CHAPTER XXXVI 539
secret, and wanting to take another wife while he had one living: but I pity him, for my part."
" You said he was alive?" I exclaimed. " Yes, yes: he is alive; but many think he had better he dead."
" Why? How?" My blood was again running cold. " Where is he?" I demanded. " Is he in England?"
" Ay-- ay-- he ' s in England; he can ' t get out of England, I fancy-- he ' s a fixture now."
What agony was this! And the man seemed resolved to protract it. " He is stone-blind," he said at last. " Yes, he is stone-blind, is Mr. Edward."
I had dreaded worse. I had dreaded he was mad. I summoned strength to ask what had caused this calamity.
" It was all his own courage, and a body may say, his kindness, in a way, ma ' am: he wouldn ' t leave the house till every one else was out before him. As he came down the great staircase at last, after Mrs. Rochester had flung herself from the battlements, there was a great crash-- all fell. He was taken out from under the ruins, alive, but sadly hurt: a beam had fallen in such a way as to protect him partly; but one eye was knocked out, and one hand so crushed that Mr. Carter, the surgeon, had to amputate it directly. The other eye inflamed: he lost the sight of that also. He is now helpless, indeed-- blind and a cripple."
" Where is he? Where does he now live?"
" At Ferndean, a manor-house on a farm he has, about thirty miles off: quite a desolate spot."
" Who is with him?"