Some time in the afternoon I raised my head, and looking round and
seeing the western sun gilding the sign of its decline on the wall,
I asked, "What am I to do?"

But the answer my mind gave--"Leave Thornfield at once"--was so
prompt, so dread, that I stopped my ears. I said I could not bear
such words now. "That I am not Edward Rochester's bride is the
least part of my woe," I alleged: "that I have wakened out of most
glorious dreams, and found them all void and vain, is a horror I
could bear and master; but that I must leave him decidedly,
instantly, entirely, is intolerable. I cannot do it."

But, then, a voice within me averred that I could do it and foretold
that I should do it. I wrestled with my own resolution: I wanted
to be weak that I might avoid the awful passage of further suffering
I saw laid out for me; and Conscience, turned tyrant, held Passion
by the throat, told her tauntingly, she had yet but dipped her
dainty foot in the slough, and swore that with that arm of iron he
would thrust her down to unsounded depths of agony.

"Let me be torn away," then I cried. "Let another help me!"

"No; you shall tear yourself away, none shall help you: you shall
yourself pluck out your right eye; yourself cut off your right hand:
your heart shall be the victim, and you the priest to transfix it."