“You cannot now wonder,” continued my master, “that when you rose upon me so unexpectedly last night, I had difficulty in believing you any other than a mere voice and vision, something that would melt to silence and annihilation, as the midnight whisper and mountain echo had melted before.  Now, I thank God!  I know it to be otherwise.  Yes, I thank God!”

He put me off his knee, rose, and reverently lifting his hat from his brow, and bending his sightless eyes to the earth, he stood in mute devotion.  Only the last words of the worship were audible.

“I thank my Maker, that, in the midst of judgment, he has remembered mercy.  I humbly entreat my Redeemer to give me strength to lead henceforth a purer life than I have done hitherto!”

Then he stretched his hand out to be led.  I took that dear hand, held it a moment to my lips, then let it pass round my shoulder:  being so much lower of stature than he, I served both for his prop and guide.  We entered the wood, and wended homeward.

CHAPTER XXXVIII —­ CONCLUSION

Reader, I married him.  A quiet wedding we had:  he and I, the parson and clerk, were alone present.  When we got back from church, I went into the kitchen of the manor-house, where Mary was cooking the dinner and John cleaning the knives, and I said —

“Mary, I have been married to Mr. Rochester this morning.”  The housekeeper and her husband were both of that decent phlegmatic order of people, to whom one may at any time safely communicate a remarkable piece of news without incurring the danger of having one’s ears pierced by some shrill ejaculation, and subsequently stunned by a torrent of wordy wonderment.  Mary did look up, and she did stare at me:  the ladle with which she was basting a pair of chickens roasting at the fire, did for some three minutes hang suspended in air; and for the same space of time John’s knives also had rest from the polishing process:  but Mary, bending again over the roast, said only —

“Have you, Miss?  Well, for sure!”

A short time after she pursued —­ “I seed you go out with the master, but I didn’t know you were gone to church to be wed;” and she basted away.  John, when I turned to him, was grinning from ear to ear.

“I telled Mary how it would be,” he said:  “I knew what Mr. Edward” (John was an old servant, and had known his master when he was the cadet of the house, therefore, he often gave him his Christian name) —­ “I knew what Mr. Edward would do; and I was certain he would not wait long neither:  and he’s done right, for aught I know.  I wish you joy, Miss!” and he politely pulled his forelock.

“Thank you, John.  Mr. Rochester told me to give you and Mary this.”  I put into his hand a five-pound note.  Without waiting to hear more, I left the kitchen.  In passing the door of that sanctum some time after, I caught the words —