an without a hat: he stretched forth his hand as if to feel
whether it rained. Dusk as it was, I had recognised him--it was my
master, Edward Fairfax Rochester, and no other.

I stayed my step, almost my breath, and stood to watch him--to examine
him, myself unseen, and alas! to him invisible. It was a sudden meeting,
and one in which rapture was kept well in check by pain. I had no
difficulty in restraining my voice from exclamation, my step from hasty
advance.

His form was of the same strong and stalwart contour as ever: his port
was still erect, his hair was still raven black; nor were his features
altered or sunk: not in one year's space, by any sorrow, could his
athletic strength be quelled or his vigorous prime blighted. 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.

And, reader, do you think I feared him in his blind ferocity?--if you do,
you little know me. A soft hope blest with my sorrow that soon I should
dare to drop a kiss on that brow of rock, and on those lips so sternly
sealed beneath it: but not yet. I would not accost him yet.

He descended the one step, and advanced slowly and gropingly towards the
grass-plat. Where was his daring stride now? Then he paused, as if he
knew not which way to turn. He lifted his hand and opened his eyelids;
gazed blank, and with a straining effort, on the sky, and toward the
amphitheatre of trees: one saw that all to him was void darkness. He
stretched his right hand (the left arm, the mutilated one, he kept hidden
in his bosom); he seemed to wish by touch to gain an idea of what lay
around him: he met but vacancy still; for the trees were some yards off
where he stood. He relinquished the endeavour, folded his arms, and
stood quiet and mute in the rain, now falling fast on his uncovered head.
At this moment John approached him from some quarter.

"Will you take my arm, sir?" he said; "there is a heavy shower coming on:
had you not better go in?"

"Let me alone," was the answer.

John withdrew without having observed me. Mr. Rochester now tried to
walk about: vainly,--all was too uncertain. He groped his way back to
the house, and, re-entering it, closed the door.

I now drew near and knocked: John's wife op