The music ceased, the accompaniment died away; but Mr. Rochester stood
immobile yet--a little darker night in that much deeper. When I
turned, Jane was gone from the room. I sat down, my face towards the
still candles, as one who is awake, yet dreams on. The faint scent of
the earth through the open window; the heavy, sombre furniture; the
daintiness and the alertness in the many flowers and few womanly
gew-gaws: these too I shall remember in a tranquillity that cannot
change.
A sudden, trembling glimmer at the window lit the garden and,
instantaneously, the distant hills; lit also the figures of Jane and
Mr. Rochester beneath the trees. They entered the house, and once more
Jane drew the bolts against that phantom fear. A tinge of scarlet
stood in her cheeks, an added lustre in her eyes. They were strange
lovers, these two--like frost upon a cypress tree; yet summer lay all
around us.
I bade them good night and ascended to the little room prepared for
me. There was a great pincushion on the sprigged and portly toilet
table, and I laboured till the constellations had changed beyond my
window, in printing from a box of tiny pins upon that lavendered
mound, "Ave, Ave, atque Vale!"
Far in the night a dreadful sound woke me.
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