"Some days since: nay, I can number them--four; it was last Monday
night, a singular mood came over me: one in which grief replaced
frenzy--sorrow, sullenness. I had long had the impression that
since I could nowhere find you, you must be dead. Late that night--
perhaps it might be between eleven and twelve o'clock--ere I retired
to my dreary rest, I supplicated God, that, if it seemed good to
Him, I might soon be taken from this life, and admitted to that
world to come, where there was still hope of rejoining Jane.
"I was in my own room, and sitting by the window, which was open:
it soothed me to feel the balmy night-air; though I could see no
stars and only by a vague, luminous haze, knew the presence of a
moon. I longed for thee, Janet! Oh, I longed for thee both with
soul and flesh! I asked of God, at once in anguish and humility, if
I had not been long enough desolate, afflicted, tormented; and might
not soon taste bliss and peace once more. That I merited all I
endured, I acknowledged--that I could scarcely endure more, I
pleaded; and the alpha and omega of my heart's wishes broke
involuntarily from my lips in the words--'Jane! Jane! Jane!'"
"Did you speak these words aloud?"
"I did, Jane. If any listener had heard me, he would have thought
me mad: I pronounced them with such frantic energy."
"And it was last Monday night, somewhere near midnight?"
"Yes; but the time is of no consequence: what followed is the
strange point. You will think me superstitious,--some superstition
I have in my blood, and always had: nevertheless, this is true--
true at least it is that I heard what I now relate.
"As I exclaimed 'Jane! Jane! Jane!' a voice--I cannot tell whence
the voice came, but I know whose voice it was--replied, 'I am
coming: wait for me;' and a moment after, went whispering on the
wind the words--'Where are you?' "I'll tell you, if I can, the idea, the picture these words opened
to my mind: yet it is difficult to express what I want to express.
Ferndean is buried, as you see, in a heavy wood, where sound falls
dull, and dies unreverberating. 'Where are you?' seemed spoken
amongst mountains; for I heard a hill-sent echo repeat the words.
Cooler and fresher at the moment the gale seemed to visit my brow:
I could have deemed that in some wild, lone scene, I and Jane were
meeting. In spirit, I believe we must have met. You no doubt were,
at that hour, in unconscious sleep, Jane: perhaps your soul
wandered from its cell to comfort mine; for those were your accents-
-as certain as I live--they were yours!"