Mr. Wood seemed at a loss. “What is the nature of the impediment?” he asked. “Perhaps it may be got over—explained away?”
“Hardly,” was the answer. “I have called it insuperable, and I speak advisedly.”
The speaker came forward and leaned on the rails. He continued, uttering each word distinctly, calmly, steadily, but not loudly—
“It simply consists in the existence of a previous marriage. Mr. Rochester has a wife now living.”
My nerves vibrated to those low-spoken words as they had never vibrated to thunder—my blood felt their subtle violence as it had never felt frost or fire; but I was collected, and in no danger of swooning. I looked at Mr. Rochester: I made him look at me. His whole face was colourless rock: his eye was both spark and flint. He disavowed nothing: he seemed as if he would defy all things. Without speaking, without smiling, without seeming to recognise in me a human being, he only twined my waist with his arm and riveted me to his side.
“Who are you?” he asked of the intruder.
“My name is Briggs, a solicitor of —— Street, London.”
“And you would thrust on me a wife?”
“I would remind you of your lady’s existence, sir, which the law recognises, if you do not.”
“Favour me with an account of her—with her name, her parentage, her place of abode.”
“Certainly.” Mr. Briggs calmly took a paper from his pocket, and read out in a sort of official, nasal voice:—