The days that succeeded her return from Gateshead were serene and lovely. The skies over Thornfield were marbled with high, sweeping clouds, the fields around it brimming with golden hay and the laborers' songs, and the house itself filled with a welcome peace after the departure of the guests.

But Jane was not tranquil. The beauty of the spring brought more melancholy than joy; the calm she would once have treasured now brought only more time for sad reflection. Against this placid backdrop, she was intensely aware of the tenuousness of her fate. She knew that at any moment the dread news could come - that the wedding was imminent, that a new position in some alien house was found for her, that it was time to depart. Each morning she steeled herself for such tidings, but each day her efforts were met by silence and the same, unnerving calm.

She saw him regularly - twice, sometimes thrice a day. She had long learned to depend upon an evening summons, but lately he had taken to meeting her and her pupil in the afternoons when they were seated on the lawn, making sketches of the birds and trees and flowers, or reading history or a little Shakespeare. His presence on these occasions was undemanding, unobtrusive even. He seemed content to listen to Adele's halting speech as she read aloud, or to sit and read himself, or merely to gaze around him at whatever object caught his fancy - cloud, tree, bird, insect. He rarely interrupted them, and then, it was only to share an amusing passage from his book, to point out a sight that had impressed him, to bid them hearken to a strain of birdsong.

Now and then, she met him in the mornings too, coming out of the schoolroom after lessons to find him there by the door, almost as if he'd been waiting. Then she had to make an effort to compose herself, to appear unstartled, solicitous, receptive. There must be no hint on her countenance of the questions that rose tumultuously in her mind at the sight of him: When must I go? Where must I go? How shall I bear it? And she would struggle, and her will would prevail, and she would meet his eyes without quivering lips or tears. And he would smile at her, extend his hand cordially, bidding her good morning, asking after Adele's progress, never knowing how her heart trembled and shrank, how the sorrow welled up in her throat threatening to burst forth, and how she fought it back with a marshalling of assertion worthy of Hercules.

No one had warned her how much more difficult to endure was kindness than cruelty. His kindness broke her down.

At night, as she lay waiting for slumber after an evening spent with him in front of the fire reading poetry or listening to stories of his travels, she tried to prepare herself mentally for exile. She went over in her mind how she would act when the day came: the calm with which she would shake his hand for the last time, thank him for his friendship – for that, at least, he had given her and had acknowledged – climb into the carriage to be borne away to heaven knew where. She imagined the long carriage ride, each hour marking more miles between them until the precise distance ceased to have any meaning. She tried to ready her mind for the coming transplantation, the society of strangers, the challenge of acquaintance with a strange house, the oppression of isolation and obscurity. All these thoughts she could bear – she had borne them before. But there was one thought that she shrank from, one coming trial that she could not face mentally, however hard she tried. This was the thought of the first night, in the strange house, in the new position, when, having crawled into a foreign bed with her little trunk stowed beneath it and her few possessions unpacked and put away, she would lie alone in the dark with the cold knowledge that she had lost her only friend in the world, and nothing in the world could restore him to her.

Every day it became clearer to her: he – his friendship – was all she had, and soon she would have nothing.

A fortnight passed, and at its end she still had no news of her fate. Since her injudicious outpouring of feeling by the stile on the evening of her return, she had been careful to maintain a certain sobriety in her manner toward him. Often it was easy to present a staid demeanor, held well in check, as she was, by a dejection which – whether by some madness of the waxing moon or product of his increasingly overpowering gentleness toward her – never failed to descend on her like a smothering, obscuring vapor, every evening she was called to his company. And the more time she spent with him, the more his form, his voice, his kindness grew inseparable in her mind from the slough of despond that waited for her, somewhere on the veiled horizon.

Midsummer Eve day dawned bright and clear, the rays of sunlight waking her as they fell over her pillow, filling her room with a golden solstitial glow. As she rose up she experienced, for a few lone moments, only the joy of being awake and alive on such a morning, and her mind, ever active, flitted back to another such morning: last autumn, when she had awoken at Thornfield for the first time and felt the stirrings of hope and the beginnings of a new existence. Charmed, perhaps, by some lingering mental essence of this past optimism, she felt instinctively that she could reclaim some measure of happiness – not now, perhaps, but at some future time, when enough days had passed to cleanse the sorrow from her heart. She resolved to confront her master about his plans – to put the question to him herself and have his answer once and for all. The truth – however painful – would at least be preferable to this wretched ignorance. Satisfied with this decision, she washed, dressed, and descended to breakfast.

