Mr. Rochester had given me but one week's leave of absence: yet amonth elapsed before I quitted Gateshead. I wished to leaveimmediately after the funeral, but Georgiana entreated me to staytill she could get off to London, whither she was now at lastinvited by her uncle, Mr. Gibson, who had come down to direct hissister's interment and settle the family affairs. Georgiana saidshe dreaded being left alone with Eliza; from her she got neithersympathy in her dejection, support in her fears, nor aid in herpreparations; so I bore with her feeble-minded wailings and selfishlamentations as well as I could, and did my best in sewing for herand packing her dresses. It is true, that while I worked, she wouldidle; and I thought to myself, "If you and I were destined to livealways together, cousin, we would commence matters on a differentfooting. I should not settle tamely down into being the forbearingparty; I should assign you your share of labour, and compel you toaccomplish it, or else it should be left undone: I should insist,also, on your keeping some of those drawling, half-insincerecomplaints hushed in your own breast. It is only because ourconnection happens to be very transitory, and comes at a peculiarlymournful season, that I consent thus to render it so patient andcompliant on my part."

At last I saw Georgiana off; but now it was Eliza's turn to requestme to stay another week. Her plans required all her time andattention, she said; she was about to depart for some unknownbourne; and all day long she stayed in her own room, her door boltedwithin, filling trunks, emptying drawers, burning papers, andholding no communication with any one. She wished me to look afterthe house, to see callers, and answer notes of condolence.

One morning she told me I was at liberty. "And," she added, "I amobliged to you for your valuable services and discreet conduct!There is some difference between living with such an one as you andwith Georgiana: you perform your own part in life and burden noone. To-morrow," she continued, "I set out for the Continent. Ishall take up my abode in a religious house near Lisle--a nunneryyou would call it; there I shall be quiet and unmolested. I shalldevote myself for a time to the examination of the Roman Catholicdogmas, and to a careful study of the workings of their system: ifI find it to be, as I half suspect it is, the one best calculated toensure the doing of all things decently and in order, I shallembrace the tenets of Rome and probably take the veil."

I neither expressed surprise at this resolution nor attempted todissuade her from it. "The vocation will fit you to a hair," Ithought: "much good may it do you!"

When we parted, she said: "Good-bye, cousin Jane Eyre; I wish youwell: you have some sense."

I then returned: "You are not without sense, cousin Eliza; but whatyou have, I suppose, in another year will be walled up alive in aFrench convent. However, it is not my business, and so it suitsyou, I don't much care."

"You are in the right," said she; and with these words we each wentour separate way. As I shall not have occasion to refer either toher or her sister again, I may as well mention here, that Georgianamade an advantageous match with a wealthy worn-out man of fashion,and that Eliza actually took the veil, and is at this day superiorof the convent where she passed the period of her novitiate, andwhich she endowed with her fortune.

How people feel when they are returning home from an absence, longor short, I did not know: I had never experienced the sensation. Ihad known what it was to come back to Gateshead when a child after along walk, to be scolded for looking cold or gloomy; and later, whatit was to come back from church to Lowood, to long for a plenteousmeal and a good fire, and to be unable to get either. Neither ofthese returnings was very pleasant or desirable: no magnet drew meto a given point, increasing in its strength of attraction thenearer I came. The return to Thornfield was yet to be tried.

My journey seemed tedious--very tedious: fifty miles one day, anight spent at an inn; fifty miles the next day. During the firsttwelve hours I thought of Mrs. Reed in her last moments; I saw herdisfigured and discoloured face, and heard her strangely alteredvoice. I mused on the funeral day, the coffin, the hearse, theblack train of tenants and servants--few was the number ofrelatives--the gaping vault, the silent church, the solemn service.Then I thought of Eliza and Georgiana; I beheld one the cynosure ofa ball-room, the other the inmate of a convent cell; and I dwelt onand analysed their separate peculiarities of person and character.The evening arrival at the great town of--scattered these thoughts;night gave them quite another turn: laid down on my traveller'sbed, I left reminiscence for anticipation.

I was going back to Thornfield: but how long was I to stay there?Not long; of that I was sure. I had heard from Mrs. Fairfax in theinterim of my absence: the party at the hall was dispersed; Mr.Rochester had left for London three weeks ago, but he was thenexpected to return in a fortnight. Mrs. Fairfax surmised that hewas gone to make arrangements for his wedding, as he had talked ofpurchasing a new carriage: she said the idea of his marrying MissIngram still seemed strange to her; but from what everybody said,and from what she had herself seen, she could no longer doubt thatthe event would shortly take place. "You would be strangelyincredulous if you did doubt it," was my mental comment. "I don'tdoubt it."

