Chapter 22: Thornfield Abbey at Midnight

She left at half past eleven.

This was not, she told herself, impulsive. She had been thinking about it since seven o'clock, which was not impulsive. She had written four pages in her notebook since seven o'clock, the last of which ended mid-sentence in a way that told her, with the reliable honesty of incomplete sentences, that she had stopped writing because she had already made the decision and was merely waiting to acknowledge it.

She left Lydia a note on the pillow. The note said: *I have gone to finish a conversation. I will be careful. Do not wake Mother.* She sealed it with plain wax and left the candle burning low enough to be respectable.