“My living darling! These are certainly her limbs, and these her features; but I cannot be so blest, after all my misery.”

After a long and winding road, Jane comes home.

Ferndean turns out to be far from the beaten path, deep in the woods (evidently Mr. Rochester had used it as a hunting lodge).

Entering a portal, fastened only by a latch, I stood amidst a space of enclosed ground, from which the wood swept away in a semicircle. There were no flowers, no garden-beds; only a broad gravel-walk girdling a grass-plat, and this set in the heavy frame of the forest. The house presented two pointed gables in its front; the windows were latticed and narrow; the front door was narrow too, one step led up to it. The whole looked, as the host of the Rochester Arms had said, “quite a desolate spot.” It was as still as a church on a week-day: the pattering rain on the forest leaves was the only sound audible in its vicinage.
“Can there be life here?” I asked.
Yes: life of some kind there was: for I heard a movement – that narrow front door was unclosing, and some shape was about to issue from the grange.
It opened slowly: a figure came out into the twilight and stood on the step; a man without a hat: he stretched forth his hand as if to feel whether it rained. Dusk as it was, I had recognised him – it was my master, Edward Fairfax Rochester, and no other.

Obviously, he doesn’t notice her at the edge of the wood, so she observes him for a minute.

His form was of the same strong and stalwart contour as ever: his port was still erect, his hair was still raven-black; nor were his features altered or sunk: not in one year’s space, by any sorrow, could his athletic strength be quelled, or his vigorous prime blighted. But in his countenance I saw a change: that looked desperate and brooding – that reminded me of a wronged and fettered wild beast or bird, dangerous to approach in sullen woe. The caged eagle, whose gold-ringed eyes cruelty has extinguished, might look as looked that sightless Samson.
And, reader, do you think I feared him in his blind ferocity? – if you do, you little know me. A soft hope blent with my sorrow that soon I should dare to drop a kiss on that brow of rock, and on those lips sternly sealed beneath it: but not yet. I could not accost him yet.

She watches as his servant offers to lead him in, but he refuses the help. Finally, when both of them have gone back in, she knocks on the kitchen door.

“Mary,” I said, “how are you?”
She started as if she had seen a ghost: I calmed her. To her hurried “is it really you, miss, come at this late hour to this ‘only place?” I answered by taking her hand; and then I followed her into the kitchen, where John now sat by a good fire. I explained to them, in a few words, that I had heard all which had happened since I left Thornfield, and that I was come to see Mr. Rochester.

They’d believed she was dead, but once Jane makes arrangements to stay at the house, Mr. Rochester rings the bell for service.

“When you go in,” said I, “tell your master that a person wishes to speak to him, but do not give my name.”
“I don’t think he will see you,” she answered, “he refuses everybody.”
When she returned I inquired what he had said.
“You are to send your name and your business,” she replied. She then proceeded to fill a glass with water, and place it on a tray, together with candles.
“Is that what he rang for?” I asked.
“Yes: he always has candles brought in at dark, though he is blind.”
“Give the tray to me; I will carry it in.”

because she wants to surprise him

The tray shook as I held it; the water spilt from the glass; my heart struck my ribs loud and fast. Mary opened the door for me, and shut it behind me.
The parlour looked gloomy: a neglected handful of fire burnt low in the grate; and, leaning over it, with his head supported against the high, old-fashioned mantelpiece, appeared the blind tenant of the room. His old dog, Pilot, lay on one side, removed out of the way, and coiled up as if afraid of being inadvertently trodden upon. Pilot pricked up his ears when I came in: then he jumped up with a yelp and a whine, and bounded towards me: he almost knocked the tray from my hands. I set it on the table; then patted him, and said softly, “Lie down!” Mr. Rochester turned mechanically to see what the commotion was: but as he saw nothing, he re-turned and sighed.
“Give me the water, Mary,” he said.
I approached him with the now half-filled glass: Pilot followed me, still excited.
“What is the matter?” he inquired.
“Down, Pilot!” I again said. He checked the water on its way to his lips, and seemed to listen: he drank, and put the glass down. “That is you, Mary, is it not?”
“Mary is in the kitchen,” I answered.

