“You know this place, Mason,” said our guide; “she bit and stabbed you here.”

He lifted the hangings from the wall, uncovering the second door:  this, too, he opened.  In a room without a window, there burnt a fire guarded by a high and strong fender, and a lamp suspended from the ceiling by a chain.  Grace Poole bent over the fire, apparently cooking something in a saucepan.  In the deep shade, at the farther end of the room, a figure ran backwards and forwards.  What it was, whether beast or human being, one could not, at first sight, tell:  it grovelled, seemingly, on all fours; it snatched and growled like some strange wild animal:  but it was covered with clothing, and a quantity of dark, grizzled hair, wild as a mane, hid its head and face.

“Good-morrow, Mrs. Poole!” said Mr. Rochester.  “How are you? and how is your charge to-day?”

“We’re tolerable, sir, I thank you,” replied Grace, lifting the boiling mess carefully on to the hob:  “rather snappish, but not ’rageous.”

A fierce cry seemed to give the lie to her favourable report:  the clothed hyena rose up, and stood tall on its hind-feet.

“Ah! sir, she sees you!” exclaimed Grace:  “you’d better not stay.”

“Only a few moments, Grace:  you must allow me a few moments.”

“Take care then, sir! —­ for God’s sake, take care!”

The maniac bellowed:  she parted her shaggy locks from her visage, and gazed wildly at her visitors.  I recognised well that purple face, —­ those bloated features.  Mrs. Poole advanced.

“Keep out of the way,” said Mr. Rochester, thrusting her aside:  “she has no knife now, I suppose, and I’m on my guard.”

“One never knows what she has, sir:  she is so cunning:  it is not in mortal discretion to fathom her craft.”

“We had better leave her,” whispered Mason.

“Go to the devil!” was his brother-in-law’s recommendation.

“’Ware!” cried Grace.  The three gentlemen retreated simultaneously.  Mr. Rochester flung me behind him:  the lunatic sprang and grappled his throat viciously, and laid her teeth to his cheek:  they struggled.  She was a big woman, in stature almost equalling her husband, and corpulent besides:  she showed virile force in the contest —­ more than once she almost throttled him, athletic as he was.  He could have settled her with a well-planted blow; but he would not strike:  he would only wrestle.  At last he mastered her arms; Grace Poole gave him a cord, and he pinioned them behind her:  with more rope, which was at hand, he bound her to a chair.  The operation was performed amidst the fiercest yells and the most convulsive plunges.  Mr. Rochester then turned to the spectators:  he looked at them with a smile both acrid and desolate.