Jane Eyre, who had been an ardent, expectant woman, ... was a cold, solitary girl again: her life was pale; her prospects were desolate. A Christmas frost [see my reference to the name of Lucy Frost] had come at midsummer; a white December storm had whirled over June; ice glazed the ripe apples, drifts crushed the blowing roses; on hayfield and cornfield lay a frozen shroud [see "the snow-storm, the white-shrouded and frosty hills," the "cauld drift," the "whuddering blast," etc., of "Puir Mary Lee" in _Shirley_], lanes which last night blushed full of flowers to-day were pathless with untrodden snow; and the woods, ... now spread waste, wild, and white as pine forests in wintry Norway. My hopes were all dead--struck with a subtle doom.... I looked at my love: that feeling which was my master's--which he had created; it shivered in my heart like a suffering child in a cold cradle; sickness and anguish had seized it; it could not seek Mr. Rochester's arms--it could not derive warmth from his breast. Oh, never more could it turn to him; for faith was blighted--confidence destroyed! Mr. Rochester was not to me what he had been.... I would not say he had betrayed me: but the attribute of stainless truth was gone from his idea [see "Robin-a-Ree"], and from his presence I must go; _that_ I perceived well.... That bitter hour cannot be described: in truth, 'the waters came into my soul; I sank in deep mire; I felt no standing; I came into deep waters; the floods overflowed me.' The inclusion in _Shirley_ of the ballad of "Puir Mary Lee" and the remarks anent it were apparently digressive, but they are followed by the "subtle" disclaimer:-- But what has been said in the last page or two is not germane to Caroline Helstone's feelings, or to the state of things between her and Robert Moore. Robert had done her no wrong; he had told her no lie; it was she that was to blame, if any one was; what bitterness her mind distilled should and would be poured on her own head. Indeed, there is evidence of a reconciliation between M. Héger and Charlotte Brontë, this being most marked in _Jane Eyre_ and _Shirley_. In connection with the reasons responsible for Charlotte Brontë's choice of the title of _Wuthering Heights_, it is interesting to note some "subtlety of thought" dictated Charlotte's telling us in _Shirley_, Chapter XXXIII., of Caroline and her lover that:-- The air was now dark with snow; an Iceland blast was driving it wildly. This pair neither heard the long "wuthering" rush, nor saw the white burden it drifted; each seemed conscious but of one thing--the presence of the other.