He still can’t quite believe it’s her…

“Who is it? What is it? Who speaks?”
“Pilot knows me, and John and Mary know I am here. I came only this evening,” I answered.
“Great God! – what delusion has come over me? What sweet madness has seized me?”
“No delusion – no madness: your mind, sir, is too strong for delusion, your health too sound for frenzy.”
“And where the speaker? Is it only a voice? Oh! I cannot see, but I must feel, or my heart will stop and my brain burst. Whatever – whoever you are – be perceptible to the touch or I cannot live!”
He groped; I arrested his wandering hand, and prisoned it in both of mine
“Her very fingers!” he cried; “her small, slight fingers! If so, there must be more of her.”
The muscular hand broke from my custody; my arm was seized, my shoulder – neck – waist – I was entwined and gathered to him.
“Is it Jane? What is it? This is her shape – this is her size-“
“And this her voice,” I added. “She is all here: her heart, too. God bless you, sir! I am glad to be near you again.”
“Jane Eyre! – Jane Eyre!” was all he said.
“My dear master,” I answered. “I am Jane Eyre: I have found you out – I am come back to you.”

It turns out there’s a reason he’s not content with only her voice, but that explanation will wait.

“My living darling! These are certainly her limbs, and these her features; but I cannot be so blest, after all my misery. It is a dream; such dreams as I have had at night when I have clasped her once more to my heart, as I do now; and kissed her, as thus – and felt that she loved me, and trusted that she would never leave me.”
“Which I never will, sir, from this day.”
“Never will, says the vision? But I always woke and found it an empty mockery; and I was desolate and abandoned – my life dark, lonely, hopeless – my soul athirst and forbidden to drink – my heart famished and never to be fed. Gentle, soft dream, nestling in my arms now, you will fly, too, as your sisters have fled before you: but kiss me before you go – embrace me, Jane.”
“There, sir – and there!”
I pressed my lips to his once brilliant and now rayless eyes – swept his hair from his brow, and kissed that too. He suddenly seemed to arouse himself: the conviction of the reality of all this seized him.

Jane can finally act on her feelings freely.

“Is it you – is it Jane? You are come back to me then?”
“I am.”
“And you do not lie dead in some ditch under some stream? And you are not a pining outcast among strangers?”
“No, sir; I am an independent woman now.” […] “My uncle in Madeira is dead, and he left me five thousand pounds.”
“Ah, this is practical – this is real!” he cried: “I should never dream that. Besides, there is that peculiar voice of hers, so animating and piquant, as well as soft: it cheers my withered heart; it puts life into it. – What, Janet! Are you an independent woman? A rich woman?”
“Quite rich, sir. If you won’t let me live with you, I can build a house of my own close up to your door, and you may come and sit in my parlour when you want company of an evening.”
“But as you are rich, Jane, you have now, no doubt, friends who will look after you, and not suffer you to devote yourself to a blind lamenter like me?”
“I told you I am independent, sir, as well as rich: I am my own mistress.”
“And you will stay with me?”
“Certainly – unless you object. I will be your neighbor, your nurse, your housekeeper. I find you lonely: I will be your companion – to read to you, to walk with you, to sit with you, to wait on you, to be eyes and hands to you. Cease to look so melancholy, my dear master; you shall not be left desolate, so long as I live.”
He replied not; he seemed serious – abstracted; he sighed; he half-opened his lips as if to speak: he closed them again. I felt a little embarrassed. Perhaps I had too rashly over-leaped conventionalities; and he, like St. John, saw impropriety in my inconsiderateness. I had indeed made my proposal from the idea that he wished and would ask me to be his wife: an expectation, not the less certain because unexpressed, had buoyed me up, that he would claim me at once as his own. But no hint to that effect escaping him, and his countenance becoming more overcast, I suddenly remembered that I might have been all wrong, and was perhaps playing the fool unwittingly; and I began to gently withdraw myself from his arms – but he eagerly snatched me closer.

