CHAPTER XXXIII 480
paper, hastily torn off: I recognised in its texture and its stains of ultra-marine, and lake, and vermillion, the ravished margin of the portrait-cover. He got up, held it close to my eyes: and I read, traced in Indian ink, in my own handwriting, the words " JANE EYRE "-- the work doubtless of some moment of abstraction.
" Briggs wrote to me of a Jane Eyre:" he said, " the advertisements demanded a Jane Eyre: I knew a Jane Elliott.-- I confess I had my suspicions, but it was only yesterday afternoon they were at once resolved into certainty. You own the name and renounce the alias?"
" Yes-- yes; but where is Mr. Briggs? He perhaps knows more of Mr. Rochester than you do."
" Briggs is in London. I should doubt his knowing anything at all about Mr. Rochester; it is not in Mr. Rochester he is interested. Meantime, you forget essential points in pursuing trifles: you do not inquire why Mr. Briggs sought after you-- what he wanted with you."
" Well, what did he want?"
" Merely to tell you that your uncle, Mr. Eyre of Madeira, is dead; that he has left you all his property, and that you are now rich-- merely that-- nothing more."
" I!-- rich?" " Yes, you, rich-- quite an heiress." Silence succeeded.
" You must prove your identity of course," resumed St. John presently: " a step which will offer no difficulties; you can then enter on immediate possession. Your fortune is vested in the English funds; Briggs has the will and the necessary documents."