But, if it be possibleas, after hearing you, I believeto explain the tragedy through the ghost, then I beg you, sir, to talk to us about the ghost again. Mysterious though the ghost may at first appear, he will always be more easily explained than the dismal story in which malevolent people have tried to picture two brothers killing each other who had worshiped each other all their lives. Believe me, etc. Lastly, with my bundle of papers in hand, I once more went over the ghosts vast domain, the huge building which he had made his kingdom. All that my eyes saw, all that my mind perceived, corroborated the Persians documents precisely; and a wonderful discovery crowned my labors in a very definite fashion. It will be remembered that, later, when digging in the substructure of the Opera, before burying the phonographic records of the artists voice, the workmen laid bare a corpse. Well, I was at once able to prove that this corpse was that of the Opera ghost. I made the actingmanager put this proof to the test with his own hand; and it is now a matter of supreme indifference to me if the papers pretend that the body was that of a victim of the Commune. The wretches who were massacred, under the Commune, in the cellars of the Opera, were not buried on this side; I will tell where their skeletons can be found in a spot not very far from that immense crypt which was stocked during the siege with all sorts of provisions. I came upon this track just when I was looking for the remains of the Opera ghost, which I should never have discovered but for the unheardof chance described above. But we will return to the corpse and what ought to be done with it. For the present, I must conclude this very necessary introduction by thanking M. Mifroid (who was the commissary of police called in for the first investigations after the disappearance of Christine Daa), M. Rmy, the late secretary, M. Mercier, the late actingmanager, M. Gabriel, the late chorusmaster, and more particularly Mme. la Baronne de CastelotBarbezac, who was once the little Meg of the story (and who is not ashamed of it), the most charming star of our admirable corps de ballet, the eldest daughter of the worthy Mme. Giry, now deceased, who had charge of the ghosts private box. All these were of the greatest assistance to me; and, thanks to them, I shall be able to reproduce those hours of sheer love and terror, in their smallest details, before the readers eyes. And I should be ungrateful indeed if I omitted, while standing on the threshold of this dreadful and veracious story, to thank the present management of the Opera, which has so kindly assisted me in all my inquiries, and M. Messager in particular, together with M. Gabion, the actingmanager, and that most amiable of men, the architect entrusted with the preservation of the building, who did not hesitate to lend me the works of Charles Garnier, although he was almost sure that I would never return them to him. Lastly, I must pay a public tribute to the generosity of my friend and former collaborator, M. J. Le Croze, who allowed me to dip into his splendid theatrical library and to borrow the rarest editions of books by which he set great store. Gaston Leroux The Phantom of the Opera By Gaston Leroux. Translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. Uncopyright May you do good and not evil. May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others. May you share freely, never taking more than you give. Copyright pages exist to tell you that you cant do something. Unlike them, this Uncopyright page exists to tell you that the writing and artwork in this ebook are believed to be in the United States public domain; that is, they are believed to be free of copyright restrictions in the United States. The United States public domain represents our collective cultural heritage, and items in it are free for anyone in the United States to do almost anything at all with, without having to get permission. Copyright laws are different all over the world, and the source text or artwork in this ebook may still be copyrighted in other countries. If youre not located in the United States, you must check your local laws before using this ebook. Standard Ebooks makes no representations regarding the copyright status of the source text or artwork in this ebook in any country other than the United States. Nonauthorship activities performed on items that are in the public domainsocalled sweat of the brow workdont create a new copyright. That means that nobody can claim a new copyright on an item that is in the public domain for, among other things, work like digitization, markup, or typography. Regardless, the contributors to this ebook release their contributions under the terms in the CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication, thus dedicating to the worldwide public domain all of the work theyve done on this ebook, including but not limited to metadata, the titlepage, imprint, colophon, this Uncopyright, and any changes or enhancements to, or markup on, the original text and artwork. This dedication doesnt change the copyright status of the source text or artwork. We make this dedication in the interest of enriching our global cultural heritage, to promote free and libre culture around the world, and to give back to the unrestricted culture that has given all of us so much. Table of Contents Titlepage Imprint Prologue I Is It the Ghost? II The New Margarita III The Mysterious Reason IV Box Five V The Enchanted Violin VI A Visit to Box Five VII Faust and What Followed VIII The Mysterious Brougham IX At the Masked Ball X Forget the Name of the Mans Voice XI Above the TrapDoors XII Apollos Lyre XIII A Masterstroke of the TrapDoor Lover XIV The Singular Attitude of a SafetyPin XV Christine! Christine! XVI Mme. Girys Astounding Revelations as to Her Personal Relations with the Opera Ghost XVII The SafetyPin Again XVIII The Commissary, the Viscount and the Persian XIX The Viscount and the Persian XX In the Cellars of the Opera XXI Interesting and Instructive Vicissitudes of a Persian in the Cellars of the Opera XXII In the Torture Chamber XXIII The Tortures Begin XXIV Barrels!  Barrels!  Any Barrels to Sell? XXV The Scorpion or the Grasshopper Which? XXVI The End of the Ghosts Love Story Epilogue Endnotes Colophon Uncopyright Landmarks The Phantom of the Opera Endnotes


I I remember the whole beginning as a succession of flights and drops, a little seesaw of the right throbs and the wrong. After rising, in town, to meet his appeal, I had at all events a couple of very bad daysfound myself doubtful again, felt indeed sure I had made a mistake. In this state of mind I spent the long hours of bumping, swinging coach that carried me to the stopping place at which I was to be met by a vehicle from the house. This convenience, I was told, had been ordered, and I found, toward the close of the June afternoon, a commodious fly in waiting for me. Driving at that hour, on a lovely day, through a country to which the summer sweetness seemed to offer me a friendly welcome, my fortitude mounted afresh and, as we turned into the avenue, encountered a reprieve that was probably but a proof of the point to which it had sunk. I suppose I had expected, or had dreaded, something so melancholy that what greeted me was a good surprise. I remember as a most pleasant impression the broad, clear front, its open windows and fresh curtains and the pair of maids looking out; I remember the lawn and the bright flowers and the crunch of my wheels on the gravel and the clustered treetops over which the rooks circled and cawed in the golden sky. The scene had a greatness that made it a different affair from my own scant home, and there immediately appeared at the door, with a little girl in her hand, a civil person who dropped me as decent a curtsy as if I had been the mistress or a distinguished visitor. I had received in Harley Street a narrower notion of the place, and that, as I recalled it, made me think the proprietor still more of a gentleman, suggested that what I was to enjoy might be something beyond his promise. I had no drop again till the next day, for I was carried triumphantly through the following hours by my introduction to the younger of my pupils. The little girl who accompanied Mrs. Grose appeared to me on the spot a creature so charming as to make it a great fortune to have to do with her. She was the most beautiful child I had ever seen, and I afterward wondered that my employer had not told me more of her. I slept little that nightI was too much excited; and this astonished me too, I recollect, remained with me, adding to my sense of the liberality with which I was treated. The large, impressive room, one of the