It seems that this is just a bit much for Mr. Rochester to process all at once…

“No – no – Jane: you must not go. No – I have touched you, heard you, felt the comfort of your presence – the sweetness of your consolation: I cannot give up these joys. I have little left in myself – I must have you. The world may laugh – may well call me absurd, selfish – but it does not signify. My very soul demands you: it will be satisfied: or it will take deadly vengeance on its frame.”
“Well, sir, I will stay with you: I have said so.”
“Yes – but you understand one thing by staying with me; and I understand another. You, perhaps, could make up your mind to be about my hand and chair – to wait on me as a kind little nurse (for you have an affectionate heart and a generous spirit, which prompt you to make sacrifices for those you pity), and that ought to suffice for me no doubt. I suppose I should now entertain none but fatherly feelings for you: do you think so? Come – tell me.”
“I will think what you like sir: I am content to be only your nurse, if you think it better.”
“But you cannot always be my nurse, Janet: you are young – you must marry one day.”
“I don’t care about being married.”
“You should care, Janet: if I were what I once was, I would try to make you care – but – a sightless block!”

Then she comprehends that the real issue is him fearing he’s not good enough for her, and not that his feelings have changed, and it encourages her to pursue more lighthearted matters.

“It is time some one undertook to rehumanise you,” said I, parting his thick and long uncut locks; “for I see you are metamorphosed into a lion, or something of that sort. You have a ‘faux air’ of Nebuchadnezzer in the fields about you, that is certain: your hair reminds me of eagle’s feathers; whether your nails have grown like bird’s claws or not, I have not yet noticed.”
“On this arm I have neither hand nor nails,” he said, drawing the mutilated limb from his breast, and showing it to me. “It is a mere stump – a ghastly sight! Don’t you think so, Jane?”
“It is a pity to see it; and a pity to see your eyes – and the scar of fire on your forehead: and the worst of it is, one is in danger of loving you too well for all this; and making too much of you.”
“I thought you would be revolted, Jane, when you saw my arm and my cicatrised visage.”
“Did you? Don’t tell me so – lest I should say something disparaging to your judgment. Now, let me leave you an instant, to make a better fire, and have the hearth swept up. Can you tell when there is a good fire?”
“Yes; with my right eye I see a glow – a ruddy haze.”
“And can you see the candles?”
“Very dimly – each is a luminous cloud.”
“Can you see me?”
“No, my fairy: but I am only too thankful to hear and feel you.”

So he still has some vision in the eye he has left.

She then mentions that she’s hungry after her journey, and it seems that in Mr. Rochester’s depression he hasn’t been taking regular meals, so that’s something that can easily be mended.

