“A strange affair!” I said, in a low voice: then, looking at her fixedly — “Did Mr. Rochester wake nobody? Did no one hear him move?”

She again raised her eyes to me, and this time there was something of consciousness in their expression. She seemed to examine me warily; then she answered —

“The servants sleep so far off, you know, Miss, they would not be likely to hear. Mrs. Fairfax’s room and yours are the nearest to master’s; but Mrs. Fairfax said she heard nothing: when people get elderly, they often sleep heavy.” She paused, and then added, with a sort of assumed indifference, but still in a marked and significant tone — “But you are young, Miss; and I should say a light sleeper: perhaps you may have heard a noise?”