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He put out his hand with a quick gesture, but not seeing where I stood, he did not touch me. "Who is this? Who is this?" he demanded, trying, as it seemed, to see with those sightless eyes-unavailing and distressing attempt! "Answer me-speak again!" he ordered, imperiously and aloud.

"Will you have a little more water, sir? I spilt half of what was in the glass," I said.

"Who is it? What is it? Who speaks?"

"Pilot knows me, and John and Mary know I am here. I came only this evening," I answered.

"Great God!-what delusion has come over me? What sweet madness has seized me?"

"No delusion-no madness: your mind, sir, is too strong for delusion, your health too sound for frenzy."

"And where is the speaker? Is it only a voice? Oh! I cannot see, but I must feel, or my heart will stop and my brain burst. Whatever-whoever you are-be perceptible to the touch or I cannot live!"

He groped; I arrested his wandering hand, and prisoned it in both mine.

"Her very fingers!" he cried; "her small, slight fingers! If so there must be more of her."

The muscular hand broke from my custody; my arm was seized, my shoulder-neck-waist-I was entwined and gathered to him.

"Is it Jane? What is it? This is her shape-this is her size-"

"And this her voice," I added. "She is all here: her heart, too. God bless you, sir! I am glad to be so near you again."

"Jane Eyre!-Jane Eyre," was all he said.

"My dear master," I answered, "I am Jane Eyre: I have found you out-I am come back to you."

"In truth?-in the flesh? My living Jane?"

"You touch me, sir,-you hold me, and fast enough: I am not cold like a corpse, nor vacant like air, am I?"

"My living darling! These are certainly her limbs, and these her features; but I cannot be so blest, after all my misery.

It is a dream; such dreams as I have had at night when I have clasped her once more to my heart, as I do now; and kissed her, as thus-and felt that she loved me, and trusted that she would not leave me."

"Which I never will, sir, from this day."

"Never will, says the vision? But I always woke and found it an empty mockery; and I was desolate and abandoned-my life dark, lonely, hopeless-my soul athirst and forbidden to drink-my heart famished and never to be fed.

Gentle, soft dream, nestling in my arms now, you will fly, too, as your sisters have all fled before you: but kiss me before you go-embrace me, Jane."

"There, sir-and there!"'

I pressed my lips to his once brilliant and now rayless eyes-I swept his hair from his brow, and kissed that too. He suddenly seemed to arouse himself: the conviction of the reality of all this seized him.

"It is you-is it, Jane? You are come back to me then?"

"I am."

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