B EFORE I LEFT MY BED IN THE MORNING, LITTLE ADELE CAME running to tell me that the great horse-chestnut at the bottom of the orchard had been struck by lightning in the night, and half of it split away.

Reader, that sentence is from a novel I wrote. It ends the scene in which Mr. Rochester proposes marriage to Jane Eyre, she accepts, and a fierce storm rages over Thornfield Manor. The lightning symbolized the earth-shattering event in Jane’s life; the split chestnut tree, the lovers soon to be torn asunder. When I wrote the sentence, little did I suspect that I had prophesized my own future.

In the summer of 1848, lightning struck me when I was plunged into an adventure the like of which I had never believed possible. I journeyed far beyond my wildest imaginings; I experienced momentous events now cloaked in secrecy. If I now say that my actions influenced the fate of nations, please forgive me the appearance of immodesty: I only speak the truth.

During my adventures, I found the man of my dreams. His name is John Slade; he is a spy for the British Crown. We shared the love that I had hoped for all my life but despaired of ever knowing. But we were too soon torn apart. My heart was rent as severely as the poor chestnut tree. The similarity between my situation and Jane’s did not escape me; nor did the fact that the division between fantasy and life is sometimes akin to a line drawn in sand blown by the wind. While I mourned the loss of adventure as well as love, I had no intimation that what happens once can happen again.

In 1851, adventure came calling once more. The circumstances were different, but the second adventure had an important aspect in common with the first. Both involved John Slade. The first adventure led me to him, then took him away. The second brought him back.