afternoon, when he chanced to meet me and Adele in the grounds: and

while she played with Pilot and her shuttlecock, he asked me to walk

up and down a long beech avenue within sight of her.

   He then said that she was the daughter of a French opera-dancer,

Celine Varens, towards whom he had once cherished what he called a

'grande passion.' This passion Celine had professed to return with

even superior ardour. He thought himself her idol, ugly as he was:

he believed, as he said, that she preferred his 'taille d'athlete'

to the elegance of the Apollo Belvidere.

   'And, Miss Eyre, so much was I flattered by this preference of

the Gallic sylph for her British gnome, that I installed her in an

hotel; gave her a complete establishment of servants, a carriage,

cashmeres, diamonds, dentelles, etc. In short, I began the process

of ruining myself in the received style, like any other spoony. I

had not, it seems, the originality to chalk out a new road to shame

and destruction, but trode the old track with stupid exactness not

to deviate an inch from the beaten centre. I had- as I deserved to

have- the fate of all other spoonies. Happening to call one evening

when Celine did not expect me, I found her out; but it was a warm

night, and I was tired with strolling through Paris, so I sat down

in her boudoir; happy to breathe the air consecrated so lately by

her presence. No,- I exaggerate; I never thought there was any

consecrating virtue about her: it was rather a sort of pastille

perfume she had left; a scent of musk and amber, than an odour of

sanctity. I was just beginning to stifle with the fumes of

conservatory flowers and sprinkled essences, when I bethought myself

to open the window and step out on to the balcony. It was moonlight

and gaslight besides, and very still and serene. The balcony was

furnished with a chair or two; I sat down, and took out a cigar,- I

will take one now, if you will excuse me.'

   Here ensued a pause, filled up by the producing and lighting of a

cigar; having placed it to his lips and breathed a trail of Havannah

incense on the freezing and sunless air, he went on-

   'I liked bonbons too in those days, Miss Eyre, and I was

croquant- (overlook the barbarism)- croquant chocolate comfits, and

smoking alternately, watching meantime the equipages that rolled along

the fashionable streets towards the neighbouring opera-house, when

in an elegant close carriage drawn by a beautiful pair of English

horses, and distinctly seen in the brilliant city-night, I

recognised the "voiture" I had given Celine. She was returning: of

course my heart thumped with impatience against the iron rails I leant

upon. The carriage stopped, as I had expected, at the hotel door; my

flame (that is the very word for an opera inamorata) alighted:

though muffled in a cloak- an unnecessary encumbrance, by the bye,

on so warm a June evening- I knew her instantly by her little foot,

seen peeping from the skirt of her dress, as she skipped from the

carriage step. Bending over the balcony, I was about to murmur "Mon

ange"- in a tone, of course, which should be audible to the ear of

love alone- when a figure jumped from the carriage after her;

cloaked also; but that was a spurred heel which had rung on the

pavement, and that was a hatted head which now passed under the arched

porte cochere of the hotel.

   'You never felt jealousy, did you, Miss Eyre? Of course not: I need

not ask you; because you never felt love. You have both sentiments yet

to experience: your soul sleeps; the shock is yet to be given which

shall waken it. You think all existence lapses in as quiet a flow as

that in which your youth has hitherto slid away. Floating on with

closed eyes and muffled ears, you neither see the rocks bristling

not far off in the bed of the flood, nor hear the breakers boil at

their base. But I tell you- and you may mark my words- you will come

some day to a craggy pass in the channel, where the whole of life's

stream will be broken up into whirl and tumult, foam and noise: either

you will be dashed to atoms on crag points, or lifted up and borne

on by some master-wave into a calmer current- as I am now.

   'I like this day; I like that sky of steel; I like the sterness and

stillness of the world under this frost. I like Thornfield, its

antiquity, its retirement, its old crow-trees and thorn-trees, its

grey facade, and lines of dark windows reflecting that metal welkin:

and yet how long have I abhorred the very thought of it, shunned it

like a great plague-house? How I do still abhor-'

   He ground his teeth and was silent: he arrested his step and struck

his boot against the hard ground. Some hated thought seemed to have

him in its grip, and to hold him so tightly that he could not advance.

