"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!"'