“Can there be life here?” I asked.

Yes, life of some kind there was; for I heard a movement —­ that narrow front-door was unclosing, and some shape was about to issue from the grange.

It opened slowly:  a figure came out into the twilight and stood on the step; a man without a hat:  he stretched forth his hand as if to feel whether it rained.  Dusk as it was, I had recognised him —­ it was my master, Edward Fairfax Rochester, and no other.

I stayed my step, almost my breath, and stood to watch him —­ to examine him, myself unseen, and alas! to him invisible.  It was a sudden meeting, and one in which rapture was kept well in check by pain.  I had no difficulty in restraining my voice from exclamation, my step from hasty advance.

His form was of the same strong and stalwart contour as ever:  his port was still erect, his hair was still raven black; nor were his features altered or sunk:  not in one year’s space, by any sorrow, could his athletic strength be quelled or his vigorous prime blighted.  But in his countenance I saw a change:  that looked desperate and brooding —­ that reminded me of some wronged and fettered wild beast or bird, dangerous to approach in his sullen woe.  The caged eagle, whose gold-ringed eyes cruelty has extinguished, might look as looked that sightless Samson.

And, reader, do you think I feared him in his blind ferocity? —­ if you do, you little know me.  A soft hope blest with my sorrow that soon I should dare to drop a kiss on that brow of rock, and on those lips so sternly sealed beneath it:  but not yet.  I would not accost him yet.

He descended the one step, and advanced slowly and gropingly towards the grass-plat.  Where was his daring stride now?  Then he paused, as if he knew not which way to turn.  He lifted his hand and opened his eyelids; gazed blank, and with a straining effort, on the sky, and toward the amphitheatre of trees:  one saw that all to him was void darkness.  He stretched his right hand (the left arm, the mutilated one, he kept hidden in his bosom); he seemed to wish by touch to gain an idea of what lay around him:  he met but vacancy still; for the trees were some yards off where he stood.  He relinquished the endeavour, folded his arms, and stood quiet and mute in the rain, now falling fast on his uncovered head.  At this moment John approached him from some quarter.

“Will you take my arm, sir?” he said; “there is a heavy shower coming on:  had you not better go in?”

“Let me alone,” was the answer.

John withdrew without having observed me.  Mr. Rochester now tried to walk about:  vainly, —­ all was too uncertain.  He groped his way back to the house, and, re-entering it, closed the door.

I now drew near and knocked:  John’s wife opened for me.  “Mary,” I said, “how are you?”