best in the house, the great state bed, as I almost felt it, the full, figured draperies, the long glasses in which, for the first time, I could see myself from head to foot, all struck melike the extraordinary charm of my small chargeas so many things thrown in. It was thrown in as well, from the first moment, that I should get on with Mrs. Grose in a relation over which, on my way, in the coach, I fear I had rather brooded. The only thing indeed that in this early outlook might have made me shrink again was the clear circumstance of her being so glad to see me. I perceived within half an hour that she was so gladstout, simple, plain, clean, wholesome womanas to be positively on her guard against showing it too much. I wondered even then a little why she should wish not to show it, and that, with reflection, with suspicion, might of course have made me uneasy. But it was a comfort that there could be no uneasiness in a connection with anything so beatific as the radiant image of my little girl, the vision of whose angelic beauty had probably more than anything else to do with the restlessness that, before morning, made me several times rise and wander about my room to take in the whole picture and prospect; to watch, from my open window, the faint summer dawn, to look at such portions of the rest of the house as I could catch, and to listen, while, in the fading dusk, the first birds began to twitter, for the possible recurrence of a sound or two, less natural and not without, but within, that I had fancied I heard. There had been a moment when I believed I recognized, faint and far, the cry of a child; there had been another when I found myself just consciously starting as at the passage, before my door, of a light footstep. But these fancies were not marked enough not to be thrown off, and it is only in the light, or the gloom, I should rather say, of other and subsequent matters that they now come back to me. To watch, teach, form little Flora would too evidently be the making of a happy and useful life. It had been agreed between us downstairs that after this first occasion I should have her as a matter of course at night, her small white bed being already arranged, to that end, in my room. What I had undertaken was the whole care of her, and she had remained, just this last time, with Mrs. Grose only as an effect of our consideration for my inevitable strangeness and her natural timidity. In spite of this timiditywhich the child herself, in the oddest way in the world, had been perfectly frank and brave about, allowing it, without a sign of uncomfortable consciousness, with the deep, sweet serenity indeed of one of Raphaels holy infants, to be discussed, to be imputed to her, and to determine usI felt quite sure she would presently like me. It was part of what I already liked Mrs. Grose herself for, the pleasure I could see her feel in my admiration and wonder as I sat at supper with four tall candles and with my pupil, in a high chair and a bib, brightly facing me, between them, over bread and milk. There were naturally things that in Floras presence could pass between us only as prodigious and gratified looks, obscure and roundabout allusions. And the little boydoes he look like her? Is he too so very remarkable? One wouldnt flatter a child. Oh, miss, most remarkable. If you think well of this one!and she stood there with a plate in her hand, beaming at our companion, who looked from one of us to the other with placid heavenly eyes that contained nothing to check us. Yes; if I do? You will be carried away by the little gentleman! Well, that, I think, is what I came forto be carried away. Im afraid, however, I remember feeling the impulse to add, Im rather easily carried away. I was carried away in London! I can still see Mrs. Groses broad face as she took this in. In Harley Street? In Harley Street. Well, miss, youre not the firstand you wont be the last. Oh, Ive no pretension, I could laugh, to being the only one. My other pupil, at any rate, as I understand, comes back tomorrow? Not tomorrowFriday, miss. He arrives, as you did, by the coach, under care of the guard, and is to be met by the same carriage. I forthwith expressed that the proper as well as the pleasant and friendly thing would be therefore that on the arrival of the public conveyance I should be in waiting for him with his little sister; an idea in which Mrs. Grose concurred so heartily that I somehow took her manner as a kind of comforting pledgenever falsified, thank heaven!that we should on every question be quite at one. Oh, she was glad I was there! What I felt the next day was, I suppose, nothing that could be fairly called a reaction from the cheer of my arrival; it was probably at the most only a slight oppression produced by a fuller measure of the scale, as I walked round them, gazed up at them, took them in, of my new circumstances. They had, as it were, an extent and mass for which I had not been prepared and in the presence of which I found myself, freshly, a little scared as well as a little proud. Lessons, in this agitation, certainly suffered some delay; I reflected that my first duty was, by the gentlest arts I could contrive, to win the child into the sense of knowing me. I spent the day with her outofdoors; I arranged with her, to her great satisfaction, that it should be she, she only, who might show me the place. She showed it step by step and room by room and secret by secret, with droll, delightful, childish talk about it and with the result, in half an hour, of our becoming immense friends. Young as she was, I was struck, throughout our little tour, with her confidence and courage with the way, in empty chambers and dull corridors, on crooked staircases that made me pause and even on the summit of an old machicolated square tower that made me dizzy, her morning music, her disposition to tell me so many more things than she asked, rang out and led me on. I have not seen Bly since the day I left it, and I daresay that to my older and more informed eyes it would now appear sufficiently contracted. But as my little conductress, with her hair of gold and her frock of blue, danced before me round corners and pattered down passages, I had the view of a castle of romance inhabited by a rosy sprite, such a place as would somehow, for diversion of the young idea, take all color out of storybooks and fairytales. Wasnt it just a storybook over which I had fallen adoze and adream? No; it was a big, ugly, antique, but convenient house, embodying a few features of a building still older, halfreplaced and halfutilized, in which I had the fancy of our being almost as lost as a handful of passengers in a great drifting ship. Well, I was, strangely, at the helm! II This came home to me when, two days later, I drove over with Flora to meet, as Mrs. Grose said, the little gentleman; and all the more for an incident that, presenting itself the second evening, had deeply disconcerted me. The first day had been, on the whole, as I have expressed, reassuring; but I was to see it wind up in keen apprehension. The postbag, that eveningit came latecontained a letter for me, which, however, in the hand of my employer, I found to be composed but of a few words enclosing another, addressed to himself, with a seal still unbroken. This, I recognize, is from the headmaster, and the headmasters an awful bore. Read him, please; deal with him; but mind you dont report. Not a word. Im off! I broke the seal with a great effortso great a one that I was a long time coming to it; took the unopened missive at last up to my room and only attacked it just before going to bed. I had better have let it wait till morning, for it gave me a second sleepless night. With no counsel to take, the next day, I was full of distress; and it finally got so the better of me that I determined to open myself at least to Mrs. Grose. What does it mean? The childs dismissed his school. She gave me a look that I remarked at the moment; then, visibly, with a quick blankness, seemed to try to take it back. But arent they all? Sent homeyes. But only for the holidays. Miles may never go back at all. Consciously, under my attention, she reddened. They wont take him? They absolutely decline. At this she raised her eyes, which she had turned from me; I saw them fill with good tears. What has he done? I hesitated; then I judged best simply to hand her my letterwhich, however, had the effect of making her, without taking it, simply put her hands behind her. She shook her head sadly. Such things are not for me, miss. My counselor couldnt read! I winced at my mistake, which I attenuated as I could, and opened my letter again to repeat it to her; then, faltering in the act and folding it up once more, I