minutes ago, and said that in a month you would be his wife.”

“He has said the same thing to me,” I replied.

“He has! Do you believe him? Have you accepted him?”

“Yes.”

She looked at me bewildered. “I could never have thought it. He is a proud man: all the Rochesters were proud: and his father, at least, liked money. He, too, has always been called careful.

He means to marry you?”

“He tells me so.”

She surveyed my whole person: in her eyes I read that they had there found no charm powerful enough to solve the enigma.