d.

"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.

"Is there immediate danger?" murmured Mr. Mason.

"Pooh! No--a mere scratch. Don't be so overcome, man: bear up! I'll
fetch a surgeon for you now, myself: you'll be able to be removed by
morning, I hope. Jane," he continued.

"Sir?"

"I shall have to leave you in this room with this gentleman, for an hour,
or perhaps two hours: you will sponge the blood as I do when it returns:
if he feels faint, you will put the glass of water on that stand to his
lips, and your salts to his nose. You will not speak to him on any
pretext--and--Richard, it will be at the peril of your life if you speak
to her: open your lips--agitate yourself--and I'll not answer for the
consequences."

Again the poor man groaned; he looked as if he dared not move; fear,
either of death or of something else, appeared almost to paralyse him.
Mr. Rochester put the now bloody sponge into my hand, and I proceeded to
use it as he had done. He watched me a second, then saying,
"Remember!--No conversation," he left the room. I experienced a strange
feeling as the key grated in the lock, and the sound of his retreating
step ceased to be heard.

Here then I was in the third storey, fastened into one of its mystic
cells; night around me; a pale and bloody spectacle under my eyes and
hands; a murderess hardly separated from me by a single door: yes--that
was appalling--the rest I could bear; but I shuddered at the thought of
Grace Poole bursting out upon me.

I must keep to my post, however. I must watch this ghastly
countenance--these blue, still lips forbidden to unclose--these eyes now
shut, now opening, now wandering through the room, now fixing on me, and
ever glazed with the dulness of horror. I must dip my hand again and
again in the basin of blood and water, and wipe away the trickling gore.
I must see the light of the unsnuffed candle wane on my employment; the
shadows darken on the wrought, antique tapestry round me, and grow black
under the hangings of the vast old bed, and quiver st