Page:Jane Eyre (1st edition), Volume 1.djvu/291

Rh seemed momentarily to hold a quivering conflict in the large pupil dilating under his ebon eyebrow. Wild was the wrestle which should be paramount; but another feeling rose and triumphed: something hard and cynical; self-willed and resolute: it settled his passion and petrified his countenance: he went on:—

"During the moment I was silent, Miss Eyre, I was arranging a point with my destiny. She stood there, by that beech-trunk—a hag like one of those who appeared to Macbeth on the heath of Forres. 'You like Thornfield?' she said, lifting her finger; and then she wrote in the air a memento, which ran in lurid hieroglyphics all along the house-front, between the upper and lower row of windows. 'Like it if you can!' 'Like it if you dare!'

I will like it,' said I. 'I dare like it; and (he subjoined moodily) I will keep my word: I will break obstacles to happiness, to goodness—yes, goodness. I wish to be a better man than I have been; than I am: as Job's leviathan broke the spear the dart and the habergeon, hinderances which others count