HE did not leave for Cambridge the next day, as he had said he

would. He deferred his departure a whole week, and during that time he

made me feel what severe punishment a good yet stern, a

conscientious yet implacable man can inflict on one who has offended

him. Without one overt act of hostility, one upbraiding word he

contrived to impress me momently with the conviction that I was put

beyond the pale of his favour.

Not that St. John harboured a spirit of unchristian vindictiveness-

not that he would have injured a hair of my head, if it had been fully

in his power to do so. Both by nature and principle, he was superior

to the mean gratification of vengeance: he had forgiven me for

saying I scorned him and his love, but he had not forgotten the words;

and as long as he and I lived he never would forget them. I saw by his

look, when he turned to me, that they were always written on the air

between me and him; whenever I spoke, they sounded in my voice to

his ear, and their echo toned every answer he gave me.

He did not abstain from conversing with me: he even called me as

usual each morning to join him at his desk; and I fear the corrupt man

within him had a pleasure unimparted to, and unshared by, the pure

Christian, in evincing with what skill he could, while acting and

speaking apparently just as usual, extract from every deed and every

phrase the spirit of interest and approval which had formerly

communicated a certain austere charm to his language and manner. To

me, he was in reality become no longer flesh, but marble; his eye

was a cold, bright, blue gem; his tongue a speaking instrument-

nothing more.

All this was torture to me- refined, lingering torture. It kept

up a slow fire of indignation and a trembling trouble of grief,

which harassed and crushed me altogether. I felt how- if I were his

wife, this good man, pure as the deep sunless source, could soon

kill me, without drawing from my veins a single drop of blood, or

receiving on his own crystal conscience the faintest stain of crime.

Especially I felt this when I made any attempt to propitiate him. No

ruth met my ruth. He experienced no suffering from estrangement- no

yearning after reconciliation; and though, more than once, my fast

falling tears blistered the page over which we both bent, they

produced no more effect on him than if his heart had been really a

matter of stone or metal. To his sisters, meantime, he was somewhat

kinder than usual: as if afraid that mere coldness would not

sufficiently convince me how completely I was banished and banned,

he added the force of contrast; and this I am sure he did not by

malice, but on principle.

The night before he left home, happening to see him walking in

the garden about sunset, and remembering, as I looked at him, that

this man, alienated as he now was, had once saved my life, and that we

were near relations, I was moved to make a last attempt to regain

his friendship. I went out and approached him as he stood leaning over

the little gate; I spoke to the point at once.

'St. John, I am unhappy because you are still angry with me. Let us

be friends.'

'I hope we are friends,' was the unmoved reply; while he still

watched the rising of the moon, which he had been contemplating as I

approached.

'No, St. John, we are not friends as we were. You know that.'

'Are we not? That is wrong. For my part, I wish you no ill and

all good.'

'I believe you, St. John; for I am sure you are incapable of

wishing any one ill; but, as I am your kinswoman, I should desire

somewhat more of affection than that sort of general philanthropy

you extend to mere strangers.'

'Of course,' he said. 'Your wish is reasonable, and I am far from

regarding you as a stranger.'

This, spoken in a cool, tranquil tone, was mortifying and

baffling enough. Had I attended to the suggestions of pride and ire, I

should immediately have left him; but something worked within me

more strongly than those feelings could. I deeply venerated my

cousin's talent and principle. His friendship was of value to me: to

lose it tried me severely. I would not so soon relinquish the

attempt to reconquer it.

'Must we part in this way, St. John? And when you go to India, will

you leave me so, without a kinder word than you have yet spoken?'

He now turned quite from the moon and faced me.

'When I go to India, Jane, will I leave you! What! do you not go to

India?'

'You said I could not unless I married you.'

'And you will not marry me! You adhere to that resolution?'

Reader, do you know, as I do, what terror those cold people can put

into the ice of their questions? How much of the fall of the avalanche

is in their anger? of the breaking up of the frozen sea in their

displeasure?

'No, St. John, I will not marry you. I adhere to my resolution.'

