excitement
and inanition; neither meat nor drink had passed my lips that day, for I
had taken no breakfast. And, with a strange pang, I now reflected that,
long as I had been shut up here, no message had been sent to ask how I
was, or to invite me to come down: not even little Adele had tapped at
the door; not even Mrs. Fairfax had sought me. "Friends always forget
those whom fortune forsakes," I murmured, as I undrew the bolt and passed
out. I stumbled over an obstacle: my head was still dizzy, my sight was
dim, and my limbs were feeble. I could not soon recover myself. I fell,
but not on to the ground: an outstretched arm caught me. I looked up--I
was supported by Mr. Rochester, who sat in a chair across my chamber
threshold.

"You come out at last," he said. "Well, I have been waiting for you
long, and listening: yet not one movement have I heard, nor one sob: five
minutes more of that death-like hush, and I should have forced the lock
like a burglar. So you shun me?--you shut yourself up and grieve alone!
I would rather you had come and upbraided me with vehemence. You are
passionate. I expected a scene of some kind. I was prepared for the hot
rain of tears; only I wanted them to be shed on my breast: now a
senseless floor has received them, or your drenched handkerchief. But I
err: you have not wept at all! I see a white cheek and a faded eye, but
no trace of tears. I suppose, then, your heart has been weeping blood?"

"Well, Jane! not a word of reproach? Nothing bitter--nothing poignant?
Nothing to cut a feeling or sting a passion? You sit quietly where I
have placed you, and regard me with a weary, passive look."

"Jane, I never meant to wound you thus. If the man who had but one
little ewe lamb that was dear to him as a daughter, that ate of his bread
and drank of his cup, and lay in his bosom, had by some mistake
slaughtered it at the shambles, he would not have rued his bloody blunder
more than I now rue mine. Will you ever forgive me?"

Reader, I forgave him at the moment and on the spot. There was such deep
remorse in his eye, such true pity in his tone, such manly energy in his
manner; and besides, there was such unchanged love in his whole look and
mien--I forgave him all: yet not in words, not outwardly; only at my
heart's core.

"You know I am a scoundrel, Jane?" ere long he inquired
wistfully--wondering, I suppose, at my continued silence and tameness,
the result rather of weakne