"I too suffer this conviction," Jane says solemnly. "I am grateful to you for giving it voice, Miss Dashwood, for I should not have been so bold. I have not seen or heard any living creature apart from you or Adeodatus, and yet..." She does look about her, a gaze to take in her surroundings, which provide no immediate answers.

"Do you suppose it could merely be fancy, when we have independently come to this conviction?" she wonders, not wholly intending to sound philosophical.