CHAPTER XXVII 384
" For how long, Jane? For a few minutes, while you smooth your hair-- which is somewhat dishevelled; and bathe your face-- which looks feverish?"
" I must leave Adele and Thornfield. I must part with you for my whole life: I must begin a new existence among strange faces and strange scenes."
" Of course: I told you you should. I pass over the madness about parting from me. You mean you must become a part of me. As to the new existence, it is all right: you shall yet be my wife: I am not married. You shall be Mrs. Rochester-- both virtually and nominally. I shall keep only to you so long as you and I live. You shall go to a place I have in the south of France: a whitewashed villa on the shores of the Mediterranean. There you shall live a happy, and guarded, and most innocent life. Never fear that I wish to lure you into error-- to make you my mistress. Why did you shake your head? Jane, you must be reasonable, or in truth I shall again become frantic."
His voice and hand quivered: his large nostrils dilated; his eye blazed: still I dared to speak.
" Sir, your wife is living: that is a fact acknowledged this morning by yourself. If I lived with you as you desire, I should then be your mistress: to say otherwise is sophistical-- is false."
" Jane, I am not a gentle-tempered man-- you forget that: I am not long-enduring; I am not cool and dispassionate. Out of pity to me and yourself, put your finger on my pulse, feel how it throbs, and-- beware!"
He bared his wrist, and offered it to me: the blood was forsaking his cheek and lips, they were growing livid; I was distressed on all hands. To agitate him thus deeply, by a resistance he so abhorred, was cruel: to yield was out of the question. I did what human beings do instinctively when they are driven to utter extremity-- looked for aid to one higher than man: the words " God help me!" burst involuntarily from my lips.