But after gasping an instant at my sudden resignation,
"Because of your letter?" she eagerly brought out.
I quickly, by way of answer, felt for my letter, drew it forth, held it up,
and then, freeing myself, went and laid it on the great hall table.
"Luke will take it," I said as I came back. I reached the house door
and opened it; I was already on the steps.
My companion still demurred: the storm of the night and the early
morning had dropped, but the afternoon was damp and gray.
I came down to the drive while she stood in the doorway.
"You go with nothing on?"
"What do I care when the child has nothing? I can't wait
to dress," I cried, "and if you must do so, I leave you.
Try meanwhile, yourself, upstairs."
"With THEM?" Oh, on this, the poor woman promptly joined me!
XIX
We went straight to the lake, as it was called at Bly, and I daresay
rightly called, though I reflect that it may in fact have been a sheet
of water less remarkable than it appeared to my untraveled eyes.
My acquaintance with sheets of water was small, and the pool
of Bly, at all events on the few occasions of my consenting,
under the protection of my pupils, to affront its surface
in the old flat-bottomed boat moored there for our use,
had impressed me both with its extent and its agitation.
The usual place of embarkation was half a mile from the house,
but I had an intimate conviction that, wherever Flora might be,
she was not near home.
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