   We were ascending the avenue when he thus paused; the hall was

before us. Lifting his eye to its battlements, he cast over them a

glare such as I never saw before or since. Pain, shame, ire,

impatience, disgust, detestation, seemed momentarily to hold a

quivering conflict in the large pupil dilating under his ebon eyebrow.

Wild was the wrestle which should be paramount; but another feeling

rose and triumphed: something hard and cynical: self-willed and

resolute: it settled his passion and petrified his countenance: he

went on-

   'During the moment I was silent, Miss Eyre, I was arranging a point

with my destiny. She stood there, by that beech-trunk- a hag like

one of those who appeared to Macbeth on the heath of Forres. "You like

Thornfield?" she said, lifting her finger; and then she wrote in the

air a memento, which ran in lurid hieroglyphics all along the

house-front, between the upper and lower row of windows, "Like it if

you can? Like it if you dare!"

   '"I will like it" said I; "I dare like it;" and' (he subjoined

moodily) 'I will keep my word; I will break obstacles to happiness, to

goodness- yes, goodness. I wish to be a better man than I have been,

than I am; as Job's leviathan broke the spear, the dart, and the

habergeon, hindrances which others count as iron and brass, I will

esteem but straw and rotten wood.'

   Adele here ran before him with her shuttlecock. 'Away!' he cried

harshly; 'keep at a distance, child; or go in to Sophie!' Continuing

then to pursue his walk in silence, I ventured to recall him to the

point whence he had abruptly diverged-

   'Did you leave the balcony, sir,' I asked, 'when Mdlle. Varens

entered?'

   I almost expected a rebuff for this hardly well-timed question,

but, on the contrary, waking out of his scowling abstraction, he

turned his eyes towards me, and the shade seemed to clear off his

brow. 'Oh, I had forgotten Celine! Well, to resume. When I saw my

charmer thus come in accompanied by a cavalier, I seemed to hear a

hiss, and the green snake of jealousy, rising on undulating coils from

the moonlit balcony, glided within my waistcoat, and ate its way in

two minutes to my heart's core. Strange!' he exclaimed, suddenly

starting again from the point. 'Strange that I should choose you for

the confidant of all this, young lady; passing strange that you should

listen to me quietly, as if it were the most usual thing in the

world for a man like me to tell stories of his opera-mistresses to a

quaint, inexperienced girl like you! But the last singularity explains

the first, as I intimated once before: you, with your gravity,

considerateness, and caution were made to be the recipient of secrets.

Besides, I know what sort of a mind I have placed in communication

with my own: I know it is one not liable to take infection: it is a

peculiar mind: it is a unique one. Happily I do not mean to harm it:

but, if I did, it would not take harm from me. The more you and I

converse, the better; for while I cannot blight you, you may refresh

me.' After this digression he proceeded-

   'I remained in the balcony. "They will come to her boudoir, no

doubt," thought I: "Let me prepare an ambush." So putting my hand in

through the open window, I drew the curtain over it, leaving only an

opening through which I could take observations; then I closed the

casement, all but a chink just wide enough to furnish an outlet to

lovers' whispered vows: then I stole back to my chair; and as I

resumed it the pair came in. My eye was quickly at the aperture.

Celine's chambermaid entered, lit a lamp, left it on the table, and

withdrew. The couple were thus revealed to me clearly: both removed

their cloaks, and there was "the Varens," shining in satin and

jewels,- my gifts of course,- and there was her companion in an

officer's uniform; and I knew him for a young roue of a vicomte- a

brainless and vicious youth whom I had sometimes met in society, and

had never thought of hating because I despised him so absolutely. On

recognising him, the fang of the snake Jealousy was instantly

broken; because at the same moment my love for Celine sank under an

extinguisher. A woman who could betray me for such a rival was not

worth contending for; she deserved only scorn; less, however, than

I, who had been her dupe.

