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melted in air. The other articles I made up in a parcel; my purse,
containing twenty shillings (it was all I had), I put in my pocket:
I tied on my straw bonnet, pinned my shawl, took the parcel and my
slippers, which I would not put on yet, and stole from my room.
'Farewell, kind Mrs. Fairfax!' I whispered, as I glided past her
door. 'Farewell, my darling Adele! I said, as I glanced towards the
nursery. No thought could be admitted of entering to embrace her. I
had to deceive a fine ear: for aught I knew it might now be listening.
I would have got past Mr. Rochester's chamber without a pause;
but my heart momentarily stopping its beat at that threshold, my
foot was forced to stop also. No sleep was there: the inmate was
walking restlessly from wall to wall; and again and again he sighed
while I listened. There was a heaven- a temporary heaven- in this room
for me, if I chose: I had but to go in and to say-
'Mr. Rochester, I will love you and live with you through life till
death,' and a fount of rapture would spring to my lips. I thought of
this.
That kind master, who could not sleep now, was waiting with
impatience for day. He would send for me in the morning; I should be
gone. He would have me sought for: vainly. He would feel himself
forsaken; his love rejected: he would suffer; perhaps grow
desperate. I thought of this too. My hand moved towards the lock: I
caught it back, and glided on.
Drearily I wound my way downstairs: I knew what I had to do, and
I did it mechanically. I sought the key of the side-door in the
kitchen; I sought, too, a phial of oil and a feather; I oiled the
key and the lock. I got some water, I got some bread: for perhaps I
should have to walk far; and my strength, sorely shaken of late,
must not break down. All this I did without one sound. I opened the
door, passed out, shut it softly. Dim dawn glimmered in the yard.
The great gates were closed and locked; but a wicket in one of them
was only latched. Through that I departed: it, too, I shut; and now
I was out of Thornfield.
A mile off, beyond the fields, lay a road which stretched in the
contrary direction to Millcote; a road I had never travelled, but
often noticed, and wondered where it led: thither I bent my steps.
No reflection was to be allowed now: not one glance was to be cast
back; not even one forward. Not one thought was to be given either
to the past or to the future. The first was a page so heavenly
sweet- so deadly sad- that to read one line of it would dissolve my
courage and break down my energy. The last was an awful blank:
something like the world when the deluge was gone by.
I skirted fields, and hedges, and lanes till after sunrise. I
believe it was a lovely summer morning: I know my shoes, which I had
put on when I left the house, were soon wet with dew. But I looked
neither to rising sun, nor smiling sky, nor wakening nature. He who is