put it back in my pocket. Is he really bad? The tears were still in her eyes. Do the gentlemen say so? They go into no particulars. They simply express their regret that it should be impossible to keep him. That can have only one meaning. Mrs. Grose listened with dumb emotion; she forbore to ask me what this meaning might be; so that, presently, to put the thing with some coherence and with the mere aid of her presence to my own mind, I went on That hes an injury to the others. At this, with one of the quick turns of simple folk, she suddenly flamed up. Master Miles! him an injury? There was such a flood of good faith in it that, though I had not yet seen the child, my very fears made me jump to the absurdity of the idea. I found myself, to meet my friend the better, offering it, on the spot, sarcastically. To his poor little innocent mates! Its too dreadful, cried Mrs. Grose, to say such cruel things! Why, hes scarce ten years old. Yes, yes; it would be incredible. She was evidently grateful for such a profession. See him, miss, first. Then believe it! I felt forthwith a new impatience to see him; it was the beginning of a curiosity that, for all the next hours, was to deepen almost to pain. Mrs. Grose was aware, I could judge, of what she had produced in me, and she followed it up with assurance. You might as well believe it of the little lady. Bless her, she added the next momentLook at her! I turned and saw that Flora, whom, ten minutes before, I had established in the schoolroom with a sheet of white paper, a pencil, and a copy of nice round Os, now presented herself to view at the open door. She expressed in her little way an extraordinary detachment from disagreeable duties, looking to me, however, with a great childish light that seemed to offer it as a mere result of the affection she had conceived for my person, which had rendered necessary that she should follow me. I needed nothing more than this to feel the full force of Mrs. Groses comparison, and, catching my pupil in my arms, covered her with kisses in which there was a sob of atonement. Nonetheless, the rest of the day I watched for further occasion to approach my colleague, especially as, toward evening, I began to fancy she rather sought to avoid me. I overtook her, I remember, on the staircase; we went down together, and at the bottom I detained her, holding her there with a hand on her arm. I take what you said to me at noon as a declaration that youve never known him to be bad. She threw back her head; she had clearly, by this time, and very honestly, adopted an attitude. Oh, never known himI dont pretend that! I was upset again. Then you have known him? Yes indeed, miss, thank God! On reflection I accepted this. You mean that a boy who never is? Is no boy for me! I held her tighter. You like them with the spirit to be naughty? Then, keeping pace with her answer, So do I! I eagerly brought out. But not to the degree to contaminate To contaminate?my big word left her at a loss. I explained it. To corrupt. She stared, taking my meaning in; but it produced in her an odd laugh. Are you afraid hell corrupt you? She put the question with such a fine bold humor that, with a laugh, a little silly doubtless, to match her own, I gave way for the time to the apprehension of ridicule. But the next day, as the hour for my drive approached, I cropped up in another place. What was the lady who was here before? The last governess? She was also young and prettyalmost as young and almost as pretty, miss, even as you. Ah, then, I hope her youth and her beauty helped her! I recollect throwing off. He seems to like us young and pretty! Oh, he did, Mrs. Grose assented it was the way he liked everyone! She had no sooner spoken indeed than she caught herself up. I mean thats his waythe masters. I was struck. But of whom did you speak first? She looked blank, but she colored. Why, of him. Of the master? Of who else? There was so obviously no one else that the next moment I had lost my impression of her having accidentally said more than she meant; and I merely asked what I wanted to know. Did she see anything in the boy? That wasnt right? She never told me. I had a scruple, but I overcame it. Was she carefulparticular? Mrs. Grose appeared to try to be conscientious. About some thingsyes. But not about all? Again she considered. Well, missshes gone. I wont tell tales. I quite understand your feeling, I hastened to reply; but I thought it, after an instant, not opposed to this concession to pursue Did she die here? Noshe went off. I dont know what there was in this brevity of Mrs. Groses that struck me as ambiguous. Went off to die? Mrs. Grose looked straight out of the window, but I felt that, hypothetically, I had a right to know what young persons engaged for Bly were expected to do. She was taken ill, you mean, and went home? She was not taken ill, so far as appeared, in this house. She left it, at the end of the year, to go home, as she said, for a short holiday, to which the time she had put in had certainly given her a right. We had then a young womana nursemaid who had stayed on and who was a good girl and clever; and she took the children altogether for the interval. But our young lady never came back, and at the very moment I was expecting her I heard from the master that she was dead. I turned this over. But of what? He never told me! But please, miss, said Mrs. Grose, I must get to my work. III Her thus turning her back on me was fortunately not, for my just preoccupations, a snub that could check the growth of our mutual esteem. We met, after I had brought home little Miles, more intimately than ever on the ground of my stupefaction, my general emotion so monstrous was I then ready to pronounce it that such a child as had now been revealed to me should be under an interdict. I was a little late on the scene, and I felt, as he stood wistfully looking out for me before the door of the inn at which the coach had put him down, that I had seen him, on the instant, without and within, in the great glow of freshness, the same positive fragrance of purity, in which I had, from the first moment, seen his little sister. He was incredibly beautiful, and Mrs. Grose had put her finger on it everything but a sort of passion of tenderness for him was swept away by his presence. What I then and there took him to my heart for was something divine that I have never found to the same degree in any childhis indescribable little air of knowing nothing in the world but love. It would have been impossible to carry a bad name with a greater sweetness of innocence, and by the time I had got back to Bly with him I remained merely bewilderedso far, that is, as I was not outragedby the sense of the horrible letter locked up in my room, in a drawer. As soon as I could compass a private word with Mrs. Grose I declared to her that it was grotesque. She promptly understood me. You mean the cruel charge? It doesnt live an instant. My dear woman, look at him! She smiled at my pretention to have discovered his charm. I assure you, miss, I do nothing else! What will you say, then? she immediately added. In answer to the letter? I had made up my mind. Nothing. And to his uncle? I was incisive. Nothing. And to the boy himself? I was wonderful. Nothing. She gave with her apron a great wipe to her mouth. Then Ill stand by you. Well see it out. Well see it out! I ardently echoed, giving her my hand to make it a vow. She held me there a moment, then whisked up her apron again with her detached hand. Would you mind, miss, if I used the freedom To kiss me? No! I took the good creature in my arms and, after we had embraced like sisters, felt still more fortified and indignant. This, at all events, was for the time a time so full that, as I recall the way it went, it reminds me of all the art I now need to make it a little distinct. What I look back at with amazement is the situation I accepted. I had undertaken, with my companion, to see it out, and I was under a charm, apparently, that could smooth away the extent and the far and difficult connections of such an effort. I was lifted aloft on a great wave of infatuation and pity. I found it simple, in my ignorance, my confusion, and perhaps my conceit, to assume that I could deal with a boy whose education for the world was all on the point of beginning. I am unable even to remember at this day what proposal I framed for the end of his holidays and the resumption of his studies. Lessons with me, indeed, that charming summer, we all had a theory that he was to have; but I now feel that, for weeks, the lessons must have been rather my own. I learned somethingat first, certainlythat had not been one of the teachings of my small, smothered life; learned to be