   'They began to talk; their conversation eased me completely:

frivolous, mercenary, heartless, and senseless, it was rather

calculated to weary than enrage a listener. A card of mine lay on

the table; this being perceived, brought my name under discussion.

Neither of them possessed energy or wit to belabour me soundly, but

they insulted me as coarsely as they could in their little way:

especially Celine, who even waxed rather brilliant on my personal

defects- deformities she termed them. Now it had been her custom to

launch out into fervent admiration of what she called my "beaute

male": wherein she differed diametrically from you, who told me

point-blank, at the second interview, that you did not think me

handsome. The contrast struck me at the time and-'

   Adele here came running up again.

   'Monsieur, John has just been to say that your agent has called and

wishes to see you.'

   'Ah! in that case I must abridge. Opening the window, I walked in

upon them; liberated Celine from my protection; gave her notice to

vacate her hotel; offered her a purse for immediate exigencies;

disregarded screams, hysterics, prayers, protestations, convulsions;

made an appointment with the vicomte for a meeting at the Bois de

Boulogne. Next morning I had the pleasure of encountering him; left

a bullet in one of his poor etiolated arms, feeble as the wing of a

chicken in the pip, and then thought I had done with the whole crew.

But unluckily the Varens, six months before, had given me this filette

Adele, who, she affirmed, was my daughter; and perhaps she may be,

though I see no proofs of such grim paternity written in her

countenance: Pilot is more like me than she. Some years after I had

broken with the mother, she abandoned her child, and ran away to Italy

with a musician or singer. I acknowledged no natural claim on

Adele's part to be supported by me, nor do I now acknowledge any,

for I am not her father; but hearing that she was quite destitute, I

e'en took the poor thing out of the slime and mud of Paris, and

transplanted it here, to grow up clean in the wholesome soil of an

English country garden. Mrs. Fairfax found you to train it; but now

you know that it is the illegitimate offspring of a French opera-girl,

you will perhaps think differently of your post and protegee: you will

be coming to me some day with notice that you have found another

place- that you beg me to look out for a new governess, etc.- Eh?'

   'No: Adele is not answerable for either her mother's faults or

yours: I have a regard for her; and now that I know she is, in a

sense, parentless- forsaken by her mother and disowned by you, sir-

I shall cling closer to her than before. How could I possibly prefer

the spoilt pet of a wealthy family, who would hate her governess as

a nuisance, to a lonely little orphan, who leans towards her as a

friend?'

   'Oh, that is the light in which you view it! Well, I must go in

now; and you too: it darkens.'

   But I stayed out a few minutes longer with Adele and Pilot- ran a

race with her, and played a game of battledore and shuttlecock. When

we went in, and I had removed her bonnet and coat, I took her on my

knee; kept her there an hour, allowing her to prattle as she liked:

not rebuking even some little freedoms and trivialities into which she

was apt to stray when much noticed, and which betrayed in her a

superficiality of character, inherited probably from her mother,

hardly congenial to an English mind. Still she had her merits; and I

was disposed to appreciate all that was good in her to the utmost. I

sought in her countenance and features a likeness to Mr. Rochester,

but found none: no trait, no turn of expression announced

relationship. It was a pity: if she could but have been proved to

resemble him, he would have thought more of her.

   It was not till after I had withdrawn to my own chamber for the

night, that I steadily reviewed the tale Mr. Rochester had told me. As

he had said, there was probably nothing at all extraordinary in the

substance of the narrative itself: a wealthy Englishman's passion

for a French dancer, and her treachery to him, were every-day

matters enough, no doubt, in society; but there was something

decidedly strange in the paroxysm of emotion which had suddenly seized

him when he was in the act of expressing the present contentment of

his mood, and his newly revived pleasure in the old hall and its

environs. I meditated wonderingly on this incident; but gradually

quitting it, as I found it for the present inexplicable, I turned to

the consideration of my master's manner to myself. The confidence he

had thought fit to repose in me seemed a tribute to my discretion: I

regarded and accepted it as such. His deportment had now for some

weeks been more uniform towards me than at the first. I never seemed

in his way; he did not take fits of chilling hauteur: when he met me

unexpectedly, the encounter seemed welcome; he had always a word and

sometimes a smile for me: when summoned by formal invitation to his

presence, I was honoured by a cordiality of reception that made me

feel I really possessed the power to amuse him, and that these evening

conferences were sought as much for his pleasure as for my benefit.

