"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 such danger: You must have been dreaming."
"I was not dreaming," I said, with some warmth, for her brazen
coolness provoked me. Again she looked at me; and with the same
scrutinising and conscious eye.
"Have you told master that you heard a laugh?" she inquired.
"I have not had the opportunity of speaking to him this morning."
"You did not think of opening your door and looking out into the
gallery?" she further asked.
She appeared to be cross-questioning me, attempting to draw from me
information unawares. The idea struck me that if she discovered I
knew or suspected her guilt, she would be playing of some of her
malignant pranks on me; I thought it advisable to be on my guard.