"Very willingly," he rejoined; and rising, he strode a little

distance up the pass, threw himself down on a swell of heath, and

there lay still.

"I CAN do what he wants me to do: I am forced to see and

acknowledge that," I meditated,--"that is, if life be spared me.

But I feel mine is not the existence to be long protracted under an

Indian sun. What then? He does not care for that: when my time

came to die, he would resign me, in all serenity and sanctity, to

the God who gave me. The case is very plain before me. In leaving

England, I should leave a loved but empty land--Mr. Rochester is not

there; and if he were, what is, what can that ever be to me? My

business is to live without him now: nothing so absurd, so weak as

to drag on from day to day, as if I were waiting some impossible

change in circumstances, which might reunite me to him. Of course

(as St. John once said) I must seek another interest in life to

replace the one lost: is not the occupation he now offers me truly

the most glorious man can adopt or God assign? Is it not, by its

noble cares and sublime results, the one best calculated to fill the

void left by uptorn affections and demolished hopes? I believe I

must say, Yes--and yet I shudder. Alas! If I join St. John, I

abandon half myself: if I go to India, I go to premature death.

And how will the interval between leaving England for India, and

India for the grave, be filled? Oh, I know well! That, too, is

very clear to my vision. By straining to satisfy St. John till my

sinews ache, I SHALL satisfy him--to the finest central point and

farthest outward circle of his expectations. If I DO go with him--

if I DO make the sacrifice he urges, I will make it absolutely: I

will throw all on the altar--heart, vitals, the entire victim. He

will never love me; but he shall approve me; I will show him

energies he has not yet seen, resources he has never suspected.

Yes, I can work as hard as he can, and with as little grudging.

"Consent, then, to his demand is possible: but for one item--one

dreadful item. It is--that he asks me to be his wife, and has no

more of a husband's heart for me than that frowning giant of a rock,

down which the stream is foaming in yonder gorge. He prizes me as a

soldier would a good weapon; and that is all. Unmarried to him,

this would never grieve me; but can I let him complete his

calculations--coolly put into practice his plans--go through the

wedding ceremony? Can I receive from him the bridal ring, endure

all the forms of love (which I doubt not he would scrupulously

observe) and know that the spirit was quite absent? Can I bear the

consciousness that every endearment he bestows is a sacrifice made

on principle? No: such a martyrdom would be monstrous. I will

never undergo it. As his sister, I might accompany him--not as his

wife: I will tell him so."




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