The avalanche had shaken and slid a little forward, but it did

not yet crash down.

'Once more, why this refusal?' he asked.

'Formerly,' I answered, 'because you did not love me; now, I reply,

because you almost hate me. If I were to marry you, you would kill me.

You are killing me now.'

His lips and cheeks turned white- quite white.

'I should kill you- I am killing you? Your words are such as

ought not to be used: violent, unfeminine, and untrue. They betray

an unfortunate state of mind: they merit severe reproof: they would

seem inexcusable, but that it is the duty of man to forgive his fellow

even until seventy-and-seven times.'

I had finished the business now. While earnestly wishing to erase

from his mind the trace of my former offence, I had stamped on that

tenacious surface another and far deeper impression: I had burnt it

in.

'Now you will indeed hate me,' I said. 'It is useless to attempt to

conciliate you: I see I have made an eternal enemy of you.'

A fresh wrong did these words inflict: the worse, because they

touched on the truth. That bloodless lip quivered to a temporary

spasm. I knew the steely ire I had whetted. I was heart-wrung.

'You utterly misinterpret my words,' I said, at once seizing his

hand: 'I have no intention to grieve or pain you- indeed, I have not.'

Most bitterly he smiled- most decidedly he withdrew his hand from

mine. 'And now you recall your promise, and will not go to India at

all, I presume?' said he, after a considerable pause.

'Yes, I will, as your assistant,' I answered.

A very long silence succeeded. What struggle there was in him

between Nature and Grace in this interval, I cannot tell: only

singular gleams scintillated in his eyes, and strange shadows passed

over his face. He spoke at last.

'I before proved to you the absurdity of a single woman of your age

proposing to accompany abroad a single man of mine. I proved it to you

in such terms as, I should have thought, would have prevented your

ever again alluding to the plan. That you have done so, I regret-

for your sake.'

I interrupted him. Anything like a tangible reproach gave me

courage at once. 'Keep to common sense, St. John: you are verging on

nonsense. You pretend to be shocked by what I have said. You are not

really shocked: for, with your superior mind, you cannot be either

so dull or so conceited as to misunderstand my meaning. I say again, I

will be your curate, if you like, but never your wife.'

Again he turned lividly pale; but, as before, controlled his

passion perfectly. He answered emphatically but calmly-

'A female curate, who is not my wife, would never suit me. With me,

then, it seems, you cannot go: but if you are sincere in your offer, I

will, while in town, speak to a married missionary, whose wife needs a

coadjutor. Your own fortune will make you independent of the Society's

aid; and thus you may still be spared the dishonour of breaking your

promise and deserting the band you engaged to join.'

Now I never had, as the reader knows, either given any formal

promise or entered into any engagement; and this language was all much

too hard and much too despotic for the occasion. I replied-

'There is no dishonour, no breach of promise, no desertion in the

case. I am not under the slightest obligation to go to India,

especially with strangers. With you I would have ventured much,

because I admire, confide in, and, as a sister, I love you; but I am

convinced that, go when and with whom I would, I should not live

long in that climate.'

'Ah! you are afraid of yourself,' he said, curling his lip.

'I am. God did not give me my life to throw away; and to do as

you wish me would, I begin to think, be almost equivalent to

committing suicide. Moreover, before I definitely resolve on

quitting England, I will know for certain whether I cannot be of

greater use by remaining in it than by leaving it.'

'What do you mean?'

'It would be fruitless to attempt to explain; but there is a

point on which I have long endured painful doubt, and I can go nowhere

till by some means that doubt is removed.'

'I know where your heart turns and to what it clings. The

interest you cherish is lawless and unconsecrated. Long since you

ought to have crushed it: now you should blush to allude to it. You

think of Mr. Rochester?'

It was true. I confessed it by silence.

'Are you going to seek Mr. Rochester?'

'I must find out what is become of him.'

'It remains for me, then,' he said, 'to remember you in my prayers,

and to entreat God for you, in all earnestness, that you may not

indeed become a castaway. I had thought I recognised in you one of the

chosen. But God sees not as man sees: His will be done.'

