“Bertrand!” she cried. “Oh, Bertrand!”
“What do you mean?” he asked, hoarsely.
“You know what I mean,” she answered. “I don’t want to touch you, but I must or I shall fall. Let me take your arm. We will go and sit down.”
They sat side by side on the trunk of a fallen tree. A small stream rippled by at their feet. The meadow which it divided was dotted everywhere with little clumps of large yellow buttercups. She sat at a little distance from him, and she kept her eyes averted.
“Bertrand,” she murmured, “what does it mean? Tell me what I saw that afternoon. You took up the gun. Was it an accident? But no,” she added, “it is absurd to ask that!”
“You saw me?” he exclaimed quickly. “You believe that you saw me touch that gun?”
She nodded.
“I hated to go and leave you there,” she said. “I waited about behind those thick blackthorn trees, hoping that you might come my way. I saw you creep up to the gun. I saw you raise it to your shoulder. Even then I had no idea what you were going to do. Afterwards I saw the smoke and the flash. I heard the report, and Mr. Rochester’s cry as he fell. I saw you slip a fresh cartridge into the gun, and go stealing away. Bertrand, I have not slept since. Tell me, was it a nightmare?”
“It was no nightmare,” he answered. “I shot him, and I wish that he had died!”