   I, indeed, talked comparatively little, but I heard him talk with

relish. It was his nature to be communicative; he liked to open to a

mind unacquainted with the world glimpses of its scenes and ways (I do

not mean its corrupt scenes and wicked ways, but such as derived their

interest from the great scale on which they were acted, the strange

novelty by which they were characterised); and I had a keen delight in

receiving the new ideas he offered, in imagining the new pictures he

portrayed, and following him in thought through the new regions he

disclosed, never startled or troubled by one noxious allusion.

   The ease of his manner freed me from painful restraint: the

friendly frankness, as correct as cordial, with which he treated me,

drew me to him. I felt at times as if he were my relation rather

than my master: yet he was imperious sometimes still; but I did not

mind that; I saw it was his way. So happy, so gratified did I become

with this new interest added to life, that I ceased to pine after

kindred: my thin crescent-destiny seemed to enlarge; the blanks of

existence were filled up; my bodily health improved; I gathered

flesh and strength.

   And was Mr. Rochester now ugly in my eyes? No, reader: gratitude,

and many associations, all pleasurable and genial, made his face the

object I best liked to see; his presence in a room was more cheering

than the brightest fire. Yet I had not forgotten his faults; indeed, I

could not, for he brought them frequently before me. He was proud,

sardonic, harsh to inferiority of every description: in my secret soul

I knew that his great kindness to me was balanced by unjust severity

to many others. He was moody, too; unaccountably so; I more than once,

when sent for to read to him, found him sitting in his library

alone, with his head bent on his folded arms; and, when he looked

up, a morose, almost a malignant, scowl blackened his features. But

I believed that his moodiness, his harshness, and his former faults of

morality (I say former, for now he seemed corrected of them) had their

source in some cruel cross of fate. I believed he was naturally a

man of better tendencies, higher principles, and purer tastes than

such as circumstances had developed, education instilled, or destiny

encouraged. I thought there were excellent materials in him; though

for the present they hung together somewhat spoiled and tangled. I

cannot deny that I grieved for his grief, whatever that was, and would

have given much to assuage it.

   Though I had now extinguished my candle and was laid down in bed, I

could not sleep for thinking of his look when he paused in the avenue,

and told how his destiny had risen up before him, and dared him to

be happy at Thornfield.

   'Why not?' I asked myself. 'What alienates him from the house? Will

he leave it again soon? Mrs. Fairfax said he seldom stayed here longer

than a fortnight at a time; and he has now been resident eight

weeks. If he does go, the change will be doleful. Suppose he should be

absent spring, summer, and autumn: how joyless sunshine and fine

days will seem!'

   I hardly know whether I had slept or not after this musing; at

any rate, I started wide awake on hearing a vague murmur, peculiar and

lugubrious, which sounded, I thought, just above me. I wished I had

kept my candle burning: the night was drearily dark; my spirits were

depressed. I rose and sat up in bed, listening. The sound was hushed.

   I tried again to sleep; but my heart beat anxiously: my inward

tranquillity was broken. The clock, far down in the hall, struck

two. Just then it seemed my chamber-door was touched; as if fingers

had swept the panels in groping a way along the dark gallery

outside. I said, 'Who is there?' Nothing answered. I was chilled

with fear.

   All at once I remembered that it might be Pilot, who, when the

kitchen-door chanced to be left open, not unfrequently found his way

up to the threshold of Mr. Rochester's chamber: I had seen him lying

there myself in the mornings. The idea calmed me somewhat: I lay down.

Silence composes the nerves; and as an unbroken hush now reigned again

through the whole house, I began to feel the return of slumber. But it

was not fated that I should sleep that night. A dream had scarcely

approached my ear, when it fled affrighted, scared by a

marrow-freezing incident enough.

