Mrs.Rochester! She did not exist: she would not be born till to-morrow, some time after eight o'clock a.m.; and I would wait to be assured she had come into the world alive before I assigned to her all that property.

It was enough that in yonder closet, opposite my dressing-table, garments said to be hers had already displaced my black stuff Lowood frock and straw bonnet: for not to me appertained that suit of wedding raiment; the pearl-coloured robe, the vapoury veil pendent from the usurped portmanteau.

I shut the closet to conceal the strange, wraith-like apparel it contained; which, at this evening hour--nine o'clock--gave out certainly a most ghostly shimmer through the shadow of my apartment.

"I will leave you by yourself, white dream," I said.

"I am feverish: I hear the wind blowing: I will go out of doors and feel it." It was not only the hurry of preparation that made me feverish; not only the anticipation of the great change--the new life which was to commence to-morrow: both these circumstances had their share, doubtless, in producing that restless, excited mood which hurried me forth at this late hour into the darkening grounds: but a third cause influenced my mind more than they.
I had at heart a strange and anxious thought.