"To this house I came just ere dark, on an evening marked by the characteristics of sad sky, cold gale, and continued small, penetrating rain…. Even within a very short distance of the manor-house you could see nothing of it; so thick and dark grew the timber of the gloomy wood about it. Iron gates between granite pillars showed me where to enter, and passing through them, I found myself at once in the twilight of close-ranked trees. There was a grass-grown track descending the forest aisle, between hoar and knotty shafts and under branched arches. I followed it, expecting soon to reach the dwelling; but it stretched on and on, it wound far and farther: no sign of habitation or grounds was visible…. At last my way opened, the trees thinned a little; presently I beheld a railing, then the house—scarce, by this dim light, distinguishable from the trees; so dank and green were its decaying walls. Entering a portal, fastened only by a latch, I stood amidst a space of enclosed ground, from which the wood swept away in a semicircle. There were no flowers, no garden-beds; only a broad gravel-walk girdling a grass-plat, and this set in the heavy frame of the forest. The house presented two pointed gables in its front; the windows were latticed and narrow: the front-door was narrow too, one step led up to it…. It was still as a church on a week-day; the pattering rain on the forest leaves was the only sound audible….
"I heard a movement—that narrow front-door was unclosing, and some shape was about to issue from the grange.
"It opened slowly; a figure came out into the twilight and stood on the step; a man without a hat: he stretched forth his hand as if to feel whether it rained. Dark as it was I had recognized him….
"His form was of the same strong and stalwart contour as ever…. But in his countenance I saw a change: that looked desperate and brooding—that reminded me of some wronged and fettered wild beast or bird, dangerous to approach in his sullen woe. The caged eagle, whose gold-ringed eyes cruelty has extinguished, might look as looked that sightless Samson."
Again—Rochester hears Jane's voice in the room where she comes to him.
"'And where is the speaker? Is it only a voice? Oh! I cannot see, but
I must feel or my heart will stop and my brain burst.'…
"He groped. I arrested his wandering hand, and prisoned it in both mine.
"'Her very fingers!' he cried; 'her small, slight fingers! If so, there must be more of her.'
"The muscular hand broke from my custody; my arm was seized, my shoulder—neck—wrist—I was entwined and gathered to him….
"I pressed my lips to his once brilliant and now rayless eyes—I swept back his hair from his brow and kissed that too. He suddenly seemed to rouse himself: the conviction of the reality of all this seized him.