“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?”