He opened the gate, passed through it, and strayed away down the

glen. He was soon out of sight.

On re-entering the parlour, I found Diana standing at the window,

looking very thoughtful. Diana was a great deal taller than I:. she

put her hand on my shoulder, and, stooping, examined my face.

'Jane,' she said, 'you are always agitated and pale now. I am

sure there is something the matter. Tell me what business St. John and

you have on hands. I have watched you this half hour from the

window; you must forgive my being such a spy, but for a long time I

have fancied I hardly know what. St. John is a strange being-'

She paused- I did not speak: soon she resumed-

'That brother of mine cherishes peculiar views of some sort

respecting you, I am sure: he has long distinguished you by a notice

and interest he never showed to any one else- to what end? I wish he

loved you- does he, Jane?'

I put her cool hand to my hot forehead; 'No, Die, not one whit.'

'Then why does he follow you so with his eyes, and get you so

frequently alone with him, and keep you so continually at his side?

Mary and I had both concluded he wished you to marry him.'

'He does- he has asked me to be his wife.'

Diana clapped her hands. 'That is just what we hoped and thought!

And you will marry him, Jane, won't you? And then he will stay in

England.'

'Far from that, Diana; his sole idea in proposing to me is to

procure a fitting fellow-labourer in his Indian toils.'

'What! He wishes you to go to India?'

'Yes.'

'Madness!' she exclaimed. 'You would not live three months there, I

am certain. You never shall go: you have not consented, have you,

Jane?'

'I have refused to marry him-'

'And have consequently displeased him?' she suggested.

'Deeply: he will never forgive me, I fear: yet I offered to

accompany him as his sister.'

'It was frantic folly to do so, Jane. Think of the task you

undertook- one of incessant fatigue, where fatigue kills even the

strong, and you are weak. St. John- you know him- would urge you to

impossibilities: with him there would be no permission to rest

during the hot hours; and unfortunately, I have noticed, whatever he

exacts, you force yourself to perform. I am astonished you found

courage to refuse his hand. You do not love him then, Jane?'

'Not as a husband.'

'Yet he is a handsome fellow.'

'And I am so plain, you see, Die. We should never suit.'

'Plain! You? Not at all. You are much too pretty, as well as too

good, to be grilled alive in Calcutta.' And again she earnestly

conjured me to give up all thoughts of going out with her brother.

'I must indeed,' I said; 'for when just now I repeated the offer of

serving him for a deacon, he expressed himself shocked at my want of

decency. He seemed to think I had committed an impropriety in

proposing to accompany him unmarried: as if I had not from the first

hoped to find in him a brother, and habitually regarded him as such.'

'What makes you say he does not love you, Jane?'

'You should hear himself on the subject. He has again and again

explained that it is not himself, but his office he wishes to mate. He

has told me I am formed for labour- not for love: which is true, no

doubt. But, in my opinion, if I am not formed for love, it follows

that I am not formed for marriage. Would it not be strange, Die, to be

chained for life to a man who regarded one but as a useful tool?'

'Insupportable- unnatural- out of the question!'

'And then,' I continued, 'though I have only sisterly affection for

him now, yet, if forced to be his wife, I can imagine the

possibility of conceiving an inevitable, strange, torturing kind of

love for him, because he is so talented; and there is often a

certain heroic grandeur in his look, manner, and conversation. In that

case, my lot would become unspeakably wretched. He would not want me

to love him; and if I showed the feeling, he would make me sensible

that it was a superfluity, unrequired by him, unbecoming in me. I know

he would.'

'And yet St. John is a good man,' said Diana.

'He is a good and a great man; but he forgets, pitilessly, the

feelings and claims of little people, in pursuing his own large views.

It is better, therefore, for the insignificant to keep out of his way,

lest, in his progress, he should trample them down. Here he comes! I

will leave you, Diana.' And I hastened upstairs as I saw him

entering the garden.

But I was forced to meet him again at supper. During that meal he

appeared just as composed as usual. I had thought he would hardly

speak to me, and I was certain he had given up the pursuit of his

matrimonial scheme: the sequel showed I was mistaken on both points.