   This was a demoniac laugh- low, suppressed, and deep- uttered, as

it seemed, at the very keyhole of my chamber door. The head of my

bed was near the door, and I thought at first the goblin-laugher stood

at my bedside- or rather, crouched by my pillow: but I rose, looked

round, and could see nothing; while, as I still gazed, the unnatural

sound was reiterated: and I knew it came from behind the panels. My

first impulse was to rise and fasten the bolt; my next, again to cry

out, 'Who is there?'

   Something gurgled and moaned. Ere long, steps retreated up the

gallery towards the third-storey staircase: a door had lately been

made to shut in that staircase; I heard it open and close, and all was

still.

   'Was that Grace Poole? and is she possessed with a devil?'

thought I. Impossible now to remain longer by myself: I must go to

Mrs. Fairfax. I hurried on my frock and a shawl; I withdrew the bolt

and opened the door with a trembling hand. There was a candle

burning just outside, and on the matting in the gallery. I was

surprised at this circumstance: but still more was I amazed to

perceive the air quite dim, as if filled with smoke; and, while

looking to the right hand and left, to find whence these blue

wreaths issued, I became further aware of a strong smell of burning.

   Something creaked: it was a door ajar; and that door was Mr.

Rochester's, and the smoke rushed in a cloud from thence. I thought no

more of Mrs. Fairfax; I thought no more of Grace Poole, or the

laugh: in an instant, I was within the chamber. Tongues of flame

darted round the bed: the curtains were on fire. In the midst of blaze

and vapour, Mr. Rochester lay stretched motionless, in deep sleep.

   'Wake! wake!' I cried. I shook him, but he only murmured and

turned: the smoke had stupefied him. Not a moment could be lost: the

very sheets were kindling, I rushed to his basin and ewer;

fortunately, one was wide and the other deep, and both were filled

with water. I heaved them up, deluged the bed and its occupant, flew

back to my own room, brought my own water-jug, baptized the couch

afresh, and, by God's aid, succeeded in extinguishing the flames which

were devouring it.

   The hiss of the quenched element, the breakage of a pitcher which I

flung from my hand when I had emptied it, and, above all, the splash

of the shower-bath I had liberally bestowed, roused Mr. Rochester at

last. Though it was now dark, I knew he was awake; because I heard him

fulminating strange anathemas at finding himself lying in a pool of

water.

   'Is there a flood?' he cried.

   No, sir,' I answered; 'but there has been a fire: get up, do; you

are quenched now; I will fetch you a candle.'

   'In the name of all the elves in Christendom, is that Jane Eyre?'

he demanded. 'What have you done with me, witch, sorceress? Who is

in the room besides you? Have you plotted to drown me?'

   'I will fetch you a candle, sir; and, in Heaven's name, get up.

Somebody has plotted something: you cannot too soon find out who and

what it is.'

   'There! I am up now; but at your peril you fetch a candle yet: wait

two minutes till I get into some dry garments, if any dry there be-

yes, here is my dressing-gown. Now run!'

   I did run; I brought the candle which still remained in the

gallery. He took it from my hand, held it up, and surveyed the bed,

all blackened and scorched, the sheets drenched, the carpet round

swimming in water.

   'What is it? and who did it?' he asked.

   I briefly related to him what had transpired: the strange laugh I

had heard in the gallery; the step ascending to the third storey;

the smoke,- the smell of fire which had conducted me to his room; in

what state I had found matters there, and how I had deluged him with

all the water I could lay hands on.

   He listened very gravely; his face, as I went on, expressed more

concern than astonishment; he did not immediately speak when I had

concluded.

   'Shall I call Mrs. Fairfax?' I asked.

   'Mrs. Fairfax? No; what the deuce would you call her for? What

can she do? Let her sleep unmolested.'

   'Then I will fetch Leah, and wake John and his wife.'

   'Not at all: just be still. You have a shawl on. If you are not

warm enough, you may take my cloak yonder; wrap it about you, and

sit down in the arm-chair: there,- I will put it on. Now place your

feet on the stool, to keep them out of the wet. I am going to leave

you a few minutes. I shall take the candle. Remain where you are

till I return; be as still as a mouse. I must pay a visit to the

second storey. Don't move, remember, or call any one.'

