“Yes, Robert, I shall be ready:  it seems to me that I ought to go.”

“I think so too, Miss.  Bessie said she was sure you would not refuse:  but I suppose you will have to ask leave before you can get off?”

“Yes; and I will do it now;” and having directed him to the servants’ hall, and recommended him to the care of John’s wife, and the attentions of John himself, I went in search of Mr. Rochester.

He was not in any of the lower rooms; he was not in the yard, the stables, or the grounds.  I asked Mrs. Fairfax if she had seen him; —­ yes:  she believed he was playing billiards with Miss Ingram.  To the billiard-room I hastened:  the click of balls and the hum of voices resounded thence; Mr. Rochester, Miss Ingram, the two Misses Eshton, and their admirers, were all busied in the game.  It required some courage to disturb so interesting a party; my errand, however, was one I could not defer, so I approached the master where he stood at Miss Ingram’s side.  She turned as I drew near, and looked at me haughtily:  her eyes seemed to demand, “What can the creeping creature want now?” and when I said, in a low voice, “Mr. Rochester,” she made a movement as if tempted to order me away.  I remember her appearance at the moment —­ it was very graceful and very striking:  she wore a morning robe of sky-blue crape; a gauzy azure scarf was twisted in her hair.  She had been all animation with the game, and irritated pride did not lower the expression of her haughty lineaments.

“Does that person want you?” she inquired of Mr. Rochester; and Mr. Rochester turned to see who the “person” was.  He made a curious grimace —­ one of his strange and equivocal demonstrations —­ threw down his cue and followed me from the room.

“Well, Jane?” he said, as he rested his back against the schoolroom door, which he had shut.

“If you please, sir, I want leave of absence for a week or two.”

“What to do? —­ where to go?”

“To see a sick lady who has sent for me.”

“What sick lady? —­ where does she live?”

“At Gateshead; in -shire.”

“-shire?  That is a hundred miles off!  Who may she be that sends for people to see her that distance?”

“Her name is Reed, sir —­ Mrs. Reed.”

“Reed of Gateshead?  There was a Reed of Gateshead, a magistrate.”

“It is his widow, sir.”

“And what have you to do with her?  How do you know her?”

“Mr. Reed was my uncle —­ my mother’s brother.”

“The deuce he was!  You never told me that before:  you always said you had no relations.”

“None that would own me, sir.  Mr. Reed is dead, and his wife cast me off.”

“Why?”

“Because I was poor, and burdensome, and she disliked me.”

“But Reed left children? —­ you must have cousins?  Sir George Lynn was talking of a Reed of Gateshead yesterday, who, he said, was one of the veriest rascals on town; and Ingram was mentioning a Georgiana Reed of the same place, who was much admired for her beauty a season or two ago in London.”