“Am I wanted?” I asked.

“Are you up?” asked the voice I expected to hear, viz., my master’s.

“Yes, sir.”

“And dressed?”

“Yes.”

“Come out, then, quietly.”

I obeyed.  Mr. Rochester stood in the gallery holding a light.

“I want you,” he said:  “come this way:  take your time, and make no noise.”

My slippers were thin:  I could walk the matted floor as softly as a cat.  He glided up the gallery and up the stairs, and stopped in the dark, low corridor of the fateful third storey:  I had followed and stood at his side.

“Have you a sponge in your room?” he asked in a whisper.

“Yes, sir.”

“Have you any salts —­ volatile salts?”

“Yes.”

“Go back and fetch both.”

I returned, sought the sponge on the washstand, the salts in my drawer, and once more retraced my steps.  He still waited; he held a key in his hand:  approaching one of the small, black doors, he put it in the lock; he paused, and addressed me again.

“You don’t turn sick at the sight of blood?”

“I think I shall not:  I have never been tried yet.”

I felt a thrill while I answered him; but no coldness, and no faintness.

“Just give me your hand,” he said:  “it will not do to risk a fainting fit.”

I put my fingers into his.  “Warm and steady,” was his remark:  he turned the key and opened the door.

I saw a room I remembered to have seen before, the day Mrs. Fairfax showed me over the house:  it was hung with tapestry; but the tapestry was now looped up in one part, and there was a door apparent, which had then been concealed.  This door was open; a light shone out of the room within:  I heard thence a snarling, snatching sound, almost like a dog quarrelling.  Mr. Rochester, putting down his candle, said to me, “Wait a minute,” and he went forward to the inner apartment.  A shout of laughter greeted his entrance; noisy at first, and terminating in Grace Poole’s own goblin ha! ha!  She then was there.  He made some sort of arrangement without speaking, though I heard a low voice address him:  he came out and closed the door behind him.

“Here, Jane!” he said; and I walked round to the other side of a large bed, which with its drawn curtains concealed a considerable portion of the chamber.  An easy-chair was near the bed-head:  a man sat in it, dressed with the exception of his coat; he was still; his head leant back; his eyes were closed.  Mr. Rochester held the candle over him; I recognised in his pale and seemingly lifeless face —­ the stranger, Mason:  I saw too that his linen on one side, and one arm, was almost soaked in blood.

“Hold the candle,” said Mr. Rochester, and I took it:  he fetched a basin of water from the washstand:  “Hold that,” said he.  I obeyed.  He took the sponge, dipped it in, and moistened the corpse-like face; he asked for my smelling-bottle, and applied it to the nostrils.  Mr. Mason shortly unclosed his eyes; he groaned.  Mr. Rochester opened the shirt of the wounded man, whose arm and shoulder were bandaged:  he sponged away blood, trickling fast down.