CHAPTER XXXVII 546
" 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.