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James, Henry, 1843-1916

"The Turn of the Screw"


Mrs. Grose and Flora had passed into the church, the other
worshippers had followed, and we were, for the minute,
alone among the old, thick graves. We had paused, on the path
from the gate, by a low, oblong, tablelike tomb.
"Yes, if you didn't--?"
He looked, while I waited, at the graves. "Well, you know what!"
But he didn't move, and he presently produced something that made
me drop straight down on the stone slab, as if suddenly to rest.
"Does my uncle think what YOU think?"
I markedly rested. "How do you know what I think?"
"Ah, well, of course I don't; for it strikes me you never tell me.
But I mean does HE know?"
"Know what, Miles?"
"Why, the way I'm going on."
I perceived quickly enough that I could make, to this inquiry,
no answer that would not involve something of a sacrifice
of my employer. Yet it appeared to me that we were all,
at Bly, sufficiently sacrificed to make that venial.
"I don't think your uncle much cares."
Miles, on this, stood looking at me. "Then don't you think he can
be made to?"
"In what way?"
"Why, by his coming down."
"But who'll get him to come down?"
"_I_ will!" the boy said with extraordinary brightness and emphasis.
He gave me another look charged with that expression and then marched
off alone into church.

XV

The business was practically settled from the moment I
never followed him.


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