stuff
gown, her check apron, white handkerchief, and cap. She was intent on
her work, in which her whole thoughts seemed absorbed: on her hard
forehead, and in her commonplace features, was nothing either of the
paleness or desperation one would have expected to see marking the
countenance of a woman who had attempted murder, and whose intended
victim had followed her last night to her lair, and (as I believed),
charged her with the crime she wished to perpetrate. I was
amazed--confounded. She looked up, while I still gazed at her: no start,
no increase or failure of colour betrayed emotion, consciousness of
guilt, or fear of detection. She said "Good morning, Miss," in her usual
phlegmatic and brief manner; and taking up another ring and more tape,
went on with her sewing.

"I will put her to some test," thought I: "such absolute impenetrability
is past comprehension."

"Good morning, Grace," I said. "Has anything happened here? I thought I
heard the servants all talking together a while ago."

"Only master had been reading in his bed last night; he fell asleep with
his candle lit, and the curtains got on fire; but, fortunately, he awoke
before the bed-clothes or the wood-work caught, and contrived to quench
the flames with the water in the ewer."

"A strange affair!" I said, in a low voice: then, looking at her
fixedly--"Did Mr. Rochester wake nobody? Did no one hear him move?"

She again raised her eyes to me, and this time there was something of
consciousness in their expression. She seemed to examine me warily; then
she answered--

"The servants sleep so far off, you know, Miss, they would not be likely
to hear. Mrs. Fairfax's room and yours are the nearest to master's; but
Mrs. Fairfax said she heard nothing: when people get elderly, they often
sleep heavy." She paused, and then added, with a sort of assumed
indifference, but still in a marked and significant tone--"But you are
young, Miss; and I should say a light sleeper: perhaps you may have heard
a noise?"

"I did," said I, dropping my voice, so that Leah, who was still polishing
the panes, could not hear me, "and at first I thought it was Pilot: but
Pilot cannot laugh; and I am certain I heard a laugh, and a strange one."

She took a new needleful of thread, waxed it carefully, threaded her
needle with a steady hand, and then observed, with perfect composure--

"It is hardly likely master would laugh, I should think, Miss, when he
was in