Chapter: 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 force, 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 definitively 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, &c., 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.

 Chapter 35 ut as his wife--at his side always, and always restrained, and always checked--forced to keep the fire of my nature continually low, to compel it to burn inwardly and never utter a cry, though the imprisoned flame consumed vital after vital--this would be unendurable. During the following week, St. John continues to pressure Jane to marry him. She resists as kindly as she can, but her kindness only makes him insist more bitterly and unyieldingly that she accompany him to India as his wife. Diana tells Jane that she would be a fool to go to India with St. John, who considers her merely a tool to aid his great cause. After dinner, St. John prays for Jane, and she is overcome with awe at his powers of speech and his influence. She almost feels compelled to marry him, but at that moment she hears what she thinks is Rochester's voice, calling her name as if from a great distance. Jane believes that something fateful has occurred, and St. John's spell over her is broken

