Again he turned lividly pale; but, as before, controlled his passion
perfectly. He answered emphatically but calmly "A female curate, who is not my wife, would never suit me. With me,
then, it seems, you cannot go: but if you are sincere in your
offer, I will, while in town, speak to a married missionary, whose
wife needs a coadjutor. Your own fortune will make you independent
of the Society's aid; and thus you may still be spared the dishonour
of breaking your promise and deserting the band you engaged to
join."
Now I never had, as the reader knows, either given any formal
promise or entered into any engagement; and this language was all
much too hard and much too despotic for the occasion. I replied "There is no dishonour, no breach of promise, no desertion in the
case. I am not under the slightest obligation to go to India,
especially with strangers. With you I would have ventured much,
because I admire, confide in, and, as a sister, I love you; but I am
convinced that, go when and with whom I would, I should not live
long in that climate."
"Ah! you are afraid of yourself," he said, curling his lip.
"I am. God did not give me my life to throw away; and to do as you
wish me would, I begin to think, be almost equivalent to committing
suicide. Moreover, before I definitively resolve on quitting
England, I will know for certain whether I cannot be of greater use
by remaining in it than by leaving it."
"What do you mean?"
"It would be fruitless to attempt to explain; but there is a point
on which I have long endured painful doubt, and I can go nowhere
till by some means that doubt is removed."
"I know where your heart turns and to what it clings. The interest
you cherish is lawless and unconsecrated. Long since you ought to
have crushed it: now you should blush to allude to it. You think
of Mr. Rochester?"
It was true. I confessed it by silence.
"Are you going to seek Mr. Rochester?"
"I must find out what is become of him."
"It remains for me, then," he said, "to remember you in my prayers,
and to entreat God for you, in all earnestness, that you may not
indeed become a castaway. I had thought I recognised in you one of
the chosen. But God sees not as man sees: HIS will be done--"
He opened the gate, passed through it, and strayed away down the
glen. He was soon out of sight.