The question followed, "Where was I to go?" I dreamt of Miss Ingramall the night: in a vivid morning dream I saw her closing the gatesof Thornfield against me and pointing me out another road; and Mr.Rochester looked on with his arms folded--smiling sardonically, asit seemed, at both her and me.

I had not notified to Mrs. Fairfax the exact day of my return; for Idid not wish either car or carriage to meet me at Millcote. Iproposed to walk the distance quietly by myself; and very quietly,after leaving my box in the ostler's care, did I slip away from theGeorge Inn, about six o'clock of a June evening, and take the oldroad to Thornfield: a road which lay chiefly through fields, andwas now little frequented.

It was not a bright or splendid summer evening, though fair andsoft: the haymakers were at work all along the road; and the sky,though far from cloudless, was such as promised well for the future:its blue--where blue was visible--was mild and settled, and itscloud strata high and thin. The west, too, was warm: no waterygleam chilled it--it seemed as if there was a fire lit, an altarburning behind its screen of marbled vapour, and out of aperturesshone a golden redness.

I felt glad as the road shortened before me: so glad that I stoppedonce to ask myself what that joy meant: and to remind reason thatit was not to my home I was going, or to a permanent resting-place,or to a place where fond friends looked out for me and waited myarrival. "Mrs. Fairfax will smile you a calm welcome, to be sure,"said I; "and little Adele will clap her hands and jump to see you:but you know very well you are thinking of another than they, andthat he is not thinking of you."

But what is so headstrong as youth? What so blind as inexperience?These affirmed that it was pleasure enough to have the privilege ofagain looking on Mr. Rochester, whether he looked on me or not; andthey added--"Hasten! hasten! be with him while you may: but a fewmore days or weeks, at most, and you are parted from him for ever!"And then I strangled a new-born agony--a deformed thing which Icould not persuade myself to own and rear--and ran on.

They are making hay, too, in Thornfield meadows: or rather, thelabourers are just quitting their work, and returning home withtheir rakes on their shoulders, now, at the hour I arrive. I havebut a field or two to traverse, and then I shall cross the road andreach the gates. How full the hedges are of roses! But I have notime to gather any; I want to be at the house. I passed a tallbriar, shooting leafy and flowery branches across the path; I seethe narrow stile with stone steps; and I see--Mr. Rochester sittingthere, a book and a pencil in his hand; he is writing.

Well, he is not a ghost; yet every nerve I have is unstrung: for amoment I am beyond my own mastery. What does it mean? I did notthink I should tremble in this way when I saw him, or lose my voiceor the power of motion in his presence. I will go back as soon as Ican stir: I need not make an absolute fool of myself. I knowanother way to the house. It does not signify if I knew twentyways; for he has seen me.

"Hillo!" he cries; and he puts up his book and his pencil. "Thereyou are! Come on, if you please."

I suppose I do come on; though in what fashion I know not; beingscarcely cognisant of my movements, and solicitous only to appearcalm; and, above all, to control the working muscles of my face--which I feel rebel insolently against my will, and struggle toexpress what I had resolved to conceal. But I have a veil--it isdown: I may make shift yet to behave with decent composure.

"And this is Jane Eyre? Are you coming from Millcote, and on foot?Yes--just one of your tricks: not to send for a carriage, and comeclattering over street and road like a common mortal, but to stealinto the vicinage of your home along with twilight, just as if youwere a dream or a shade. What the deuce have you done with yourselfthis last month?"

"I have been with my aunt, sir, who is dead."

"A true Janian reply! Good angels be my guard! She comes from theother world--from the abode of people who are dead; and tells me sowhen she meets me alone here in the gloaming! If I dared, I'd touchyou, to see if you are substance or shadow, you elf!--but I'd assoon offer to take hold of a blue ignis fatuus light in a marsh.Truant! truant!" he added, when he had paused an instant. "Absentfrom me a whole month, and forgetting me quite, I'll be sworn!"

