Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre

37. CHAPTER XXXVII (continued)

"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."