amused, and even amusing, and not to think for the morrow. It was the first time, in a manner, that I had known space and air and freedom, all the music of summer and all the mystery of nature. And then there was considerationand consideration was sweet. Oh, it was a trapnot designed, but deepto my imagination, to my delicacy, perhaps to my vanity; to whatever, in me, was most excitable. The best way to picture it all is to say that I was off my guard. They gave me so little troublethey were of a gentleness so extraordinary. I used to speculatebut even this with a dim disconnectednessas to how the rough future (for all futures are rough!) would handle them and might bruise them. They had the bloom of health and happiness; and yet, as if I had been in charge of a pair of little grandees, of princes of the blood, for whom everything, to be right, would have to be enclosed and protected, the only form that, in my fancy, the afteryears could take for them was that of a romantic, a really royal extension of the garden and the park. It may be, of course, above all, that what suddenly broke into this gives the previous time a charm of stillnessthat hush in which something gathers or crouches. The change was actually like the spring of a beast. In the first weeks the days were long; they often, at their finest, gave me what I used to call my own hour, the hour when, for my pupils, teatime and bedtime having come and gone, I had, before my final retirement, a small interval alone. Much as I liked my companions, this hour was the thing in the day I liked most; and I liked it best of all when, as the light fadedor rather, I should say, the day lingered and the last calls of the last birds sounded, in a flushed sky, from the old treesI could take a turn into the grounds and enjoy, almost with a sense of property that amused and flattered me, the beauty and dignity of the place. It was a pleasure at these moments to feel myself tranquil and justified; doubtless, perhaps, also to reflect that by my discretion, my quiet good sense and general high propriety, I was giving pleasureif he ever thought of it!to the person to whose pressure I had responded. What I was doing was what he had earnestly hoped and directly asked of me, and that I could, after all, do it proved even a greater joy than I had expected. I daresay I fancied myself, in short, a remarkable young woman and took comfort in the faith that this would more publicly appear. Well, I needed to be remarkable to offer a front to the remarkable things that presently gave their first sign. It was plump, one afternoon, in the middle of my very hour the children were tucked away, and I had come out for my stroll. One of the thoughts that, as I dont in the least shrink now from noting, used to be with me in these wanderings was that it would be as charming as a charming story suddenly to meet someone. Someone would appear there at the turn of a path and would stand before me and smile and approve. I didnt ask more than thatI only asked that he should know; and the only way to be sure he knew would be to see it, and the kind light of it, in his handsome face. That was exactly present to meby which I mean the face waswhen, on the first of these occasions, at the end of a long June day, I stopped short on emerging from one of the plantations and coming into view of the house. What arrested me on the spotand with a shock much greater than any vision had allowed forwas the sense that my imagination had, in a flash, turned real. He did stand there!but high up, beyond the lawn and at the very top of the tower to which, on that first morning, little Flora had conducted me. This tower was one of a pairsquare, incongruous, crenelated structuresthat were distinguished, for some reason, though I could see little difference, as the new and the old. They flanked opposite ends of the house and were probably architectural absurdities, redeemed in a measure indeed by not being wholly disengaged nor of a height too pretentious, dating, in their gingerbread antiquity, from a romantic revival that was already a respectable past. I admired them, had fancies about them, for we could all profit in a degree, especially when they loomed through the dusk, by the grandeur of their actual battlements; yet it was not at such an elevation that the figure I had so often invoked seemed most in place. It produced in me, this figure, in the clear twilight, I remember, two distinct gasps of emotion, which were, sharply, the shock of my first and that of my second surprise. My second was a violent perception of the mistake of my first the man who met my eyes was not the person I had precipitately supposed. There came to me thus a bewilderment of vision of which, after these years, there is no living view that I can hope to give. An unknown man in a lonely place is a permitted object of fear to a young woman privately bred; and the figure that faced me wasa few more seconds assured meas little anyone else I knew as it was the image that had been in my mind. I had not seen it in Harley StreetI had not seen it anywhere. The place, moreover, in the strangest way in the world, had, on the instant, and by the very fact of its appearance, become a solitude. To me at least, making my statement here with a deliberation with which I have never made it, the whole feeling of the moment returns. It was as if, while I took inwhat I did take inall the rest of the scene had been stricken with death. I can hear again, as I write, the intense hush in which the sounds of evening dropped. The rooks stopped cawing in the golden sky, and the friendly hour lost, for the minute, all its voice. But there was no other change in nature, unless indeed it were a change that I saw with a stranger sharpness. The gold was still in the sky, the clearness in the air, and the man who looked at me over the battlements was as definite as a picture in a frame. Thats how I thought, with extraordinary quickness, of each person that he might have been and that he was not. We were confronted across our distance quite long enough for me to ask myself with intensity who then he was and to feel, as an effect of my inability to say, a wonder that in a few instants more became intense. The great question, or one of these, is, afterward, I know, with regard to certain matters, the question of how long they have lasted. Well, this matter of mine, think what you will of it, lasted while I caught at a dozen possibilities, none of which made a difference for the better, that I could see, in there having been in the houseand for how long, above all?a person of whom I was in ignorance. It lasted while I just bridled a little with the sense that my office demanded that there should be no such ignorance and no such person. It lasted while this visitant, at all eventsand there was a touch of the strange freedom, as I remember, in the sign of familiarity of his wearing no hatseemed to fix me, from his position, with just the question, just the scrutiny through the fading light, that his own presence provoked. We were too far apart to call to each other, but there was a moment at which, at shorter range, some challenge between us, breaking the hush, would have been the right result of our straight mutual stare. He was in one of the angles, the one away from the house, very erect, as it struck me, and with both hands on the ledge. So I saw him as I see the letters I form on this page; then, exactly, after a minute, as if to add to the spectacle, he slowly changed his placepassed, looking at me hard all the while, to the opposite corner of the platform. Yes, I had the sharpest sense that during this transit he never took his eyes from me, and I can see at this moment the way his hand, as he went, passed from one of the crenelations to the next. He stopped at the other corner, but less long, and even as he turned away still markedly fixed me. He turned away; that was all I knew. IV It was not that I didnt wait, on this occasion, for more, for I was rooted as deeply as I was shaken. Was there a secret at Blya mystery of Udolpho or an insane, an unmentionable relative kept in unsuspected confinement? I cant say how long I turned it over, or how long, in a confusion of curiosity and dread, I remained where I had had my collision; I only recall that when I reentered the house darkness had quite closed in. Agitation, in the interval, certainly had held me and driven me, for I must, in circling about the place, have walked three miles; but I was to be, later on, so much more overwhelmed that this mere dawn of alarm was a comparatively human chill. The most singular part of it, in factsingular as the rest had beenwas the part I became, in the hall, aware of in meeting Mrs. Grose. This