   He went: I watched the light withdraw. He passed up the gallery

very softly, unclosed the staircase door with as little noise as

possible, shut it after him, and the last ray vanished. I was left

in total darkness. I listened for some noise, but heard nothing. A

very long time elapsed. I grew weary: it was cold, in spite of the

cloak; and then I did not see the use of staying, as I was not to

rouse the house. I was on the point of risking Mr. Rochester's

displeasure by disobeying his orders, when the light once more gleamed

dimly on the gallery wall, and I heard his unshod feet tread the

matting. 'I hope it is he,' thought I, 'and not something worse.'

   He re-entered, pale and very gloomy. 'I have found it all out,'

said he, setting his candle down on the washstand; 'it is as I

thought.'

   'How, sir?'

   He made no reply, but stood with his arms folded, looking on the

ground. At the end of a few minutes he inquired in rather a peculiar

tone-

   'I forget whether you said you saw anything when you opened your

chamber door.'

   'No, sir, only the candlestick on the ground.'

   'But you heard an odd laugh? You have heard that laugh before, I

should think, or something like it?'

   'Yes, sir: there is a woman who sews here, called Grace Poole,- she

laughs in that way. She is a singular person.'

   'Just so. Grace Poole- you have guessed it. She is, as you say,

singular- very. Well, I shall reflect on the subject. Meantime, I am

glad that you are the only person, besides myself, acquainted with the

precise details of to-night's incident. You are no talking fool: say

nothing about it. I will account for this state of affairs'

(pointing to the bed): 'and now return to your own room. I shall do

very well on the sofa in the library for the rest of the night. It

is near four:- in two hours the servants will be up.'

   'Good-night, then, sir,' said I, departing.

   He seemed surprised- very inconsistently so, as he had just told me

to go.

   'What!' he exclaimed, 'are you quitting me already, and in that

way?'

   'You said I might go, sir.'

   'But not without taking leave; not without a word or two of

acknowledgment and good-will: not, in short, in that brief, dry

fashion. Why, you have saved my life!- snatched me from a horrible and

excruciating death! and you walk past me as if we were mutual

strangers! At least shake hands.'

   He held out his hand; I gave him mine: he took it first in one,

then in both his own.

   'You have saved my life: I have a pleasure in owing you so

immense a debt. I cannot say more. Nothing else that has being would

have been tolerable to me in the character of creditor for such an

obligation: but you: it is different;- I feel your benefits no burden,

Jane.'

   He paused; gazed at me: words almost visible trembled on his lips,-

but his voice was checked.

   'Good-night again, sir. There is no debt, benefit, burden,

obligation, in the case.'

   'I knew,' he continued, you would do me good in some way, at some

time;- I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you: their expression

and smile did not'- (again he stopped)- 'did not' (he proceeded

hastily) 'strike delight to my very inmost heart so for nothing.

People talk of natural sympathies; I have heard of good genii: there

are grains of truth in the wildest fable. My cherished preserver,

good-night!'

   Strange energy was in his voice, strange fire in his look.

   'I am glad I happened to be awake,' I said: and then I was going.

   'What! you will go?'

   'I am cold, sir.'

   'Cold? Yes,- and standing in a pool! Go, then, Jane; go!' But he

still retained my hand, and I could not free it. I bethought myself of

an expedient.

   'I think I hear Mrs. Fairfax move, sir,' said I.

   'Well, leave me': he relaxed his fingers, and I was gone.

   I regained my couch, but never thought of sleep. Till morning

dawned I was tossed on a buoyant but unquiet sea, where billows of

trouble rolled under surges of joy. I thought sometimes I saw beyond

its wild waters a shore, sweet as the hills of Beulah; and now and

then a freshening gale, wakened by hope, bore my spirit triumphantly

towards the bourne: but I could not reach it, even in fancy- a

counteracting breeze blew off land, and continually drove me back.

Sense would resist delirium: judgment would warn passion. Too feverish

to rest, I rose as soon as day dawned.