He addressed me precisely in his ordinary manner, or what had, of

late, been his ordinary manner- one scrupulously polite. No doubt he

had invoked the help of the Holy Spirit to subdue the anger I had

roused in him, and now believed he had forgiven me once more.

For the evening reading before prayers, he selected the

twenty-first chapter of Revelation. It was at all times pleasant to

listen while from his lips fell the words of the Bible: never did

his fine voice sound at once so sweet and full- never did his manner

become so impressive in its noble simplicity, as when he delivered the

oracles of God: and to-night that voice took a more solemn tone-

that manner a more thrilling meaning- as he sat in the midst of his

household circle (the May moon shining in through the uncurtained

window, and rendering almost unnecessary the light of the candle on

the table): as he sat there, bending over the great old Bible, and

described from its page the vision of the new heaven and the new

earth- told how God would come to dwell with men, how He would wipe

away all tears from their eyes, and promised that there should be no

more death, neither sorrow nor crying, nor any more pain, because

the former things were passed away.

The succeeding words thrilled me strangely as he spoke them:

especially as I felt, by the slight, indescribable alteration in

sound, that in uttering them, his eye had turned on me.

'He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his

God, and he shall be my son. But,' was slowly, distinctly read, 'the

fearful, the unbelieving, etc., shall have their part in the lake

which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.'

Henceforward, I knew what fate St. John feared for me.

A calm, subdued triumph, blent with a longing earnestness, marked

his enunciation of the last glorious verses of that chapter. The

reader believed his name was already written in the Lamb's book of

life, and he yearned after the hour which should admit him to the city

to which the kings of the earth bring their glory and honour; which

has no need of sun or moon to shine in it, because the glory of God

lightens it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.

In the prayer following the chapter, all his energy gathered- all

his stern zeal woke: he was in deep earnest, wrestling with God, and

resolved on a conquest. He supplicated strength for the

weak-hearted; guidance for wanderers from the fold: a return, even

at the eleventh hour, for those whom the temptations of the world

and the flesh were luring from the narrow path. He asked, he urged, he

claimed the boon of a brand snatched from the burning. Earnestness

is ever deeply solemn: first, as I listened to that prayer, I wondered

at his; then, when it continued and rose, I was touched by it, and

at last awed. He felt the greatness and goodness of his purpose so

sincerely: others who heard him plead for it, could not but feel it

too.

The prayer over, we took leave of him: he was to go at a very early

hour in the morning. Diana and Mary having kissed him, left the

room- in compliance, I think, with a whispered hint from him: I

tendered my hand, and wished him a pleasant journey.

'Thank you, Jane. As I said, I shall return from Cambridge in a

fortnight: that space, then, is yet left you for reflection. If I

listened to human pride, I should say no more to you of marriage

with me; but I listen to my duty, and keep steadily in view my first

aim- to do all things to the glory of God. My Master was

long-suffering: so will I be. I cannot give you up to perdition as a

vessel of wrath: repent- resolve, while there is yet time. Remember,

we are bid to work while it is day- warned that "the night cometh when

no man shall work." Remember the fate of Dives, who had his good

things in this life. God give you strength to choose that better

part which shall not be taken from you!'

He laid his hand on my head as he uttered the last words. He had

spoken earnestly, mildly: his look was not, indeed, that of a lover

beholding his mistress, but it was that of a pastor recalling his

wandering sheep- or better, of a guardian angel watching the soul

for which he is responsible. All men of talent, whether they be men of

feeling or not; whether they be zealots, or aspirants, or despots-

provided only they be sincere- have their sublime moments, when they

subdue and rule. I felt veneration for St. John- veneration so

strong that its impetus thrust me at once to the point I had so long

shunned. I was tempted to cease struggling with him- to rush down

the torrent of his will into the gulf of his existence, and there lose

my own. I was almost as hard beset by him now as I had been once

before, in a different way, by another. I was a fool both times. To

have yielded then would have been an error of principle; to have

yielded now would have been an error of judgment. So I think at this

hour, when I look back to the crisis through the quiet medium of time:

I was unconscious of folly at the instant.