picture comes back to me in the general trainthe impression, as I received it on my return, of the wide white panelled space, bright in the lamplight and with its portraits and red carpet, and of the good surprised look of my friend, which immediately told me she had missed me. It came to me straightway, under her contact, that, with plain heartiness, mere relieved anxiety at my appearance, she knew nothing whatever that could bear upon the incident I had there ready for her. I had not suspected in advance that her comfortable face would pull me up, and I somehow measured the importance of what I had seen by my thus finding myself hesitate to mention it. Scarce anything in the whole history seems to me so odd as this fact that my real beginning of fear was one, as I may say, with the instinct of sparing my companion. On the spot, accordingly, in the pleasant hall and with her eyes on me, I, for a reason that I couldnt then have phrased, achieved an inward resolutionoffered a vague pretext for my lateness and, with the plea of the beauty of the night and of the heavy dew and wet feet, went as soon as possible to my room. Here it was another affair; here, for many days after, it was a queer affair enough. There were hours, from day to dayor at least there were moments, snatched even from clear dutieswhen I had to shut myself up to think. It was not so much yet that I was more nervous than I could bear to be as that I was remarkably afraid of becoming so; for the truth I had now to turn over was, simply and clearly, the truth that I could arrive at no account whatever of the visitor with whom I had been so inexplicably and yet, as it seemed to me, so intimately concerned. It took little time to see that I could sound without forms of inquiry and without exciting remark any domestic complications. The shock I had suffered must have sharpened all my senses; I felt sure, at the end of three days and as the result of mere closer attention, that I had not been practiced upon by the servants nor made the object of any game. Of whatever it was that I knew, nothing was known around me. There was but one sane inference someone had taken a liberty rather gross. That was what, repeatedly, I dipped into my room and locked the door to say to myself. We had been, collectively, subject to an intrusion; some unscrupulous traveler, curious in old houses, had made his way in unobserved, enjoyed the prospect from the best point of view, and then stolen out as he came. If he had given me such a bold hard stare, that was but a part of his indiscretion. The good thing, after all, was that we should surely see no more of him. This was not so good a thing, I admit, as not to leave me to judge that what, essentially, made nothing else much signify was simply my charming work. My charming work was just my life with Miles and Flora, and through nothing could I so like it as through feeling that I could throw myself into it in trouble. The attraction of my small charges was a constant joy, leading me to wonder afresh at the vanity of my original fears, the distaste I had begun by entertaining for the probable gray prose of my office.


There was to be no gray prose, it appeared, and no long grind; so how could work not be charming that presented itself as daily beauty? It was all the romance of the nursery and the poetry of the schoolroom. I dont mean by this, of course, that we studied only fiction and verse; I mean I can express no otherwise the sort of interest my companions inspired. How can I describe that except by saying that instead of growing used to themand its a marvel for a governess I call the sisterhood to witness!I made constant fresh discoveries. There was one direction, assuredly, in which these discoveries stopped deep obscurity continued to cover the region of the boys conduct at school. It had been promptly given me, I have noted, to face that mystery without a pang. Perhaps even it would be nearer the truth to say thatwithout a wordhe himself had cleared it up. He had made the whole charge absurd. My conclusion bloomed there with the real rose flush of his innocence he was only too fine and fair for the little horrid, unclean school world, and he had paid a price for it. I reflected acutely that the sense of such differences, such superiorities of quality, always, on the part of the majoritywhich could include even stupid, sordid headmastersturn infallibly to the vindictive. Both the children had a gentleness (it was their only fault, and it never made Miles a muff) that kept themhow shall I express it?almost impersonal and certainly quite unpunishable. They were like the cherubs of the anecdote, who hadmorally, at any ratenothing to whack! I remember feeling with Miles in especial as if he had had, as it were, no history. We expect of a small child a scant one, but there was in this beautiful little boy something extraordinarily sensitive, yet extraordinarily happy, that, more than in any creature of his age I have seen, struck me as beginning anew each day. He had never for a second suffered. I took this as a direct disproof of his having really been chastised. If he had been wicked he would have caught it, and I should have caught it by the reboundI should have found the trace. I found nothing at all, and he was therefore an angel. He never spoke of his school, never mentioned a comrade or a master; and I, for my part, was quite too much disgusted to allude to them. Of course I was under the spell, and the wonderful part is that, even at the time, I perfectly knew I was. But I gave myself up to it; it was an antidote to any pain, and I had more pains than one. I was in receipt in these days of disturbing letters from home, where things were not going well. But with my children, what things in the world mattered? That was the question I used to put to my scrappy retirements. I was dazzled by their loveliness. There was a Sundayto get onwhen it rained with such force and for so many hours that there could be no procession to church; in consequence of which, as the day declined, I had arranged with Mrs. Grose that, should the evening show improvement, we would attend together the late service. The rain happily stopped, and I prepared for our walk, which, through the park and by the good road to the village, would be a matter of twenty minutes. Coming downstairs to meet my colleague in the hall, I remembered a pair of gloves that had required three stitches and that had received themwith a publicity perhaps not edifyingwhile I sat with the children at their tea, served on Sundays, by exception, in that cold, clean temple of mahogany and brass, the grownup dining room. The gloves had been dropped there, and I turned in to recover them. The day was gray enough, but the afternoon light still lingered, and it enabled me, on crossing the threshold, not only to recognize, on a chair near the wide window, then closed, the articles I wanted, but to become aware of a person on the other side of the window and looking straight in. One step into the room had sufficed; my vision was instantaneous; it was all there. The person looking straight in was the person who had already appeared to me. He appeared thus again with I wont say greater distinctness, for that was impossible, but with a nearness that represented a forward stride in our intercourse and made me, as I met him, catch my breath and turn cold. He was the samehe was the same, and seen, this time, as he had been seen before, from the waist up, the window, though the dining room was on the ground floor, not going down to the terrace on which he stood. His face was close to the glass, yet the effect of this better view was, strangely, only to show me how intense the former had been. He remained but a few secondslong enough to convince me he also saw and recognized; but it was as if I had been looking at him for years and had known him always. Something, however, happened this time that had not happened before; his stare into my face, through the glass and across the room, was as deep and hard as then, but it quitted me for a moment during which I could still watch it, see it fix successively several other things. On the spot there came to me the added shock of a certitude that it was not for me he had come there. He had come for someone else. The flash of this knowledgefor it was knowledge in the midst of dreadproduced in me the most extraordinary effect, started as I stood there, a sudden vibration of duty and courage. I say courage because I was beyond all doubt already far gone. I bounded straight out of the door again, reached that of the house, got, in an instant, upon the drive, and, passing along the terrace as fast as I could rush, turned a corner and came full in sight. But it was