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And now I thought: till now I had only heard, seen, moved-followed up and down where I was led or dragged-watched event rush on event, disclosure open beyond disclosure: but now, I thought.

The morning had been a quiet morning enough-all except the brief scene with the lunatic: the transaction in the church had not been noisy; there was no explosion of passion, no loud altercation, no dispute, no defiance or challenge, no tears, no sobs: a few words had been spoken, a calmly pronounced objection to the marriage made; some stern, short questions put by Mr. Rochester; answers, explanations given, evidence adduced; an open admission of the truth had been uttered by my master; then the living proof had been seen; the intruders were gone, and all was over.

I was in my own room as usual-just myself, without obvious change: nothing had smitten me, or scathed me, or maimed me. And yet where was the Jane Eyre of yesterday?-where was her life?-where were her prospects?

Jane Eyre, who had been an ardent, expectant woman-almost a bride, was a cold, solitary girl again: her life was pale; her prospects were desolate.

A Christmas frost had come at midsummer; a white December storm had whirled over June; ice glazed the ripe apples, drifts crushed the blowing roses; on hayfield and cornfield lay a frozen shroud: lanes which last night blushed full of flowers, to-day were pathless with untrodden snow; and the woods, which twelve hours since waved leafy and flagrant as groves between the tropics, now spread, waste, wild, and white as pine-forests in wintry Norway.

My hopes were all dead-struck with a subtle doom, such as, in one night, fell on all the first-born in the land of Egypt.

I looked on my cherished wishes, yesterday so blooming and glowing; they lay stark, chill, livid corpses that could never revive.

I looked at my love: that feeling which was my master's-which he had created; it shivered in my heart, like a suffering child in a cold cradle; sickness and anguish had seized it; it could not seek Mr. Rochester's arms-it could not derive warmth from his breast.

Oh, never more could it turn to him; for faith was blighted-confidence destroyed! Mr. Rochester was not to me what he had been; for he was not what I had thought him.

I would not ascribe vice to him; I would not say he had betrayed me; but the attribute of stainless truth was gone from his idea, and from his presence I must go: that I perceived well.

When-how-whither, I could not yet discern; but he himself, I doubted not, would hurry me from Thornfield.

Real affection, it seemed, he could not have for me; it had been only fitful passion: that was balked; he would want me no more.

I should fear even to cross his path now: my view must be hateful to him.

Oh, how blind had been my eyes! How weak my conduct!

My eyes were covered and closed: eddying darkness seemed to swim round me, and reflection came in as black and confused a flow.

Self-abandoned, relaxed, and effortless, I seemed to have laid me down in the dried-up bed of a great river; I heard a flood loosened in remote mountains, and felt the torrent come: to rise I had no will, to flee I had no strength.

I lay faint, longing to be dead.

One idea only still throbbed life-like within me-a remembrance of God: it begot an unuttered prayer: these words went wandering up and down in my rayless mind, as something that should be whispered, but no energy was found to express them-

"Be not far from me, for trouble is near: there is none to help."

It was near: and as I had lifted no petition to Heaven to avert it-as I had neither joined my hands, nor bent my knees, nor moved my lips-it came: in full heavy swing the torrent poured over me.

The whole consciousness of my life lorn, my love lost, my hope quenched, my faith death-struck, swayed full and mighty above me in one sullen mass.

That bitter hour cannot be described: in truth, "the waters came into my soul; I sank in deep mire: I felt no standing; I came into deep waters; the floods overflowed me."

Some time in the afternoon I raised my head, and looking round and seeing the western sun gilding the sign of its decline 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.

Chapter 27

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