It was a terrible spectacle: I witnessed it myself.”

“At dead of night!” I muttered. Yes, that was ever the hour of fatality at Thornfield.

“Was it known how it originated?” I demanded.

“They guessed, ma’am: they guessed. Indeed, I should say it was ascertained beyond a doubt. You are not perhaps aware,” he continued, edging his chair a little nearer the table, and speaking low, “that there was a lady — a — a lunatic, kept in the house?”

“I have heard something of it.”

“She was kept in very close confinement, ma’am: people even for some years was not absolutely certain of her existence.