in sight of nothing nowmy visitor had vanished. I stopped, I almost dropped, with the real relief of this; but I took in the whole sceneI gave him time to reappear. I call it time, but how long was it? I cant speak to the purpose today of the duration of these things. That kind of measure must have left me they couldnt have lasted as they actually appeared to me to last. The terrace and the whole place, the lawn and the garden beyond it, all I could see of the park, were empty with a great emptiness. There were shrubberies and big trees, but I remember the clear assurance I felt that none of them concealed him. He was there or was not there not there if I didnt see him. I got hold of this; then, instinctively, instead of returning as I had come, went to the window. It was confusedly present to me that I ought to place myself where he had stood. I did so; I applied my face to the pane and looked, as he had looked, into the room. As if, at this moment, to show me exactly what his range had been, Mrs. Grose, as I had done for himself just before, came in from the hall. With this I had the full image of a repetition of what had already occurred. She saw me as I had seen my own visitant; she pulled up short as I had done; I gave her something of the shock that I had received. She turned white, and this made me ask myself if I had blanched as much. She stared, in short, and retreated on just my lines, and I knew she had then passed out and come round to me and that I should presently meet her. I remained where I was, and while I waited I thought of more things than one. But theres only one I take space to mention. I wondered why she should be scared. V Oh, she let me know as soon as, round the corner of the house, she loomed again into view. What in the name of goodness is the matter? She was now flushed and out of breath. I said nothing till she came quite near. With me? I must have made a wonderful face. Do I show it? Youre as white as a sheet. You look awful. I considered; I could meet on this, without scruple, any innocence. My need to respect the bloom of Mrs. Groses had dropped, without a rustle, from my shoulders, and if I wavered for the instant it was not with what I kept back. I put out my hand to her and she took it; I held her hard a little, liking to feel her close to me. There was a kind of support in the shy heave of her surprise. You came for me for church, of course, but I cant go. Has anything happened? Yes. You must know now. Did I look very queer? Through this window? Dreadful! Well, I said, Ive been frightened. Mrs. Groses eyes expressed plainly that she had no wish to be, yet also that she knew too well her place not to be ready to share with me any marked inconvenience. Oh, it was quite settled that she must share! Just what you saw from the dining room a minute ago was the effect of that. What I sawjust beforewas much worse. Her hand tightened. What was it? An extraordinary man. Looking in. What extraordinary man? I havent the least idea. Mrs. Grose gazed round us in vain. Then where is he gone? I know still less. Have you seen him before? Yesonce. On the old tower. She could only look at me harder. Do you mean hes a stranger? Oh, very much! Yet you didnt tell me? Nofor reasons. But now that youve guessed Mrs. Groses round eyes encountered this charge. Ah, I havent guessed! she said very simply. How can I if you dont imagine? I dont in the very least. Youve seen him nowhere but on the tower? And on this spot just now. Mrs. Grose looked round again. What was he doing on the tower? Only standing there and looking down at me. She thought a minute. Was he a gentleman? I found I had no need to think. No. She gazed in deeper wonder. No. Then nobody about the place? Nobody from the village? Nobodynobody. I didnt tell you, but I made sure. She breathed a vague relief this was, oddly, so much to the good. It only went indeed a little way. But if he isnt a gentleman What is he? Hes a horror. A horror? HesGod help me if I know what he is! Mrs. Grose looked round once more; she fixed her eyes on the duskier distance, then, pulling herself together, turned to me with abrupt inconsequence. Its time we should be at church. Oh, Im not fit for church! Wont it do you good? It wont do them! I nodded at the house. The children? I cant leave them now. Youre afraid? I spoke boldly. Im afraid of him. Mrs. Groses large face showed me, at this, for the first time, the faraway faint glimmer of a consciousness more acute I somehow made out in it the delayed dawn of an idea I myself had not given her and that was as yet quite obscure to me. It comes back to me that I thought instantly of this as something I could get from her; and I felt it to be connected with the desire she presently showed to know more. When was iton the tower? About the middle of the month. At this same hour. Almost at dark, said Mrs. Grose. Oh, no, not nearly. I saw him as I see you. Then how did he get in? And how did he get out? I laughed. I had no opportunity to ask him! This evening, you see, I pursued, he has not been able to get in. He only peeps? I hope it will be confined to that! She had now let go my hand; she turned away a little. I waited an instant; then I brought out Go to church. Goodbye. I must watch. Slowly she faced me again. Do you fear for them? We met in another long look. Dont you? Instead of answering she came nearer to the window and, for a minute, applied her face to the glass. You see how he could see, I meanwhile went on. She didnt move. How long was he here? Till I came out. I came to meet him. Mrs. Grose at last turned round, and there was still more in her face. I couldnt have come out. Neither could I! I laughed again. But I did come. I have my duty. So have I mine, she replied; after which she added What is he like? Ive been dying to tell you. But hes like nobody. Nobody? she echoed. He has no hat. Then seeing in her face that she already, in this, with a deeper dismay, found a touch of picture, I quickly added stroke to stroke. He has red hair, very red, closecurling, and a pale face, long in shape, with straight, good features and little, rather queer whiskers that are as red as his hair. His eyebrows are, somehow, darker; they look particularly arched and as if they might move a good deal. His eyes are sharp, strangeawfully; but I only know clearly that theyre rather small and very fixed. His mouths wide, and his lips are thin, and except for his little whiskers hes quite cleanshaven. He gives me a sort of sense of looking like an actor. An actor! It was impossible to resemble one less, at least, than Mrs. Grose at that moment. Ive never seen one, but so I suppose them. Hes tall, active, erect, I continued, but neverno, never!a gentleman. My companions face had blanched as I went on; her round eyes started and her mild mouth gaped. A gentleman? she gasped, confounded, stupefied a gentleman he? You know him then? She visibly tried to hold herself. But he is handsome? I saw the way to help her. Remarkably! And dressed? In somebodys clothes. Theyre smart, but theyre not his own. She broke into a breathless affirmative groan Theyre the masters! I caught it up. You do know him? She faltered but a second. Quint! she cried. Quint? Peter Quinthis own man, his valet, when he was here! When the master was? Gaping still, but meeting me, she pieced it all together. He never wore his hat, but he did wearwell, there were waistcoats missed. They were both herelast year. Then the master went, and Quint was alone. I followed, but halting a little. Alone? Alone with us. Then, as from a deeper depth, In charge, she added. And what became of him? She hung fire so long that I was still more mystified. He went, too, she brought out at last. Went where? Her expression, at this, became extraordinary. God knows where! He died. Died? I almost shrieked. She seemed fairly to square herself, plant herself more firmly to utter the wonder of it. Yes. Mr. Quint is dead. VI It took of course more than that particular passage to place us together in presence of what we had now to live with as we couldmy dreadful liability to impressions of the order so vividly exemplified, and my companions knowledge, hencefortha knowledge half consternation and half compassionof that liability. There had been, this evening, after the revelation left me, for an hour, so prostratethere had been, for either of us, no attendance on any service but a little service of tears and vows, of prayers and promises, a climax to the series of mutual challenges and pledges that had straightway ensued on our retreating together to the schoolroom and shutting ourselves up there to have everything out. The result of our having everything out was simply to reduce our situation to the last rigor