"Mr. Rivers!" I interrupted.
"I can guess your feelings," he said, "but restrain them for a while:
I have nearly finished; hear me to the end. Of Mr. Rochester's
character I know nothing, but the one fact that he professed to
offer honourable marriage to this young girl, and that at the very
altar she discovered he had a wife yet alive, though a lunatic.
What his subsequent conduct and proposals were is a matter of pure
conjecture; but when an event transpired which rendered inquiry
after the governess necessary, it was discovered she was gone -- no
one could tell when, where, or how. She had left Thornfield Hall
in the night; every research after her course had been vain: the
country had been scoured far and wide; no vestige of information
could be gathered respecting her. Yet that she should be found is
become a matter of serious urgency: advertisements have been put
in all the papers; I myself have received a letter from one Mr.
Briggs, a solicitor, communicating the details I have just imparted.
Is it not an odd tale?"
|