"No--no--Jane; you must not go. No--I have touched you, heard you,
felt the comfort of your presence--the sweetness of your
consolation: I cannot give up these joys. I have little left in
myself--I must have you. The world may laugh--may call me absurd,
selfish--but it does not signify. My very soul demands you: it
will be satisfied, or it will take deadly vengeance on its frame."
"Well, sir, I will stay with you: I have said so."
"Yes--but you understand one thing by staying with me; and I
understand another. You, perhaps, could make up your mind to be
about my hand and chair--to wait on me as a kind little nurse (for
you have an affectionate heart and a generous spirit, which prompt
you to make sacrifices for those you pity), and that ought to
suffice for me no doubt. I suppose I should now entertain none but
fatherly feelings for you: do you think so? Come--tell me."
"I will think what you like, sir: I am content to be only your
nurse, if you think it better."
"But you cannot always be my nurse, Janet: you are young--you must
marry one day."
"I don't care about being married."
"You should care, Janet: if I were what I once was, I would try to
make you care--but--a sightless block!"
He relapsed again into gloom. I, on the contrary, became more
cheerful, and took fresh courage: these last words gave me an
insight as to where the difficulty lay; and as it was no difficulty
with me, I felt quite relieved from my previous embarrassment. I
resumed a livelier vein of conversation.
"It is time some one undertook to rehumanise you," said I, parting
his thick and long uncut locks; "for I see you are being
metamorphosed into a lion, or something of that sort. You have a
'faux air' of Nebuchadnezzar in the fields about you, that is
certain: your hair reminds me of eagles' feathers; whether your
nails are grown like birds' claws or not, I have not yet noticed."
"On this arm, I have neither hand nor nails," he said, drawing the
mutilated limb from his breast, and showing it to me. "It is a mere
stump--a ghastly sight! Don't you think so, Jane?"
"It is a pity to see it; and a pity to see your eyes--and the scar
of fire on your forehead: and the worst of it is, one is in danger
of loving you too well for all this; and making too much of you."