of its elements. She herself had seen nothing, not the shadow of a shadow, and nobody in the house but the governess was in the governesss plight; yet she accepted without directly impugning my sanity the truth as I gave it to her, and ended by showing me, on this ground, an awestricken tenderness, an expression of the sense of my more than questionable privilege, of which the very breath has remained with me as that of the sweetest of human charities. What was settled between us, accordingly, that night, was that we thought we might bear things together; and I was not even sure that, in spite of her exemption, it was she who had the best of the burden. I knew at this hour, I think, as well as I knew later, what I was capable of meeting to shelter my pupils; but it took me some time to be wholly sure of what my honest ally was prepared for to keep terms with so compromising a contract. I was queer company enoughquite as queer as the company I received; but as I trace over what we went through I see how much common ground we must have found in the one idea that, by good fortune, could steady us. It was the idea, the second movement, that led me straight out, as I may say, of the inner chamber of my dread. I could take the air in the court, at least, and there Mrs. Grose could join me. Perfectly can I recall now the particular way strength came to me before we separated for the night. We had gone over and over every feature of what I had seen. He was looking for someone else, you saysomeone who was not you? He was looking for little Miles. A portentous clearness now possessed me. Thats whom he was looking for. But how do you know? I know, I know, I know! My exaltation grew. And you know, my dear! She didnt deny this, but I required, I felt, not even so much telling as that. She resumed in a moment, at any rate What if he should see him? Little Miles? Thats what he wants! She looked immensely scared again. The child? Heaven forbid! The man. He wants to appear to them. That he might was an awful conception, and yet, somehow, I could keep it at bay; which, moreover, as we lingered there, was what I succeeded in practically proving. I had an absolute certainty that I should see again what I had already seen, but something within me said that by offering myself bravely as the sole subject of such experience, by accepting, by inviting, by surmounting it all, I should serve as an expiatory victim and guard the tranquility of my companions. The children, in especial, I should thus fence about and absolutely save. I recall one of the last things I said that night to Mrs. Grose. It does strike me that my pupils have never mentioned She looked at me hard as I musingly pulled up. His having been here and the time they were with him? The time they were with him, and his name, his presence, his history, in any way. Oh, the little lady doesnt remember. She never heard or knew. The circumstances of his death? I thought with some intensity. Perhaps not. But Miles would rememberMiles would know. Ah, dont try him! broke from Mrs. Grose. I returned her the look she had given me. Dont be afraid. I continued to think. It is rather odd. That he has never spoken of him? Never by the least allusion. And you tell me they were great friends? Oh, it wasnt him! Mrs. Grose with emphasis declared. It was Quints own fancy. To play with him, I meanto spoil him. She paused a moment; then she added Quint was much too free. This gave me, straight from my vision of his facesuch a face!a sudden sickness of disgust. Too free with my boy? Too free with everyone! I forbore, for the moment, to analyze this description further than by the reflection that a part of it applied to several of the members of the household, of the halfdozen maids and men who were still of our small colony. But there was everything, for our apprehension, in the lucky fact that no discomfortable legend, no perturbation of scullions, had ever, within anyones memory attached to the kind old place. It had neither bad name nor ill fame, and Mrs. Grose, most apparently, only desired to cling to me and to quake in silence. I even put her, the very last thing of all, to the test. It was when, at midnight, she had her hand on the schoolroom door to take leave. I have it from you thenfor its of great importancethat he was definitely and admittedly bad? Oh, not admittedly. I knew itbut the master didnt. And you never told him? Well, he didnt like talebearinghe hated complaints. He was terribly short with anything of that kind, and if people were all right to him He wouldnt be bothered with more? This squared well enough with my impressions of him he was not a troubleloving gentleman, nor so very particular perhaps about some of the company he kept. All the same, I pressed my interlocutress. I promise you I would have told! She felt my discrimination. I daresay I was wrong. But, really, I was afraid. Afraid of what? Of things that man could do. Quint was so cleverhe was so deep. I took this in still more than, probably, I showed. You werent afraid of anything else? Not of his effect? His effect? she repeated with a face of anguish and waiting while I faltered. On innocent little precious lives. They were in your charge. No, they were not in mine! she roundly and distressfully returned. The master believed in him and placed him here because he was supposed not to be well and the country air so good for him. So he had everything to say. Yesshe let me have iteven about them. Themthat creature? I had to smother a kind of howl. And you could bear it! No. I couldntand I cant now! And the poor woman burst into tears. A rigid control, from the next day, was, as I have said, to follow them; yet how often and how passionately, for a week, we came back together to the subject! Much as we had discussed it that Sunday night, I was, in the immediate later hours in especialfor it may be imagined whether I sleptstill haunted with the shadow of something she had not told me. I myself had kept back nothing, but there was a word Mrs. Grose had kept back. I was sure, moreover, by morning, that this was not from a failure of frankness, but because on every side there were fears. It seems to me indeed, in retrospect, that by the time the morrows sun was high I had restlessly read into the facts before us almost all the meaning they were to receive from subsequent and more cruel occurrences. What they gave me above all was just the sinister figure of the living manthe dead one would keep awhile!and of the months he had continuously passed at Bly, which, added up, made a formidable stretch. The limit of this evil time had arrived only when, on the dawn of a winters morning, Peter Quint was found, by a laborer going to early work, stone dead on the road from the village a catastrophe explainedsuperficially at leastby a visible wound to his head; such a wound as might have been producedand as, on the final evidence, had beenby a fatal slip, in the dark and after leaving the public house, on the steepish icy slope, a wrong path altogether, at the bottom of which he lay. The icy slope, the turn mistaken at night and in liquor, accounted for muchpractically, in the end and after the inquest and boundless chatter, for everything; but there had been matters in his lifestrange passages and perils, secret disorders, vices more than suspectedthat would have accounted for a good deal more. I scarce know how to put my story into words that shall be a credible picture of my state of mind; but I was in these days literally able to find a joy in the extraordinary flight of heroism the occasion demanded of me. I now saw that I had been asked for a service admirable and difficult; and there would be a greatness in letting it be seenoh, in the right quarter!that I could succeed where many another girl might have failed. It was an immense help to meI confess I rather applaud myself as I look back!that I saw my service so strongly and so simply. I was there to protect and defend the little creatures in the world the most bereaved and the most lovable, the appeal of whose helplessness had suddenly become only too explicit, a deep, constant ache of ones own committed heart. We were cut off, really, together; we were united in our danger. They had nothing but me, and Iwell, I had them. It was in short a magnificent chance. This chance presented itself to me in an image richly material. I was a screenI was to stand before them. The more I saw, the less they would. I began to watch them in a stifled suspense, a disguised excitement that might well, had it continued too long, have turned to something like madness. What saved me, as I now see, was that it turned to something else altogether. It didnt last as suspenseit was superseded by horrible