Besides, I wished to touch no deep-thrilling chord — to open no fresh well of emotion in his heart: my sole present aim was to cheer him. Cheered, as I have said, he was: and yet but by fits. If a moment’s silence broke the conversation, he would turn restless, touch me, then say, “Jane.”

“You are altogether a human being, Jane? You are certain of that?”

You are altogether a human being, Jane? You are

certain of that?

“I conscientiously believe so, Mr. Rochester.”

“Yet how, on this dark and doleful evening, could you so suddenly rise on my lone hearth?

I stretched my hand to take a glass of water from a hireling, and it was given me by you: I asked a question, expecting John’s