I waited, but nothing came; then, in the first place--and there is
something more dire in this, I feel, than in anything I have to relate--
I was determined by a sense that, within a minute, all sounds from her
had previously dropped; and, in the second, by the circumstance that,
also within the minute, she had, in her play, turned her back to the water.
This was her attitude when I at last looked at her--looked with the confirmed
conviction that we were still, together, under direct personal notice.
She had picked up a small flat piece of wood, which happened to have in it
a little hole that had evidently suggested to her the idea of sticking
in another fragment that might figure as a mast and make the thing a boat.
This second morsel, as I watched her, she was very markedly and intently
attempting to tighten in its place. My apprehension of what she was doing
sustained me so that after some seconds I felt I was ready for more.
Then I again shifted my eyes--I faced what I had to face.
VII
I got hold of Mrs. Grose as soon after this as I could; and I can
give no intelligible account of how I fought out the interval.
Yet I still hear myself cry as I fairly threw myself into her arms:
"They KNOW--it's too monstrous: they know, they know!"
"And what on earth--?" I felt her incredulity as she held me.
"Why, all that WE know--and heaven knows what else besides!"
Then, as she released me, I made it out to her, made it out perhaps only
now with full coherency even to myself.
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