The game was up, he would have to quit. Either that, or to continue the masquerade which was impossible; or to tell her all, which was equally impossible.
Yet to quit would be to hit her cruelly. She loved Rochester.
Rochester, despite all his wickedness, frivolity, shiftlessness and general unworthiness—or perhaps because of these things—had been able to make this woman love him, take his part against his family and return to him.
To go away and leave her now would be the cruelest act. Cruel to her and just as cruel to himself, fascinated and held by her as he was. Yet there was no other course open to him. So he told himself—so he tried to tell himself, knowing full well that the only course open to him as a man of honour was a full confession of the facts of the case.
To sneak away would be the act of a coward; to impose himself on her as Rochester, the act of a villain; to tell her the truth, the act of a man.
The result would be terrific, yet only by facing that result could he come clear out of this business. For half an hour he sat, scarcely moving. He was up against that most insuperable obstacle, his own character. Had he been a crook, everything would have been easy; being a fairly straight man, everything was impossible.
He had got to this bed-rock fact when the door opened and a servant made his appearance.
“Dinner is served, my Lord.”
Dinner!
He rose up and came into the hall. Standing there for a moment, undecided, he heard a laugh and looked up. She was standing in evening dress looking over the balustrade of the first landing.