I knew there would be pleasure in meeting my master again, eventhough broken by the fear that he was so soon to cease to be mymaster, and by the knowledge that I was nothing to him: but therewas ever in Mr. Rochester (so at least I thought) such a wealth ofthe power of communicating happiness, that to taste but of thecrumbs he scattered to stray and stranger birds like me, was tofeast genially. His last words were balm: they seemed to implythat it imported something to him whether I forgot him or not. Andhe had spoken of Thornfield as my home--would that it were my home!

He did not leave the stile, and I hardly liked to ask to go by. Iinquired soon if he had not been to London.

"Yes; I suppose you found that out by second-sight."

"Mrs. Fairfax told me in a letter."

"And did she inform you what I went to do?"

"Oh, yes, sir! Everybody knew your errand."

"You must see the carriage, Jane, and tell me if you don't think itwill suit Mrs. Rochester exactly; and whether she won't look likeQueen Boadicea, leaning back against those purple cushions. I wish,Jane, I were a trifle better adapted to match with her externally.Tell me now, fairy as you are--can't you give me a charm, or aphilter, or something of that sort, to make me a handsome man?"

"It would be past the power of magic, sir;" and, in thought, Iadded, "A loving eye is all the charm needed: to such you arehandsome enough; or rather your sternness has a power beyondbeauty."

Mr. Rochester had sometimes read my unspoken thoughts with an acumento me incomprehensible: in the present instance he took no noticeof my abrupt vocal response; but he smiled at me with a certainsmile he had of his own, and which he used but on rare occasions.He seemed to think it too good for common purposes: it was the realsunshine of feeling--he shed it over me now.

"Pass, Janet," said he, making room for me to cross the stile: "goup home, and stay your weary little wandering feet at a friend'sthreshold."

All I had now to do was to obey him in silence: no need for me tocolloquise further. I got over the stile without a word, and meantto leave him calmly. An impulse held me fast--a force turned meround. I said--or something in me said for me, and in spite of me -

"Thank you, Mr. Rochester, for your great kindness. I am strangelyglad to get back again to you: and wherever you are is my home--myonly home."

I walked on so fast that even he could hardly have overtaken me hadhe tried. Little Adele was half wild with delight when she saw me.Mrs. Fairfax received me with her usual plain friendliness. Leahsmiled, and even Sophie bid me "bon soir" with glee. This was verypleasant; there is no happiness like that of being loved by yourfellow-creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition totheir comfort.

I that evening shut my eyes resolutely against the future: Istopped my cars against the voice that kept warning me of nearseparation and coming grief. When tea was over and Mrs. Fairfax hadtaken her knitting, and I had assumed a low seat near her, andAdele, kneeling on the carpet, had nestled close up to me, and asense of mutual affection seemed to surround us with a ring ofgolden peace, I uttered a silent prayer that we might not be partedfar or soon; but when, as we thus sat, Mr. Rochester entered,unannounced, and looking at us, seemed to take pleasure in thespectacle of a group so amicable--when he said he supposed the oldlady was all right now that she had got her adopted daughter backagain, and added that he saw Adele was "prete e croquer sa petitemaman Anglaise"--I half ventured to hope that he would, even afterhis marriage, keep us together somewhere under the shelter of hisprotection, and not quite exiled from the sunshine of his presence.

A fortnight of dubious calm succeeded my return to Thornfield Hall.Nothing was said of the master's marriage, and I saw no preparationgoing on for such an event. Almost every day I asked Mrs. Fairfaxif she had yet heard anything decided: her answer was always in thenegative. Once she said she had actually put the question to Mr.Rochester as to when he was going to bring his bride home; but hehad answered her only by a joke and one of his queer looks, and shecould not tell what to make of him.

One thing specially surprised me, and that was, there were nojourneyings backward and forward, no visits to Ingram Park: to besure it was twenty miles off, on the borders of another county; butwhat was that distance to an ardent lover? To so practised andindefatigable a horseman as Mr. Rochester, it would be but amorning's ride. I began to cherish hopes I had no right toconceive: that the match was broken off; that rumour had beenmistaken; that one or both parties had changed their minds. I usedto look at my master's face to see if it were sad or fierce; but Icould not remember the time when it had been so uniformly clear ofclouds or evil feelings. If, in the moments I and my pupil spentwith him, I lacked spirits and sank into inevitable dejection, hebecame even gay. Never had he called me more frequently to hispresence; never been kinder to me when there--and, alas! never had Iloved him so well.