“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!”
Reader, it was on Monday night – near midnight – that I too had received the mysterious summons: those were the very words by which I replied to it.
– Charlotte Bronte