he inquired.

"Down, Pilot!" I again said. He checked the water on its way to his
lips, and seemed to listen: he drank, and put the glass down. "This is
you, Mary, is it not?"

"Mary is in the kitchen," I answered.

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 a