"I judged by your countenance, sir, which was troubled when you said

the suggestion had returned upon you. I feel sure it will work you

more misery if you listen to it."

"Not at all--it bears the most gracious message in the world: for

the rest, you are not my conscience-keeper, so don't make yourself

uneasy. Here, come in, bonny wanderer!"

He said this as if he spoke to a vision, viewless to any eye but his

own; then, folding his arms, which he had half extended, on his

chest, he seemed to enclose in their embrace the invisible being.

"Now," he continued, again addressing me, "I have received the

pilgrim--a disguised deity, as I verify believe. Already it has

done me good: my heart was a sort of charnel; it will now be a

shrine."

"To speak truth, sir, I don't understand you at all: I cannot keep

up the conversation, because it has got out of my depth. Only one

thing, I know: you said you were not as good as you should like to

be, and that you regretted your own imperfection;--one thing I can

comprehend: you intimated that to have a sullied memory was a

perpetual bane. It seems to me, that if you tried hard, you would

in time find it possible to become what you yourself would approve;

and that if from this day you began with resolution to correct your

thoughts and actions, you would in a few years have laid up a new

and stainless store of recollections, to which you might revert with

pleasure."

"Justly thought; rightly said, Miss Eyre; and, at this moment, I am

paving hell with energy."

"Sir?"

"I am laying down good intentions, which I believe durable as flint.

Certainly, my associates and pursuits shall be other than they have

been."

"And better?"

"And better--so much better as pure ore is than foul dross. You

seem to doubt me; I don't doubt myself: I know what my aim is, what

my motives are; and at this moment I pass a law, unalterable as that

of the Medes and Persians, that both are right."

"They cannot be, sir, if they require a new statute to legalise

them."

"They are, Miss Eyre, though they absolutely require a new statute:

unheard-of combinations of circumstances demand unheard-of rules."

"That sounds a dangerous maxim, sir; because one can see at once

that it is liable to abuse."

"Sententious sage! so it is: but I swear by my household gods not

to abuse it."




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