him. If she does, she'll be too late. For our honeymoon will shine our life long. Its beams will only fade over your grave or mine. How St. John received the news, I don't know. He never answered the letter in which I communicated it. Yet six months after, he wrote to me, without, however, mentioning Mr. Rochester's name or alluding to my marriage. His letter was then calm, and, though very serious, kind. He has maintained a regular, though not frequent, correspondence ever since.   I had not. I soon asked and obtained leave of Mr. Rochester to go and see her at the school where he had placed her. Her frantic joy, beholding me again, moved me much. She looked pale and thin. She said she was not happy. I found the rules of the establishment were too strict, its course of study, too severe for a child of her age. I took her home with me. I meant to become her governess once more, but I soon found this impracticable. My time and cares were now required by another. My husband needed them all. So I sought out a school conducted on a more indulgent system, and near enough to permit my visiting her often, and bringing her home sometimes. I took care she should never want for anything that could contribute to her comfort. She soon settled in her new abode, became very happy there, and made fair progress in her studies. As she grew up, a sound English education corrected in great measure her French defects, and when she left school, I found in her a pleasing and obliging companion, docile, good-tempered, and well-principled. By her grateful attention to me and mine, she has long since well repaid any little kindness I ever had it in my power to offer her. My tale draws to its close. One word respecting my experience of married life, and one brief glance at the fortunes of those whose names have most frequently recurred in this narrative, and I have done. I have now been married ten years. I know what it is to live entirely for and with what I love best on earth. I hold myself supremely blessed—blessed beyond what language can express—because I am my husband's life as fully as he is mine. No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am—evermore absolutely bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. I know no weariness of my Edward society. He knows none of mine any more than we do of the pulsation of the heart that beats in our separate bosoms. Consequently, we are ever together. To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company. We talk, I believe, all day long. To talk to each other is but a more animated and an audible thinking. All my confidence is bestowed on him, and all his confidence is devoted to me. We are precisely suited in character. Perfect concord is the result. Mr. Rochester continued blind the first two years of our union. Perhaps it was that circumstance that drew us so very near, that knit us so very close, for I was then his vision, as I am still his right hand. Literally I was, what he often called me, the apple of his eye. He saw nature, he saw books through me, and never did I weary of gazing for his behalf, and of putting into words the effect of field, town, tree, river, cloud, sunbeam, of the landscape before us, of the weather round us, and impressing by sound on his ear what light could no long stamp on his eye. Never did I weary of reading to him, never did I weary of conducting him where he wished to go, of doing for him what he wished to be done. And there was a pleasure in my services, most full, most exquisite, even though sad, because he claimed these services without painful shame or damping humiliation. He loved me so truly, that he knew no reluctance in profiting by my attendance. He felt I loved him so fondly, that to yield that attendance was to indulge my sweetest wishes. One morning at the end of the two years, as I was writing a letter to his dictation, he came and bent over me and said, Jane, have you a glittering ornament round your neck? I had a gold watch chain. I answered, Yes. And have you a pale blue dress on? I had. He informed me then that for some time he had fancied the obscurity clouding one eye was becoming less dense, and that now he was sure of it. He and I went up to London. He had the advice of an eminent oculus, and he eventually recovered the sight of that one eye. He cannot now see very distinctly. He cannot read or write much. But he can find his way without being led by the hand. The sky is no longer a blank to him. The earth no longer a void. When his first born was put into his arms, he could see that the boy had inherited his own eyes as they once were—large, brilliant, and black. On that occasion, he again, with a full heart, acknowledged that God had tempered judgment with mercy. My Edwin and I then are happy, and the more so, because those we most love are happy likewise. Diana and Mary Rivers are both married. Alternately, once every year, they come to see us, and we go to see them. Diana's husband is a captain in the navy, a gallant officer and a good man. Mary's is a clergyman, a college friend of her brothers, and from his attainments and principles, worthy of the connection. Both Captain Fitz-James and Mr. Wharton love their wives, and are loved by them. As to St. John Rivers, he left England. He went to India. He entered on the path he had marked for himself. He pursues it still. A more resolute, indefatigable pioneer never wrought amidst rocks and dangers. Firm, faithful, and devoted, full of energy and zeal and truth, he labours for his race. He clears their painful way to improvement. He hues down, like a giant, the prejudices of creed and cast that encumber it. He may be stern. He may be exacting. He may be ambitious yet. But his is the sternness of the warrior Great Heart, who guards his pilgrim convoy from the onslaught of Apollyon. His is the exaction of the apostle, who speaks but for Christ, when he says, whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. His is the ambition of the high master spirit, which aims to fill a place in the first rank of those who are redeemed from the earth, who stand without fault before the throne of God, who share the last mighty victories of the Lamb, who are called, and chosen, and faithful. Sinjin is unmarried. He never will marry now. Himself has hitherto sufficed to the toil, and the toil draws near its close, his glorious son hastens to its setting. The last letter I was seen from him drew for my eyes human tears, and yet filled my heart with divine joy. He anticipated his sure reward, his incorruptible crown. I know that a stranger's hand will write to me next, to say that the good and faithful servant has been called at length into the joy of his Lord. And why weep for this? No fear of death will darken Sinjin's last hour. His mind will be unclouded. His heart will be undaunted. His hope will be sure. His faith steadfast. His own words are a pledge of this. My master, he says, hers forewarned me. Daily he announces more distinctly. Surely I come quickly. And hourly I more eagerly respond. Amen. Even so come, Lord Jesus.