“You are altogether a human being, Jane? You are certain of that?”
“I contentiously believe so, Mr. Rochester.”
“Yet how, on this dark and doleful evening, could you so suddenly rise on my lonely hearth? I stretched my hand to take a glass of water from a hireling, and it was given me by you: I asked a question, expecting John’s wife to answer me, and your voice spoke at my ear.”
“Because I had come in Mary’s stead, with the tray.”
“And there is enchantment in the very hour I am spending with you. Who can tell what a dark, dreary, hopeless life I have dragged on for months past? Doing nothing, expecting nothing; merging night and day; feeling but the sensation of cold when I let the fire go out, of hunger when I forgot to eat: and then a ceaseless sorrow, and, at times, a very delirium of desire to behold my Jane again. Yes: for her restoration I longed, far more than for that of my lost sight. How can it be that Jane is with me, and says she loves me? Will she not depart as suddenly as she came? To-morrow, I fear, I shall find her no more.”
A common-place, practical reply, out of the train of his own disturbed ideas, was, I was sure, the best and most reassuring for him in this frame of mind. I passed my finger over his eyebrows, and remarked that they were scorched, and that I would apply something which should make them grow as broad and black as ever.
“Where is the use of doing me good in any way, beneficent spirit, when, at some fatal moment, you will again desert me – passing like a shadow, whither and how to me unknown; and for me remaining afterwards undiscoverable?”
“Have you a pocket comb about you, sir?”
“What for, Jane?”
“Just to comb out this shaggy black mane. I find you rather alarming when I examine you close at hand: you talk of my being a fairy; but I am sure you are more like a brownie.”
“Am I hideous, Jane?”
“Very, sir: you always were, you know.”
“Humph! The wickedness has not been taken out of you, wherever you have sojourned.”
“Yet I have been with good people; far better than you: a hundred times better people; possessed of ideas and views you never entertained in your life: quite more refined and exalted.”
“Who the deuce have you been with, Jane?”
“You shall not get it out of me to-night, sir; you must wait till to-morrow; to leave my tale half-told will, you know, be a sort of security that I shall appear at your breakfast table to finish it. By-the-bye, I must mind not to rise on your hearth with only a glass of water, then: I must bring an egg at least, to say nothing of fried ham.”
“You mocking changeling – fairy-born and human-bred. You make me feel as I have not felt these twelve months. If Saul could have had you for his David, the evil spirit would have been exorcised without the aid of the harp.
“There, sir, you are redd up and made decent. Now I’ll leave you: I have been travelling these last three days, and I believe I am tired. Good-night,”
“Just one word, Jane: were there only ladies in the house where you have been?”
I laughed and made my escape, still laughing as I ran upstairs. “A good idea!” I thought, with glee. “I see I have means of fretting him out of his melancholy for some time to come.”

because the best way to get him into his old spirit is to tease him a bit

The next morning, she comes in with breakfast as promised.

His countenance reminded one of a lamp quenched, waiting to be relit – and alas! it was not himself that could now kindle the lustre of animated expression: he was dependent on another for that office! I had meant to be gay and careless, but the powerlessness of the strong man touched my heart to the quick: still I accosted him with what vivacity I could: “It is a bright, sunny morning, sir,” I said. “The rain is over and gone, and there is a tender shining after it: you shall have a walk soon.”
I had wakened the glow: his features beamed.
“Oh, you are indeed there, my sky-lark! Come to me. You are not gone: not vanished? I heard one of your kind an hour ago, singing high over the wood: but its song had no music for me, any more than the rising sun had rays. All the melody on earth is concentrated in my Jane’s tongue to my ear (and I am glad it is not a naturally silent one): all the sunshine I can feel in her presence.”

And as promised, after breakfast, they take a stroll in the woods.

I sought for him a seat in a hidden and lovely spot: a dry stump of a tree: nor did I refuse to let him, when seated, place me on his knee: why should I, when both he and I were happier near than apart? Pilot lay beside us: all was quiet. He broke out suddenly while clasping me in his arms: “Cruel, cruel deserter! Oh, Jane, what did I feel when I discovered you had fled from Thornfield, and when I could nowhere find you; and, after examining your apartment, ascertained that you had taken no money, nor anything which could serve as an equivalent! A pearl necklace I had given you lay untouched in its little casket; your trunks were left corded and locked as they had been prepared for the bridal tour. What could my darling do, I asked, left destitute and penniless? And what did she do? Let me hear now.”
Thus urged, I began the narrative of my experience for the last year. I softened considerably what related to the three days of wandering and starvation, because to have told him all would be to inflict unnecessary pain: the little I did say lacerated his faithful heart deeper than I wished.
I should not have left him thus, he said, without any means of making my way: I should have told him my intention. I should have confided in him: he would never have forced me to be his mistress. Violent as he had seemed in his despair, he, in truth, loved me far too well and too tenderly to constitute himself my tyrant: he would have given me half his fortune, without demanding so much as a kiss in return, rather than I should have flung myself friendless on the wide world. I had endured, he was certain, more than I had confessed to him.

He might not have forced her, but in that state, he’d have been more likely to coerce her than let her leave.