proofs. Proofs, I say, yesfrom the moment I really took hold. This moment dated from an afternoon hour that I happened to spend in the grounds with the younger of my pupils alone. We had left Miles indoors, on the red cushion of a deep window seat; he had wished to finish a book, and I had been glad to encourage a purpose so laudable in a young man whose only defect was an occasional excess of the restless. His sister, on the contrary, had been alert to come out, and I strolled with her half an hour, seeking the shade, for the sun was still high and the day exceptionally warm. I was aware afresh, with her, as we went, of how, like her brother, she contrivedit was the charming thing in both childrento let me alone without appearing to drop me and to accompany me without appearing to surround. They were never importunate and yet never listless. My attention to them all really went to seeing them amuse themselves immensely without me this was a spectacle they seemed actively to prepare and that engaged me as an active admirer. I walked in a world of their inventionthey had no occasion whatever to draw upon mine; so that my time was taken only with being, for them, some remarkable person or thing that the game of the moment required and that was merely, thanks to my superior, my exalted stamp, a happy and highly distinguished sinecure. I forget what I was on the present occasion; I only remember that I was something very important and very quiet and that Flora was playing very hard. We were on the edge of the lake, and, as we had lately begun geography, the lake was the Sea of Azof. Suddenly, in these circumstances, I became aware that, on the other side of the Sea of Azof, we had an interested spectator. The way this knowledge gathered in me was the strangest thing in the worldthe strangest, that is, except the very much stranger in which it quickly merged itself. I had sat down with a piece of workfor I was something or other that could siton the old stone bench which overlooked the pond; and in this position I began to take in with certitude, and yet without direct vision, the presence, at a distance, of a third person. The old trees, the thick shrubbery, made a great and pleasant shade, but it was all suffused with the brightness of the hot, still hour. There was no ambiguity in anything; none whatever, at least, in the conviction I from one moment to another found myself forming as to what I should see straight before me and across the lake as a consequence of raising my eyes. They were attached at this juncture to the stitching in which I was engaged, and I can feel once more the spasm of my effort not to move them till I should so have steadied myself as to be able to make up my mind what to do. There was an alien object in viewa figure whose right of presence I instantly, passionately questioned. I recollect counting over perfectly the possibilities, reminding myself that nothing was more natural, for instance, than the appearance of one of the men about the place, or even of a messenger, a postman, or a tradesmans boy, from the village. That reminder had as little effect on my practical certitude as I was consciousstill even without lookingof its having upon the character and attitude of our visitor. Nothing was more natural than that these things should be the other things that they absolutely were not. Of the positive identity of the apparition I would assure myself as soon as the small clock of my courage should have ticked out the right second; meanwhile, with an effort that was already sharp enough, I transferred my eyes straight to little Flora, who, at the moment, was about ten yards away. My heart had stood still for an instant with the wonder and terror of the question whether she too would see; and I held my breath while I waited for what a cry from her, what some sudden innocent sign either of interest or of alarm, would tell me. I waited, but nothing came; then, in the first placeand there is something more dire in this, I feel, than in anything I have to relateI was determined by a sense that, within a minute, all sounds from her had previously dropped; and, in the second, by the circumstance that, also within the minute, she had, in her play, turned her back to the water. This was her attitude when I at last looked at herlooked with the confirmed conviction that we were still, together, under direct personal notice. She had picked up a small flat piece of wood, which happened to have in it a little hole that had evidently suggested to her the idea of sticking in another fragment that might figure as a mast and make the thing a boat. This second morsel, as I watched her, she was very markedly and intently attempting to tighten in its place. My apprehension of what she was doing sustained me so that after some seconds I felt I was ready for more. Then I again shifted my eyesI faced what I had to face. VII I got hold of Mrs. Grose as soon after this as I could; and I can give no intelligible account of how I fought out the interval. Yet I still hear myself cry as I fairly threw myself into her arms They knowits too monstrous they know, they know! And what on earth? I felt her incredulity as she held me. Why, all that we knowand heaven knows what else besides! Then, as she released me, I made it out to her, made it out perhaps only now with full coherency even to myself. Two hours ago, in the gardenI could scarce articulateFlora saw! Mrs. Grose took it as she might have taken a blow in the stomach. She has told you? she panted. Not a wordthats the horror. She kept it to herself! The child of eight, that child! Unutterable still, for me, was the stupefaction of it. Mrs. Grose, of course, could only gape the wider. Then how do you know? I was thereI saw with my eyes saw that she was perfectly aware. Do you mean aware of him? Noof her. I was conscious as I spoke that I looked prodigious things, for I got the slow reflection of them in my companions face. Another personthis time; but a figure of quite as unmistakable horror and evil a woman in black, pale and dreadfulwith such an air also, and such a face!on the other side of the lake. I was there with the childquiet for the hour; and in the midst of it she came. Came howfrom where? From where they come from! She just appeared and stood therebut not so near. And without coming nearer? Oh, for the effect and the feeling, she might have been as close as you! My friend, with an odd impulse, fell back a step. Was she someone youve never seen? Yes. But someone the child has. Someone you have. Then, to show how I had thought it all out My predecessorthe one who died. Miss Jessel? Miss Jessel. You dont believe me? I pressed. She turned right and left in her distress. How can you be sure? This drew from me, in the state of my nerves, a flash of impatience. Then ask Florashes sure! But I had no sooner spoken than I caught myself up. No, for Gods sake, dont! Shell say she isntshell lie! Mrs. Grose was not too bewildered instinctively to protest. Ah, how can you? Because Im clear. Flora doesnt want me to know. Its only then to spare you. No, nothere are depths, depths! The more I go over it, the more I see in it, and the more I see in it, the more I fear. I dont know what I dont seewhat I dont fear! Mrs. Grose tried to keep up with me. You mean youre afraid of seeing her again? Oh, no; thats nothingnow! Then I explained. Its of not seeing her. But my companion only looked wan. I dont understand you. Why, its that the child may keep it upand that the child assuredly willwithout my knowing it. At the image of this possibility Mrs. Grose for a moment collapsed, yet presently to pull herself together again, as if from the positive force of the sense of what, should we yield an inch, there would really be to give way to. Dear, dearwe must keep our heads! And after all, if she doesnt mind it! She even tried a grim joke. Perhaps she likes it! Likes such thingsa scrap of an infant! Isnt it just a proof of her blessed innocence? my friend bravely inquired. She brought me, for the instant, almost round. Oh, we must clutch at thatwe must cling to it! If it isnt a proof of what you say, its a proof ofGod knows what! For the womans a horror of horrors. Mrs. Grose, at this, fixed her eyes a minute on the ground; then at last raising them, Tell me how you know, she said. Then you admit its what she was? I cried. Tell me how you know, my friend simply repeated. Know? By seeing her! By the way she looked. At you, do you meanso wickedly? Dear me, noI could have borne that. She gave me never a glance. She only fixed the child. Mrs. Grose tried to see it. Fixed her? Ah, with such awful eyes! She stared at mine as if they might really have resembled them. Do you mean of dislike? God help us, no.