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.