“Well, whatever my sufferings had been, they were very short,” I answered: and then proceeded to tell him how I had been received at Moor House; how I had obtained the office of schoolmistress, &c. The ascension of fortune, the discovery of my relations, followed in due order. Of course St. John Rivers’ name came in frequently in the progress of my tale. When I had done that name was immediately taken up.
“This St. John, then, is your cousin?”
“Yes.”
“You have spoken of him often: do you like him?”
“He was a very good man, sir; I could not help liking him.”
“A good man? Does that mean a respectable, well-conducted man of fifty? Or what does it mean?”
“St. John is twenty-nine, sir.”
“‘Jeune encore [young again],’ as the French say. Is he a person of low stature, phlegmatic, and plain? A person whose goodness consists rather in his guiltlessness of vice than in his prowess in virtue?”
“He is untiringly active. Great and exalted deeds are what he lives to perform.”
“But his brain? That is probably rather soft? he means well: but you shrug his shoulders to hear him talk?”
“He talks little, sir: what he does say is ever to the point. His brain is first-rate, I should think not impressible, but vigorous.”
“Is he an able man, then?”
“Truly able.”
“A thoroughly educated man?”
“St. John is an accomplished and profound scholar.”
“His manners, I think, you said are not to your taste? – priggish and parsonic?”
“I never mentioned his manners; but, unless I had a very bad taste, they must suit it; they are polished, calm, and gentlemanlike.”
“His appearance – I forget what description you gave of his appearance; – a sort of raw curate, half-strangled with his white neckcloth, and stilted up on his thick-soled high-lows, eh?”
“St. John dresses well. He is a handsome man: tall, fair, with blue eyes and a Grecian profile.”
(Aside) “Damn him!” (To me.) “Did you like him, Jane?”
“Yes, Mr. Rochester, I liked him: but you asked me that before.”
I perceived, of course, the drift of my interlocutor. Jealousy had got hold of him: she stung him; but the sting was salutary: it gave him respite from the gnawing fang of melancholy. I would not, therefore, immediately charm the snake.

It’s her turn to invoke jealousy – but of course, she’s far kinder than he was, both toward him and to her suitor.

“The picture you have just drawn is suggestive of a rather too overwhelming contrast. Your words have delineated very prettily a graceful Apollo: he is present to your imagination, – tall, fair, blue-eyed, and with a Grecian profile. Your eyes dwell on a Vulcan, – a real blacksmith, brown, broad-shouldered; and blind and lame into the bargain.”
“I never thought of it before; but you certainly are rather like Vulcan, sir.”
“Well, – you can leave me, ma’am: but before you go” (and he retained me by a firmer grasp than ever), “you will be pleased to answer me a question or two.” He paused.
“What questions, Mr. Rochester?”
Then followed this cross-examination.

This allusion to Greek mythology has an element of flattery – Vulcan was famously married to Aphrodite, often considered the most beautiful goddess. And since Mr. Rochester can’t see her anymore, he might very well see her that way.

“How long did you reside with him and his sisters after the cousinship was discovered?”
“Five months.”
“Did Rivers spend much time with the ladies of his family?”
“Yes; the back parlour was both his study and ours: he sat near the window, and we by the table.”
“Did he study much?”
“A good deal.”
“What?”
“Hindostanee.”
“And what did you do meantime?”
“I learned German, at first.”
“Did he teach you?”
“He did not understand German.”
“Did he teach you nothing?”
“A little Hindostanee.”
“Rivers taught you Hindostanee?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And his sisters also?”
“No.”
“Only you?”
“Only me.”
“Did you ask to learn?”
“No.”
“He wished to teach you?”
“Yes.”
A second pause.
“Why did he wish it? Of what use could Hindostanee be to you?”
“He intended me to go with him to India.”
“Ah! here I reach the root of the matter. He wanted you to marry him?”
“He asked me to marry him.”
“That is a fiction – an impudent invention to vex me.”
“I beg your pardon, it is the literal truth: he asked me more than once, and was as stiff about urging his point as ever you were.”

