ly me.'
'Did you ask to learn?'
'No.'
'He wished to teach you?'
'Yes.'
A second pause.
'Why did he wish it? Of what use could Hindostanee be to you?'
'He intended me to go with him to India.'
'Ah! here I reach the root of the matter. He wanted you to marry him?'
'He asked me to marry him.'
'That is a fiction- an impudent invention to vex me.'
'I beg your pardon, it is the literal truth: he asked me more than once, and was as stiff about urging his point as ever you could be.'
'Miss Eyre, I repeat it, you can leave me. How often am I to say the same thing? Why do you remain pertinaciously perched on my knee, when I have given you notice to quit?'
'Because I am comfortable there.'
'No, Jane, you are not comfortable there, because your heart is not with me: it is with this cousin- this St. John. Oh, till this moment, I thought my little Jane was all mine! I had a belief she loved me even when she left me: that was an atom of sweet in much bitter. Long as we have been parted, hot tears as I have wept over our separation, I never thought that while I was mourning her, she was loving another! But it is useless grieving. Jane, leave me: go and marry Rivers.'
'Shake me off, then, sir,- push me away, for I'll not leave you of my own accord.'
'Jane, I ever like your tone of voice: it still renews hope, it sounds so truthful. When I hear it, it carries me back a year. I forget that you have formed a new tie. But I am not a fool-'
'Where must I go, sir?'
'Your own way- with the husband you have chosen.'
'Who is that?'
'You know- this St. John Rivers.'
'He is not my husband, nor ever will be. He does not love me: I do not love him. He loves (as he can love, and that is not as you love) a beautiful young lady called Rosamond. He wanted to marry me only because he thought I should make a suitable missionary's wife, which she would not have done. He is good and great, but severe; and, for me, cold as an iceberg. He is not like you, sir: I am not happy at his side, nor near him, nor
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