I stood motionless under my hierophant's touch. My refusals were

forgotten- my fears overcome- my wrestlings paralysed. The Impossible-

i.e., my marriage with St. John- was fast becoming the Possible. All

was changing utterly with a sudden sweep. Religion called- Angels

beckoned- God commanded- life rolled together like a scroll- death's

gates opening, showed eternity beyond: it seemed, that for safety

and bliss there, all here might be sacrificed in a second. The dim

room was full of visions.

'Could you decide now?' asked the missionary. The inquiry was put

in gentle tones: he drew me to him as gently. Oh, that gentleness! how

far more potent is it than force! I could resist St. John's wrath: I

grew pliant as a reed under his kindness. Yet I knew all the time,

if I yielded now, I should not the less be made to repent, some day,

of my former rebellion. His nature was not changed by one hour of

solemn prayer: it was only elevated.

'I could decide if I were but certain,' I answered: 'were I but

convinced that it is God's will I should marry you, I could vow to

marry you here and now- come afterwards what would!'

'My prayers are heard!' ejaculated St. John. He pressed his hand

firmer on my head, as if he claimed me: he surrounded me with his arm,

almost as if he loved me (I say almost- I knew the difference- for I

had felt what it was to be loved; but, like him, I had now put love

out of the question, and thought only of duty). I contended with my

inward dimness of vision, before which clouds yet rolled. I sincerely,

deeply, fervently longed to do what was right; and only that. 'Show

me, show me the path!' I entreated of Heaven. I was excited more

than I had ever been; and whether what followed was the effect of

excitement the reader shall judge.

All the house was still; for I believe all, except St. John and

myself, were now retired to rest. The one candle was dying out: the

room was full of moonlight. My heart beat fast and thick: I heard

its throb. Suddenly it stood still to an inexpressible feeling that

thrilled it through, and passed at once to my head and extremities.

The feeling was not like an electric shock, but it was quite as sharp,

as strange, as startling: it acted on my senses as if their utmost

activity hitherto had been but torpor, from which they were now

summoned and forced to wake. They rose expectant: eye and ear waited

while the flesh quivered on my bones.

'What have you heard? What do you see?' asked St. John. I saw

nothing, but I heard a voice somewhere cry-

'Jane! Jane! Jane!'- nothing more.

'O God! what is it?' I gasped.

I might have said, 'Where is it?' for it did not seem in the

room- nor in the house- nor in the garden; it did not come out of

the air- nor from under the earth- nor from overhead. I had heard

it- where, or whence, for ever impossible to know! And it was the

voice of a human being- a known, loved, well-remembered voice- that of

Edward Fairfax Rochester; and it spoke in pain and woe, wildly,

eerily, urgently.

'I am coming!' I cried. 'Wait for me! Oh, I will come!' I flew to

the door and looked into the passage: it was dark. I ran out into

the garden: it was void.

'Where are you?' I exclaimed.

The hills beyond Marsh Glen sent the answer faintly back- 'Where

are you?' I listened. The wind sighed low in the firs: all was

moorland loneliness and midnight hush.

'Down superstition!' I commented, as that spectre rose up black

by the black yew at the gate. 'This is not thy deception, nor thy

witchcraft: it is the work of nature. She was roused, and did- no

miracle- but her best.'

I broke from St. John, who had followed, and would have detained

me. It was my time to assume ascendency. My powers were in play and in

force. I told him to forbear question or remark; I desired him to

leave me: I must and would be alone. He obeyed at once. Where there is

energy to command well enough, obedience never fails. I mounted to

my chamber; locked myself in; fell on my knees; and prayed in my

way- a different way to St. John's, but effective in its own

fashion. I seemed to penetrate very near a Mighty Spirit; and my

soul rushed out in gratitude at His feet. I rose from the

thanksgiving- took a resolve- and lay down, unscared, enlightened-

eager but for the daylight.