If he could step back a moment and actually THINK, it would be obvious that if St. John asked more than once, that must mean she turned him down, but green-eyed monster and all that…

“Miss Eyre, I repeat it, you can leave me. How often am I to say the same thing? Why do you remain pertinaciously perched on my knee, when I have given you notice to quit?”
“Because I am comfortable there.”
“No, Jane, you are not comfortable there, because your heart is not with me: it is with this cousin – this St. John. Oh, till this moment I thought my little Jane was all mine! I had a belief she loved me even when she left me: that was an atom of sweet in much bitter. Long as we have been parted, hot tears as I have wept over our separation, I never thought that while I was mourning her she was loving another! But it us useless grieving. Jane, leave me: go marry Rivers.”
“Shake me off, then, sir – push me away, for I’ll not leave you of my own accord.”
“Jane, I ever like your tone of voice: it still renews hope, it sounds so truthful. When I hear it, it carries me back a year. I forget that you have formed a new tie. But I am not a fool – go-“
“Where must I go, sir?”
“Your own way – with the husband you have chosen.”
“Who is that?”
“You know – this St. John Rivers.”
“He is not my husband, nor will he ever be. He does not love me: I do not love him. He loves (as he can love, and that is not as you love) a beautiful young lady called Rosamond. He wanted to marry me only because he thought I should make a suitable missionary’s wife, which she would not have done. He is good and great, but severe; and, for me, cold as an iceberg. He is not like you, sir: I am not happy at his side, nor near him, nor with him. He has no indulgence for me – no fondness. He sees nothing attractive in me; not even youth – only a few useful mental points. – Then must I leave you, sir, to go with him?”
I shuddered involuntarily, and clung instinctively closer to my blind but beloved master. He smiled.

It’s times like this that I’m reminded how much (seeing) neurotypicals tend to rely on facial expressions to gauge intent and feeling (the whole “eyes are the window of the soul” thing never worked for me).

“What, Jane! Is this true? Is such really the state of matters between you and Rivers?”
“Absolutely, sir. Oh, you need not be jealous! I wanted to tease you a little to make you less sad: I thought anger would be better than grief. But if you wish me to love you, could you see how much I do love you, you would be proud and content. All my heart is yours, sir: it belongs to you; and with you it would remain were fate to exile the rest of me from your presence for ever.”
Again, as he kissed me, painful thoughts darkened his aspect.
“My seared vision! my crippled strength!” he murmured regretfully.
I caressed, in order to sooth him. I knew what he was thinking, and wanted to speak for him; but dared not. As he turned aside his face a minute I saw a tear slide from under the sealed eyelid, and trickle down the manly cheek. My heart swelled.
“I am no better than the old lightning-struck chestnut-tree in Thornfield orchard,” he remarked ere long. “And what right would I have to bid a budding woodbine cover its decay with freshness?”
“You are no ruin, sir – no lightning-struck tree: you are green and vigorous. Plants will grow about your roots, whether you ask them or not, because they take delight in your bountiful shadow; and as they grow they will lean towards you and wind round you, because your strength offers them so safe a prop.”
Again he smiled: I gave him comfort.

At this point, Jane and Mr. Rochester are finally equals – not just because of her wealth, but because he can no longer rely on his own strength.