But she did not see him after lessons that morning, and he did not appear when she and Adele went to sit in the garden after lunch. Instead, when they had read for a half-hour, Mrs. Fairfax approached them with the suggestion that Adele might like to gather strawberries – she knew Hay Lane to be filled with them this time of year. Adele immediately begged permission to do so, and Jane, who despite her resolve to question him had not the audacity to seek out her employer herself, agreed to accompany her.

The two of them set off soon after with a sturdy basket for the berries, straw bonnets to shield them from the sun, and Jane's sketchpad and pencils. They progressed slowly up the lane, Adele picking her way along, filling the basket – with Jane's help – so quickly that by the time they reached the stile halfway to the hill crest the receptacle was brimming over and Adele was obliged to start gathering the berries into her pinafore. Instructing her pupil not to stray further, Jane settled herself on the stile and began a study of the Hall, whose battlements could be seen rising out of the dell below. She had been sketching only ten minutes when a figure caught her attention.

A man was coming up the path toward them with his coat slung over his arm, whistling to himself and strolling along as if he hadn't a care in the world. It was Mr. Rochester.

Even from a distance he could disarm her. He, however, expressed no surprise at meeting them here, and when he had come close enough for conversation he hailed them cheerfully.

"Here is a charming sight!"

Jane put down her sketchbook and pencil and rose from the stile, endeavoring to appear calm despite the wild leaps of her heart, and for a moment, as he stood regarding them with something like fondness, she dared to hope. Oh, he cannot be marrying Miss Ingram! He would not look so careless and so glad if he were. It has all been a great misunderstanding.

A moment later cold sense had reasserted itself – she was a fool if she let herself be convinced by such sophistry. She had better put her question to him now while her mind was clear and well under the governance of Reason.

But his attention was otherwise occupied – Adele, encouraged by his evident good humor, had run up to him, crying out,

"Look Monsieur! Les fraises – they have stained my fingers all pink!" She held out a hand, sticky and red with juice.

"Yes, and they have stained your mouth also, I see," he responded, smiling, taking a single berry from her pinafore, eating it slowly, savoring its sweetness.

"But what's this? Miss Eyre does not care to take part in this delightfully messy pursuit?"

"Mademoiselle has no pinafore," Adele explained.

"Indeed she hasn't," he replied, turning to Jane with an expression of such seriousness that she could not help smiling. "Perhaps," he added, approaching her, "Mademoiselle would like to make use of my handkerchief." He reached into his breast pocket and proffered to her a plain square of linen.

"Oh, I need not deprive you of that, sir," she began, but he interjected,

"Nonsense! It is no deprivation." He continued to hold out the handkerchief, all the while regarding her with the most gentle of gazes.

"Jane –," He never spoke her name now without it sounding like a query, as though asking permission to address her thus. Why this shyness, after several months of calling her by her Christian name, should arise now, was a thought that did not occur to her. "Jane, take it. Please. "

Impossible to refuse him now, when he was looking at her that way, as though his very happiness depended on her taking it. She reached out and accepted it with what grace and thanks she could muster. Holding the handkerchief – still warm from its recent proximity to him – she retreated to the stile. To remain near him would have been to betray herself – better to avert the catastrophe through separation, even if her apparent coldness offended him.

Adele was clapping her hands.

"Bien! Now Mademoiselle can help me, and we shall have many many more berries to bring to Madame Fairfax. Come Mademoiselle – there are so many of them here." She returned to her gathering with renewed enthusiasm, not asking, as Jane half-feared she would, whether Mr. Rochester would stay to help too. Though the pollard willow opposite her cast some shade onto the stile, still she felt the color flame in her cheeks, still her hand burned as though she held hot coals rather than innocent fabric.

How much less awkward had been their last meeting here, as strangers, when no interaction – no emotion – bound them. How much more sure she had been then, how untouched her heart. His curses had not unnerved her; his physical weight had not oppressed her. There had been nothing then to suggest that one day his kindness would utterly undo her.

