o hear my own story. I endeavoured to recall him to the
main fact.

"And this lady?"

"This lady, ma'am," he answered, "turned out to be Mr. Rochester's wife!
The discovery was brought about in the strangest way. There was a young
lady, a governess at the Hall, that Mr. Rochester fell in--"

"But the fire," I suggested.

"I'm coming to that, ma'am--that Mr. Edward fell in love with. The
servants say they never saw anybody so much in love as he was: he was
after her continually. They used to watch him--servants will, you know,
ma'am--and he set store on her past everything: for all, nobody but him
thought her so very handsome. She was a little small thing, they say,
almost like a child. I never saw her myself; but I've heard Leah, the
house-maid, tell of her. Leah liked her well enough. Mr. Rochester was
about forty, and this governess not twenty; and you see, when gentlemen
of his age fall in love with girls, they are often like as if they were
bewitched. Well, he would marry her."

"You shall tell me this part of the story another time," I said; "but now
I have a particular reason for wishing to hear all about the fire. Was
it suspected that this lunatic, Mrs. Rochester, had any hand in it?"

"You've hit it, ma'am: it's quite certain that it was her, and nobody but
her, that set it going. She had a woman to take care of her called Mrs.
Poole--an able woman in her line, and very trustworthy, but for one
fault--a fault common to a deal of them nurses and matrons--she _kept a
private bottle of gin by her_, and now and then took a drop over-much. It
is excusable, for she had a hard life of it: but still it was dangerous;
for when Mrs. Poole was fast asleep after the gin and water, the mad
lady, who was as cunning as a witch, would take the keys out of her
pocket, let herself out of her chamber, and go roaming about the house,
doing any wild mischief that came into her head. They say she had nearly
burnt her husband in his bed once: but I don't know about that. However,
on this night, she set fire first to the hangings of the room next her
own, and then she got down to a lower storey, and made her way to the
chamber that had been the governess's--(she was like as if she knew
somehow how matters had gone on, and had a spite at her)--and she kindled
the bed there; but there was nobody sleeping in it, fortunately. The
governess had run away two months before; and for all Mr. Rochester
sought her as if she