‘Yes, sir.’
‘And dressed?’
‘Yes.’
‘Come out, then, quietly.’
I obeyed. Mr. Rochester stood in the gallery holding a light.
‘I want you,’ he said: ‘come this way: take your time, and make no noise.’
My slippers were thin: I could walk the matted floor as softly as a cat. He glided up the gallery and up the stairs, and stopped in the dark, low corridor of the fateful third storey: I had followed and stood at his side.
‘Have you a sponge in your room?’ he asked in a whisper.
‘Yes, sir.’
Have you any salts—volatile salts? Yes
‘Go back and fetch both.’
I returned, sought the sponge on the washstand, the salts in my drawer, and once more retraced my steps. He still waited; he held a key in his hand: approaching one of the small, black doors, he put it in the lock; he paused, and addressed me again.
‘You don’t turn sick at the sight of blood?’
‘I think I shall not: I have never been tried yet.’
I felt a thrill while I answered him; but no coldness, and no faintness.
‘Just give me your hand,’ he said: ‘it will not do to risk a fainting fit.’
I put my fingers into his. ‘Warm and steady,’ was his remark: he turned the key and opened the door.
I saw a room I remembered to have seen before, the day Mrs. Fairfax showed me over the house: it was hung with tapestry; but the tapestry was now looped up in one part, and there was a door apparent, which had then been concealed. This door was open; a light shone out of the room within: I heard thence a snarling, snatching sound, almost like a dog quarrelling. Mr. Rochester, putting down his candle, said to me, ‘Wait a minute,’ and he went forward to the inner apartment. A shout of laughter greeted his entrance; noisy at first, and terminating in Grace Poole’s own goblin ha! ha! SHE then was there. He made some sort of arrangement without speaking, though I heard a low voice address him: he came out and closed the door behind him.
‘Here, Jane!’ he said; and I walked round to the other side of a large bed, which with its drawn curtains concealed a considerable portion of the chamber. An easy-chair was near the bed-head: a man sat in it, dressed with the exception of his coat; he was still; his head leant back; his eyes were closed. Mr. Rochester held the candle over him; I recognised in his pale and seemingly lifeless face—the stranger, Mason: I saw too that his linen on one side, and one arm, was almost soaked in blood.
‘Hold the candle,’ said Mr. Rochester, and I took it: he fetched a basin of water from the washstand: ‘Hold that,’ said he. I obeyed. He took the sponge, dipped it in, and moistened the corpse-like face; he asked for my smelling-bottle, and applied it to the nostrils. Mr. Mason shortly unclosed his eyes; he groaned. Mr. Rochester opened the shirt of the wounded man, whose arm and shoulder were bandaged: he sponged away blood, trickling fast down.
