Some time iernoon I raised my head, and looking round and seeing the western sun gilding the sign of its dee on the wall, I asked, 「What am I to do?」
But the answer my mind gave—「Leave Thornfield at once」—was so prompt, so dread, that I stopped my ears. I said I could not bear such words now. 「That I am not Edward Rochester』s bride is the least part of my woe,」 I alleged: 「that I have wakened out of most glorious dreams, and found them all void and vain, is a horror I could bear and master; but that I must leave him decidedly, instantly, entirely, is intolerable. I ot do it.」
But, then, a voice within me averred that I could do it and foretold that I should do it. I wrestled with my own resolution: I wao be weak that I might avoid the awful passage of further suffering I saw laid out for me; and sce, turyrant, held Passion by the throat, told her tauntingly, she had yet but dipped her dainty foot in the slough, and swore that with that arm of iron he would thrust her down to unsounded depths of agony.
「Let me be torn away,」 then I cried. 「Let another help me!」
「No; you shall tear yourself away, none shall help you: you shall yourself pluck out yht eye; yourself cut off yht hand: your heart shall be the victim, and you the priest to transfix it.」
I rose up suddenly, terror-struck at the solitude which so ruthless a judge haunted,—at the silence which so awful a voice filled. My head swam as I stood erect. I perceived that I was siing from excitement and inanitioher meat nor drink had passed my lips that day, for I had taken no breakfast. And, with a strange pang, I now reflected that, long as I had been shut up here, no message had beeo ask how I was, or to invite me to e down: not even little Adèle had tapped at the door; not even Mrs. Fairfax had sought me. 「Friends always fet those whom fortune forsakes,」 I murmured, as I uhe bolt and passed out. I stumbled over an obstacle: my head was still dizzy, my sight was dim, and my limbs were feeble. I could not soon recover myself. I fell, but not on to the ground: an outstretched arm caught me. I looked up—I was supported by Mr. Rochester, who sat in a chair ay chamber threshold.
「You e out at last,」 he said. 「Well, I have been waiting for you long, and listening: yet not one movement have I heard, nor one sob: five minutes more of that death-like hush, and I should have forced the lock like a burglar. So you shun me?—you shut yourself up and grieve alone! I would rather you had e and upbraided me with vehemence. You are passionate. I expected a se of some kind. I repared for the hot rain of tears; only I wahem to be shed on my breast: now a senseless floor has received them, or your drenched handkerchief. But I err: you have not wept at all! I see a white cheek and a faded eye, but no trace of tears. I suppose, then, your heart has been weeping blood?」
「Well, Jane! not a word of reproaothing bitter—nothing poignant? Nothing to cut a feeling or sting a passion? You sit quietly where I have placed you, and regard me with a weary, passive look.」
「Jane, I never meant to wound you thus. If the man who had but otle ewe lamb that was dear to him as a daughter, that ate of his bread and drank of his cup, and lay in his bosom, had by some mistake slaughtered it at the shambles, he would not have rued his bloody blunder more than I now rue mine. Will you ever five me?」
Reader, I fave him at the moment and on the spot. There was such deep remo