“You speak of friends, Jane?” he asked.
“Yes: of friends,” I answered rather hesitatingly: for I knew I meant more than friends, but could not tell what other word to employ. He helped me.
“Ah! Jane. But I want a wife.”
“Do you, sir?”
“Yes: it is news to you?”
“Of course: you said nothing about it before.”
“Is it unwelcome news?”
“That depends on circumstances, sir – on your choice.”
“Which you shall make for me, Jane. I will abide by your decision.”
“Choose, then, sir – her who loves you best“
“I will at least choose – her I love best. Jane, will you marry me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“A poor blind man, whom you will have to lead about by the hand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“A crippled man, twenty years older than you, whom you will have to wait on?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Truly, Jane?”
“Most truly, sir.”
“Oh! my darling! God bless and reward you!”
“Mr. Rochester, if ever I did a good deed in my life – if ever I thought a good thought – if ever I prayed a sincere and blameless prayer – if ever I wished a righteous wish – I am rewarded now. To become your wife, is, for me, to be as happy as I can be on earth.”
“Because you delight in sacrifice.”
“Sacrifice! What do I sacrifice? Famine for food, expectation for content. To be privileged to put my arms round what I value – to press my lips to what I love – to repose on what I trust: is that to make a sacrifice? If so, then certainly I delight in sacrifice.”
“And to bear with my infirmities, Jane: to overlook my deficiencies.”
“Which are none, sir, to me. I love you better now, when I can really be useful to you, than I did in your state of proud independence, when you disdained every part but that of giver and protector.”
“Hitherto I have hated to be helped – to be led: henceforth, I feel, I shall hate it no more. I did not like to put my hand into a hireling’s, but it is pleasant to feel it circled by Jane’s little fingers. I preferred utter loneliness to the constant attendance of servants; but Jane’s soft ministry will be a perpetual joy. Jane suits me: do I suit her?”
“To the finest fibre of my nature, sir.”

and now i can just be happy for them

“The case being so, we have nothing in the world to wait for: we must be married instantly.”
He looked and spoke with eagerness: his old impetuosity was rising.
“We must become one flesh without any delay, Jane: there is but the licence to get – then we marry.”
“Mr. Rochester, I have just discovered the sun is far declined from its meridian, and Pilot is actually gone home to his dinner. Let me look at your watch.”
“Fasten it into your girdle, Janet, and keep it henceforward: I have no use for it.”
“It is nearly four o’clock in the afternoon, sir. Don’t you feel hungry?”
“The third day from this must be our wedding-day, Jane. Never mind fine clothes and jewels now: all that is not worth a fillip.”
“The sun has dried up all the rain-drops, sir. The breeze is still: it is quite hot.”
“Do you know, Jane, I have your little pearl necklace at this moment fastened round my bronze scrag under my cravat? I have worn it since the day I lost my only treasure, as a memento of her.”

This wedding will clearly be more to Jane’s taste…

“Jane! you think me, I daresay, an irreligious dog: but my heart swells with gratitude to the beneficent God of this earth just now. He sees not as man sees, but far clearer: judges not as man judges, but far more wisely. I did wrong: I would have sullied my innocent flower – breathed guilt on its purity: the Omnipotent snatched it from me. I, in my stiff-necked rebellion, almost cursed the dispensation: instead of bending to the decree, I defied it. Divine justice pursued its course; disasters came thick on me: I was forced to pass through the valley of the shadow of death. His chastisements are mighty; and one smote me which has humbled me for ever. You know I was proud of my strength; but what is it now, when I must give it over to foreign guidance, as a child does its weakness? Of late, Jane – only of late – I began to see and acknowledge the hand of God in my doom. I began to experience remorse, repentance; the wish for reconcilement with my Maker. I began sometimes to pray: very brief prayers they were, but very sincere.”

Well, it’s too late for him to apply this energy to helping Bertha, but then again, that relationship might have been doomed from the start…

Anyhow, he explains that this feeling was what led him to cry out for her in desperation (thinking Jane was dead, of course), and he relates his side of that supernatural cry, as her words carried to him, too.

“You cannot now wonder,” continued my master, “that when you rose upon me so unexpectedly last night I had difficulty believing you any other than a mere voice and vision: something that would melt into silence and annihilation, as the midnight whisper and mountain echo had melted before. Now I thank God! I know it to be otherwise. Yes, I thank God!”
He put me off his knee, rose, and reverently lifting his hat from his brow, and bending his sightless eyes to the earth, he stood in mute devotion. Only the last words of worship were audible.
“I thank my Maker that in the midst of judgment He has remembered mercy. I humbly entreat my Redeemer to give me strength to lead henceforth a purer life than I have done hitherto!”
Then he stretched his hand out to be led. I took that dear hand, held it a moment to my lips, then let it pass round my shoulder: being so much lower in stature then he, I served for his prop and guide. We entered the wood, and wended homeward.

Until next time…