His mind was doubtless as far from their first meeting as was possible, the memory of the encounter long-buried, undisturbed by their surroundings. Perhaps she was foolish to hope that he had even retained the memory, recorded every word of their conversation, as she had. He had better, more vibrant, more expansive thoughts with which to fill his mind, and it was silly to presume that she held any degree of importance among them. No – he had, in all probability, forgotten it. She must accept that.

Yet he was still standing there, still looking at her. His gaze was mild, benign – nothing but the gaze of a friend – but under it her resolve withered. She could not speak. She was helpless, her heart exposed, found-out. She felt hollow. Before his very eyes – in the very sunshine of his presence – she was being drained dry, and he did not know – could not know – would never know. He emptied her out.

At last he spoke again, an order that was more like a plea, and uttered too softly for Adele to hear. "Do not make yourself unwell in this heat." Then he turned from her, and said in a quite different tone – jovial, like one making a great proclamation,

"Adele must take care she does not linger here too long."

"Pourquoi?" The child looked up at him curiously.

"For this night Titania shall have us all in her power, and I know you to be in particular danger in this spot. Hay Lane is full of her mischief, as Miss Eyre will attest. I myself broke through one of her rings last winter, just there, by that willow." As Adele turned to look at the place he had referenced – right by Jane's feet – he left them, setting off back toward Thornfield. When he had gone some paces he paused and, without looking back, called over his shoulder, almost as an afterthought,

"It brought me to my knees."

Only after his retreating form had vanished behind a bend in the path did Jane realize that his errand – if errand he'd had – had been left unaccomplished.

The nightingale's song was just beginning to echo out of the wood that evening as she watched while Adele slowly dropped off to sleep. It seemed a call meant especially for her – a melancholy strain as piercing as the one her heart sang. She desired ardently to go out to it. And though the dew was falling, she knew she could not stay in the house, for, despite not having summoned her, she knew him to be inside. As soon as she could see Adele was soundly asleep, she made for the garden.

She had only got as far as the passage when she stopped. She still had Mr. Rochester's handkerchief in her pocket, not yet having had an opportunity to return it to him. Slowly, she drew it out and looked at it. It was unstained, for she had not wanted, after all, to hold berries in it, as though it were no more significant than any other scrap of linen. It was very plain – her master, for all his wealth, was never ostentatious: in his own way he was as modest in his attire as she was – but in the corner, embroidered in dark green thread, it bore his initials, EFR. What was she to do with it? She could not keep it, that much was certain – if ever it were found among her things the monogram would be an instant giveaway – but nor could she leave it by his door or in his study without attracting attention. She decided at last to leave it in the schoolroom. No one would question it there, and if anyone did she could merely explain that he had dropped it on his last visit. She went to the room, now dusky and dim as the sun set, and placed the folded handkerchief on the table by the windows where it gleamed pallid and forlorn in the day's last light.

Standing alone in the empty schoolroom, the familiar dejection settled upon her. She was death-weary of resisting what her heart so longed for, what her soul demanded. She feared this pining would sap away all her strength until the moment came when she could not resist any more. And what chaos would ensue then?

How mild in comparison seemed her desperation at Lowood, when in despair she had cried out to Helen her dread of being despised, her willingness to submit to bodily harm rather than endure human antipathy. She would almost have welcomed such punishments now. Shutting her eyes, she prayed with all her might for her friend's gentle counsel, listening for some voice to guide her, to bring her comfort, but she heard only the nightingale, far off in the wood.

Oh Helen, I could have born anything but this! This love – this I cannot bear!

She did not know that later he would follow her to the garden, and that in the interval, while she wandered up and down the pavement trying to quell her grief, he would go to the schoolroom in search of her. She did not know that he would enter the room, catch sight of his handkerchief lying on the table, and start as if struck by lightning, taking it up with trembling fingers. She did not know he had meant for her to keep it, and that seeing it there, carefully folded by her hands, seemed to him a rejection – not of his friendship (for that, at least, she had acknowledged and accepted) but of his undeclared love. She knew nothing of his love.

No one, least of all Jane, knew of the sorrowful sigh that escaped him, the lines of distress that appeared on his brow and around his mouth, the doubt that darkened his eyes so that the irises were swallowed up, staring at the fabric like one utterly bereft. No one saw the index finger tracing and retracing the embroidered letters that – perhaps – her finger had traced hours earlier. And no one heard his regretful murmur, scarcely audible as it mingled with the song of the nightingale:

"Is that all I am to you, Jane – a friend? Is that truly all I am?"