“Well, never mind that now,” I interrupted impatiently; “it is enough that all was right.”

“I hope all will be right in the end,” she said:  “but believe me, you cannot be too careful.  Try and keep Mr. Rochester at a distance:  distrust yourself as well as him.  Gentlemen in his station are not accustomed to marry their governesses.”

I was growing truly irritated:  happily, Adele ran in.

“Let me go, —­ let me go to Millcote too!” she cried.  “Mr. Rochester won’t:  though there is so much room in the new carriage.  Beg him to let me go mademoiselle.”

“That I will, Adele;” and I hastened away with her, glad to quit my gloomy monitress.  The carriage was ready:  they were bringing it round to the front, and my master was on the pavement, Pilot following him backwards and forwards.

“Adele may accompany us, may she not, sir?”

“I told her no.  I’ll have no brats! —­ I’ll have only you.”

“Do let her go, Mr. Rochester, if you please:  it would be better.”

“Not it:  she will be a restraint.”

He was quite peremptory, both in look and voice.  The chill of Mrs. Fairfax’s warnings, and the damp of her doubts were upon me:  something of unsubstantiality and uncertainty had beset my hopes.  I half lost the sense of power over him.  I was about mechanically to obey him, without further remonstrance; but as he helped me into the carriage, he looked at my face.

“What is the matter?” he asked; “all the sunshine is gone.  Do you really wish the bairn to go?  Will it annoy you if she is left behind?”

“I would far rather she went, sir.”

“Then off for your bonnet, and back like a flash of lightning!” cried he to Adele.

She obeyed him with what speed she might.

“After all, a single morning’s interruption will not matter much,” said he, “when I mean shortly to claim you —­ your thoughts, conversation, and company —­ for life.”

Adele, when lifted in, commenced kissing me, by way of expressing her gratitude for my intercession:  she was instantly stowed away into a corner on the other side of him.  She then peeped round to where I sat; so stern a neighbour was too restrictive to him, in his present fractious mood, she dared whisper no observations, nor ask of him any information.

“Let her come to me,” I entreated:  “she will, perhaps, trouble you, sir:  there is plenty of room on this side.”

He handed her over as if she had been a lapdog.  “I’ll send her to school yet,” he said, but now he was smiling.

Adele heard him, and asked if she was to go to school “sans mademoiselle?”

“Yes,” he replied, “absolutely sans mademoiselle; for I am to take mademoiselle to the moon, and there I shall seek a cave in one of the white valleys among the volcano-tops, and mademoiselle shall live with me there, and only me.”

“She will have nothing to eat:  you will starve her,” observed Adele.