“Bridewell!” exclaimed Colonel Dent, and the charade was solved.

A sufficient interval having elapsed for the performers to resume their ordinary costume, they re-entered the dining-room.  Mr. Rochester led in Miss Ingram; she was complimenting him on his acting.

“Do you know,” said she, “that, of the three characters, I liked you in the last best?  Oh, had you but lived a few years earlier, what a gallant gentleman-highwayman you would have made!”

“Is all the soot washed from my face?” he asked, turning it towards her.

“Alas! yes:  the more’s the pity!  Nothing could be more becoming to your complexion than that ruffian’s rouge.”

“You would like a hero of the road then?”

“An English hero of the road would be the next best thing to an Italian bandit; and that could only be surpassed by a Levantine pirate.”

“Well, whatever I am, remember you are my wife; we were married an hour since, in the presence of all these witnesses.”  She giggled, and her colour rose.

“Now, Dent,” continued Mr. Rochester, “it is your turn.”  And as the other party withdrew, he and his band took the vacated seats.  Miss Ingram placed herself at her leader’s right hand; the other diviners filled the chairs on each side of him and her.  I did not now watch the actors; I no longer waited with interest for the curtain to rise; my attention was absorbed by the spectators; my eyes, erewhile fixed on the arch, were now irresistibly attracted to the semicircle of chairs.  What charade Colonel Dent and his party played, what word they chose, how they acquitted themselves, I no longer remember; but I still see the consultation which followed each scene:  I see Mr. Rochester turn to Miss Ingram, and Miss Ingram to him; I see her incline her head towards him, till the jetty curls almost touch his shoulder and wave against his cheek; I hear their mutual whisperings; I recall their interchanged glances; and something even of the feeling roused by the spectacle returns in memory at this moment.

I have told you, reader, that I had learnt to love Mr. Rochester:  I could not unlove him now, merely because I found that he had ceased to notice me —­ because I might pass hours in his presence, and he would never once turn his eyes in my direction —­ because I saw all his attentions appropriated by a great lady, who scorned to touch me with the hem of her robes as she passed; who, if ever her dark and imperious eye fell on me by chance, would withdraw it instantly as from an object too mean to merit observation.  I could not unlove him, because I felt sure he would soon marry this very lady —­ because I read daily in her a proud security in his intentions respecting her —­ because I witnessed hourly in him a style of courtship which, if careless and choosing rather to be sought than to seek, was yet, in its very carelessness, captivating, and in its very pride, irresistible.