She made an effort to alter her position, but failed:  her face changed; she seemed to experience some inward sensation —­ the precursor, perhaps, of the last pang.

“Well, I must get it over.  Eternity is before me:  I had better tell her. —­ Go to my dressing-case, open it, and take out a letter you will see there.”

I obeyed her directions.  “Read the letter,” she said.

It was short, and thus conceived:-

“Madam, —­ Will you have the goodness to send me the address of my niece, Jane Eyre, and to tell me how she is?  It is my intention to write shortly and desire her to come to me at Madeira.  Providence has blessed my endeavours to secure a competency; and as I am unmarried and childless, I wish to adopt her during my life, and bequeath her at my death whatever I may have to leave. —­ I am, Madam, &c., &c.,

“John Eyre, Madeira.”

It was dated three years back.

“Why did I never hear of this?” I asked.

“Because I disliked you too fixedly and thoroughly ever to lend a hand in lifting you to prosperity.  I could not forget your conduct to me, Jane —­ the fury with which you once turned on me; the tone in which you declared you abhorred me the worst of anybody in the world; the unchildlike look and voice with which you affirmed that the very thought of me made you sick, and asserted that I had treated you with miserable cruelty.  I could not forget my own sensations when you thus started up and poured out the venom of your mind:  I felt fear as if an animal that I had struck or pushed had looked up at me with human eyes and cursed me in a man’s voice. —­ Bring me some water!  Oh, make haste!”

“Dear Mrs. Reed,” said I, as I offered her the draught she required, “think no more of all this, let it pass away from your mind.  Forgive me for my passionate language:  I was a child then; eight, nine years have passed since that day.”

She heeded nothing of what I said; but when she had tasted the water and drawn breath, she went on thus —

“I tell you I could not forget it; and I took my revenge:  for you to be adopted by your uncle, and placed in a state of ease and comfort, was what I could not endure.  I wrote to him; I said I was sorry for his disappointment, but Jane Eyre was dead:  she had died of typhus fever at Lowood.  Now act as you please:  write and contradict my assertion —­ expose my falsehood as soon as you like.  You were born, I think, to be my torment:  my last hour is racked by the recollection of a deed which, but for you, I should never have been tempted to commit.”

“If you could but be persuaded to think no more of it, aunt, and to regard me with kindness and forgiveness”

“You have a very bad disposition,” said she, “and one to this day I feel it impossible to understand:  how for nine years you could be patient and quiescent under any treatment, and in the tenth break out all fire and violence, I can never comprehend.”