I could risk no sort of answer by this time: my heart was still.

"Because," he said，"I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you- especially when you are near me，as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs，tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel and two hundred miles or so of land e broad between us，I am afraid that cord of munion will be snapt; and then I"ve a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly. As for you,- you"d forget me."

"That I never should，sir: you know-" Impossible to proceed.

"Jane，do you hear that nightingale singing in the wood? Listen!"

In listening，I sobbed convulsively; for I could repress what I endured no longer; I was obliged to yield，and I was shaken from head to foot with acute distress. When I did speak，it was only to express an impetuous wish that I had never been born，or never e to Thornfield.

"Because you are sorry to leave it?"

The vehemence of emotion，stirred by grief and love within me，was claiming mastery，and struggling for full sway，and asserting a right to predominate，to overe，to live，rise，and reign at last: yes,- and to speak.

"I grieve to leave Thornfield: I love Thornfield:- I love it，because I have lived in it a full and delightful life,- momentarily at least. I have not been trampled on. I have not been petrified. I have not been buried with inferior minds，and excluded from every glimpse of munion with what is bright and energetic and high. I have talked，face to face，with what I reverence，with what I delight in,- with an original，a vigorous，an expanded mind. I have known you，Mr. Rochester; and it strikes me with terror and anguish to feel I absolutely must be torn from you for ever. I see the necessity of departure; and it is like looking on the necessity of death."

"Where do you see the necessity?" he asked suddenly.