"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."
"And you do not lie dead in some ditch under some stream? And you
are not a pining outcast amongst strangers?"
"No, sir! I am an independent woman now."
"Independent! What do you mean, Jane?"
"My uncle in Madeira is dead, and he left me five thousand pounds."
"Ah! this is practical--this is real!" he cried: "I should never
dream that. Besides, there is that peculiar voice of hers, so
animating and piquant, as well as soft: it cheers my withered
heart; it puts life into it.--What, Janet! Are you an independent
woman? A rich woman?"
"If you won't let me live with you, I can build a house of my own
close up to your door, and you may come and sit in my parlour when
you want company of an evening."
"But as you are rich, Jane, you have now, no doubt, friends who will
look after you, and not suffer you to devote yourself to a blind
lameter like me?"
"I told you I am independent, sir, as well as rich: I am my own
mistress."
"And you will stay with me?"
"Certainly--unless you object. I will be your neighbour, your
nurse, your housekeeper. I find you lonely: I will be your
companion--to read to you, to walk with you, to sit with you, to
wait on you, to be eyes and hands to you. Cease to look so
melancholy, my dear master; you shall not be left desolate, so long
as I live."
He replied not: he seemed serious--abstracted; he sighed; he half-
opened his lips as if to speak: he closed them again. I felt a
little embarrassed. Perhaps I had too rashly over-leaped
conventionalities; and he, like St. John, saw impropriety in my
inconsiderateness. I had indeed made my proposal from the idea that
he wished and would ask me to be his wife: an expectation, not the
less certain because unexpressed, had buoyed me up, that he would
claim me at once as his own. But no hint to that effect escaping
him and his countenance becoming more overcast, I suddenly
remembered that I might have been all wrong, and was perhaps playing
the fool unwittingly; and I began gently to withdraw myself from his
arms--but he eagerly snatched me closer.