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the approaching figure, which we at once recognised as Miss Temple.

"I came on purpose to find you, Jane Eyre," said she; "I want you
in my room; and as Helen Burns is with you, she may come too."

We went; following the superintendent's guidance, we had to thread
some intricate passages, and mount a staircase before we reached
her apartment; it contained a good fire, and looked cheerful. Miss
Temple told Helen Burns to be seated in a low arm-chair on one
side of the hearth, and herself taking another, she called me to
her side.

"Is it all over?" she asked, looking down at my face. "Have you
cried your grief away?"

"I am afraid I never shall do that."

"Why?"

"Because I have been wrongly accused; and you, ma'am, and everybody
else, will now think me wicked."

"We shall think you what you prove yourself to be, my child.
Continue to act as a good girl, and you will satisfy us."

"Shall I, Miss Temple?"

"You will," said she, passing her arm round me. "And now tell me
who is the lady whom Mr. Brocklehurst called your benefactress?"

"Mrs. Reed, my uncle's wife. My uncle is dead, and he left me to
her care."

"Did she not, then, adopt you of her own accord?"

"No, ma'am; she was sorry to have to do it: but my uncle, as
I have often heard the servants say, got her to promise before he
died that she would always keep me."

"Well now, Jane, you know, or at least I will tell you, that when
a criminal is accused, he is always allowed to speak in his own
defence. You have been charged with falsehood; defend yourself to
me as well as you can. Say whatever your memory suggests is true;
but add nothing and exaggerate nothing."

I resolved, in the depth of my heart, that I would be most moderate
-- most correct; and, having reflected a few minutes in order
to arrange coherently what I had to say, I told her all the story
of my sad childhood. Exhausted by emotion, my language was more
subdued than it generally was when it developed that sad theme; and
mindful of Helen's warnings against the indulgence of resentment,
I infused into the narrative far less of gall and wormwood than
ordinary. Thus restrained and simplified, it sounded more credible:
I felt as I went on that Miss Temple fully believed me.

In the course of the tale I had mentioned Mr. Lloyd as having come
to see me after the fit: for I never forgot the, to me, frightful
episode of the red-room: in detailing which, my excitement was
sure, in some degree, to break bounds; for nothing could soften
in my recollection the spasm of agony which clutched my heart when
Mrs. Reed spurned my wild supplication for pardon, and locked me
a second time in the dark and haunted chamber.

I had finished: Miss Temple regarded me a few minutes
in silence; she then said -

"I know something of Mr. Lloyd; I shall write to him; if his reply
agrees with your statement, you shall be publicly cleared from

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