While these instants lasted, indeed, I had the extraordinary
chill of feeling that it was I who was the intruder.
It was as a wild protest against it that, actually addressing
her--"You terrible, miserable woman!"--I heard myself break
into a sound that, by the open door, rang through the long
passage and the empty house. She looked at me as if she
heard me, but I had recovered myself and cleared the air.
There was nothing in the room the next minute but the sunshine
and a sense that I must stay.
XVI
I had so perfectly expected that the return of my pupils would
be marked by a demonstration that I was freshly upset at having
to take into account that they were dumb about my absence.
Instead of gaily denouncing and caressing me, they made no allusion
to my having failed them, and I was left, for the time, on perceiving
that she too said nothing, to study Mrs. Grose's odd face.
I did this to such purpose that I made sure they had in some
way bribed her to silence; a silence that, however, I would
engage to break down on the first private opportunity.
This opportunity came before tea: I secured five minutes
with her in the housekeeper's room, where, in the twilight,
amid a smell of lately baked bread, but with the place all
swept and garnished, I found her sitting in pained placidity
before the fire. So I see her still, so I see her best:
facing the flame from her straight chair in the dusky,
shining room, a large clean image of the "put away"--
of drawers closed and locked and rest without a remedy.
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