“You shall! —­ you must!”

“I would rather Diana or Mary informed you.”

Of course these objections wrought my eagerness to a climax:  gratified it must be, and that without delay; and I told him so.

“But I apprised you that I was a hard man,” said he, “difficult to persuade.”

“And I am a hard woman, —­ impossible to put off.”

“And then,” he pursued, “I am cold:  no fervour infects me.”

“Whereas I am hot, and fire dissolves ice.  The blaze there has thawed all the snow from your cloak; by the same token, it has streamed on to my floor, and made it like a trampled street.  As you hope ever to be forgiven, Mr. Rivers, the high crime and misdemeanour of spoiling a sanded kitchen, tell me what I wish to know.”

“Well, then,” he said, “I yield; if not to your earnestness, to your perseverance:  as stone is worn by continual dropping.  Besides, you must know some day, —­ as well now as later.  Your name is Jane Eyre?”

“Of course:  that was all settled before.”

“You are not, perhaps, aware that I am your namesake? —­ that I was christened St. John Eyre Rivers?”

“No, indeed!  I remember now seeing the letter E. comprised in your initials written in books you have at different times lent me; but I never asked for what name it stood.  But what then?  Surely —­ "

I stopped:  I could not trust myself to entertain, much less to express, the thought that rushed upon me —­ that embodied itself, —­ that, in a second, stood out a strong, solid probability.  Circumstances knit themselves, fitted themselves, shot into order:  the chain that had been lying hitherto a formless lump of links was drawn out straight, —­ every ring was perfect, the connection complete.  I knew, by instinct, how the matter stood, before St. John had said another word; but I cannot expect the reader to have the same intuitive perception, so I must repeat his explanation.

“My mother’s name was Eyre; she had two brothers; one a clergyman, who married Miss Jane Reed, of Gateshead; the other, John Eyre, Esq., merchant, late of Funchal, Madeira.  Mr. Briggs, being Mr. Eyre’s solicitor, wrote to us last August to inform us of our uncle’s death, and to say that he had left his property to his brother the clergyman’s orphan daughter, overlooking us, in consequence of a quarrel, never forgiven, between him and my father.  He wrote again a few weeks since, to intimate that the heiress was lost, and asking if we knew anything of her.  A name casually written on a slip of paper has enabled me to find her out.  You know the rest.”  Again he was going, but I set my back against the door.

“Do let me speak,” I said; “let me have one moment to draw breath and reflect.”  I paused —­ he stood before me, hat in hand, looking composed enough.  I resumed —

“Your mother was my father’s sister?”

“Yes.”

“My aunt, consequently?”