The wretched child had spoken exactly as if she had got from
some outside source each of her stabbing little words, and I
could therefore, in the full despair of all I had to accept,
but sadly shake my head at her. "If I had ever doubted,
all my doubt would at present have gone. I've been living with
the miserable truth, and now it has only too much closed round me.
Of course I've lost you: I've interfered, and you've seen--
under HER dictation"--with which I faced, over the pool again,
our infernal witness--"the easy and perfect way to meet it.
I've done my best, but I've lost you. Goodbye." For Mrs. Grose
I had an imperative, an almost frantic "Go, go!" before which,
in infinite distress, but mutely possessed of the little girl
and clearly convinced, in spite of her blindness, that something
awful had occurred and some collapse engulfed us, she retreated,
by the way we had come, as fast as she could move.
Of what first happened when I was left alone I had no subsequent memory.
I only knew that at the end of, I suppose, a quarter of an hour,
an odorous dampness and roughness, chilling and piercing
my trouble, had made me understand that I must have thrown myself,
on my face, on the ground and given way to a wildness of grief.
I must have lain there long and cried and sobbed, for when I raised
my head the day was almost done. I got up and looked a moment,
through the twilight, at the gray pool and its blank, haunted edge,
and then I took, back to the house, my dreary and difficult course.
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