My nerves vibrated to those low-spoken words as they had never vibrated to thunder; my blood felt their subtle violence as it had never felt frost or fire; but I was collected, and in no danger of swooning. I looked at Mr. Rochester; I made him look at me. His whole face was colorless rock; his eye was both spark and flint. He disavowed nothing; he seemed as if he would defy all things. Without speaking, without smiling, without seeming to recognize in me a human being, he only twined my waist with his arm and riveted me to his side.
"Who are you?" he asked of the intruder.
"My name is Briggs, a solicitor of ---- Street, London."
"And you would thrust on me a wife?"
"I would remind you of your lady's existence, sir, which the law recognizes if you do not."
"Favor me with an account of her--with her name, her parentage, her place of abode."
"Certainly." Mr. Briggs calmly took a paper from his pocket, and read out in a sort of official, nasal voice:--
"I affirm and can prove that on the 20th of October, A.D.--" (a date of fifteen years back), "Edward Fairfax Rochester, of Thornfield Hall, in the county of ----, and of Ferndean Manor, in ---- shire, England, was married to my sister, Bertha Antoinetta Mason, daughter of Jonas Mason, merchant, and of Antoinetta his wife, a Creole, at ---- church, Spanish Town, Jamaica. The record of the marriage will be found in the register of that church--a copy of it is now in my possession. Signed, Richard Mason."
"That, if a genuine document, may prove I have been married, but it does not prove that the woman mentioned therein as my wife is still living."
"She was living three months ago," returned the lawyer.