Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/286

Rh candles, and wore the wreath of yellow flowers, and said the spell, and said, 'Let me now my true love see'?"

"Yes," said Jane, suddenly sitting up and looking at him with red-rimmed eyes. "I suppose Lucilla's been chattering. Silly goose!"

"What did you see?"

"Never mind," said Jane.

"No, but do—do tell me—darling Jane."

"I saw you," said Jane, at bay—"and that's why I can't let you hold my hands or—or—hold my hands. I can't have anything to do with you. It's not right. It's uncanny. It says in the Bible, 'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.' It was witchcraft—and I saw your face—I don't know how you guessed it, but I did see you. A sort of vision of you. Your face seemed to be suspended about a yard from the ground. The rest of you wasn't there. And I've thought about it, and thought about it, and of course it was magic—and most awfully wrong. And if I were to—to let you call me Jane and all that, it would be going on with the wrongness."

"There wasn't any magic at all about it," he said slowly. "You saw me because I was there, stooping down peering through the bushes to see what the lights were at that hour, in that lonely wood. It was just flesh-and-blood me, not a vision at all. It wasn't magic, but accident—the most blessed accident that ever"

"Really—truly? It wasn't a vision—you were there—your real self?"

"My real self," said Rochester.

"Oh dear!" said Jane, on a deep breath of relief. "How perfectly splendid! I do wish I'd known before, though."

She faced him with her own inimitable look of elfish mischief and innocent candour.

"Do you meanOh, Jane— I may call you Jane?"

"Yes, if you want to."

"And I may hold your hands."

"You've been holding them all the time," said Jane.