I found her, on my return, in the schoolroom."
"And what did she say?" I can hear the good woman still,
and the candor of her stupefaction.
"That she suffers the torments--!"
It was this, of a truth, that made her, as she filled out my picture, gape.
"Do you mean," she faltered, "--of the lost?"
"Of the lost. Of the damned. And that's why, to share them-"
I faltered myself with the horror of it.
But my companion, with less imagination, kept me up.
"To share them--?"
"She wants Flora." Mrs. Grose might, as I gave it to her, fairly have fallen
away from me had I not been prepared. I still held her there, to show I was.
"As I've told you, however, it doesn't matter."
"Because you've made up your mind? But to what?"
"To everything."
"And what do you call `everything'?"
"Why, sending for their uncle."
"Oh, miss, in pity do," my friend broke out.
"ah, but I will, I WILL! I see it's the only way.
What's `out,' as I told you, with Miles is that if he thinks
I'm afraid to--and has ideas of what he gains by that--
he shall see he's mistaken. Yes, yes; his uncle shall have it
here from me on the spot (and before the boy himself, if necessary)
that if I'm to be reproached with having done nothing again
about more school--"
"Yes, miss--" my companion pressed me.
"Well, there's that awful reason."
There were now clearly so many of these for my poor colleague that she
was excusable for being vague.
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