After The Proposal

I sobbed quietly after Mr Rochester had told me of his lunatic wife Bertha. He held me close to his breast, closer than he had ever held me before.
He embraced me and went to speak, but it was like his track of words and thought had frozen.
"Jane, i am sorry to have deceived you, but i had to tell you Jane!"
He held me close to him and kissed my forehead.
"Jane?"
"I am glad you told me
" Glad, Jane!?"
"Yes. Glad. I would rather you told me than finding out about it on the day of our wedding"
"I should never have asked you to marry me Jane, but i….."
"You don't need to explain it to me"
"Yes, my dearest Jane, I do"
Mr Rochester held me closer to his breast than before.
"When I was a young man Jane, my older brother and father tricked me into marrying Bertha, so she could give me a rich dowry. My father was a greedy man Jane! I was married before I new it, after marrying Bertha I realized her mother was not dead like she had told me but in a lunatic asylum, and that the madness ran through the family like a black river of disease. It was a matter of weeks before I realized what kind of a marriage I had been tricked into. Bertha's illness started to grow rapidly in violence. I brought her here to Thornfield Hall to make it a comfortable prison for her, and for me. That's when I hired Grace Poole to look after her while I tried to forget the horrors at home. Jane are you still with me?"
I listened to him quietly and patiently
"Yes. I am here."
"Then, Jane, I met you! In my heart I was a free man to marry anyone I chose, but by law I could not, I could not let you walk down that isle because I knew it wouldn't be a proper marriage, and I wanted it to be a proper marriage!"
Rochester leaned over to me to give me a kiss. I instantly responded and kissed him back, i then lay silently on his shoulder.
"Jane, now you have heard my story, where does this leave us?"
"My darling. Edward I do not know!"
"My dearest Jane, you still call me Edward. Does this mean you forgive me Jane? Does this mean you will stay with me here?"

I broke off from his embrace and looked up at him. I stood and sat on his knee and kiss him tenderly, whilst he sat patiently waiting for my reply.