He gazed up at me again. “Before what?”
“Before you came back. And before you went away.”
For some time he was silent, but he continued to meet my eyes. “What
happened?”
It made me, the sound of the words, in which it seemed to me that
I caught for the very first time a small faint quaver of consenting
consciousness--it made me drop on my knees beside the bed and seize
once more the chance of possessing him. “Dear little Miles, dear
little Miles, if you _knew_ how I want to help you! It’s only that,
it’s nothing but that, and I’d rather die than give you a pain
or do you a wrong--I’d rather die than hurt a hair of you. Dear
little Miles”--oh, I brought it out now even if I _should_ go too
far--“I just want you to help me to save you!” But I knew in a
moment after this that I had gone too far. The answer to my appeal was
instantaneous, but it came in the form of an extraordinary blast and
chill, a gust of frozen air and a shake of the room as great as if,
in the wild wind, the casement had crashed in. The boy gave a loud,
high shriek, which, lost in the rest of the shock of sound, might have
seemed, indistinctly, though I was so close to him, a note either of
jubilation or of terror. I jumped to my feet again and was conscious of
darkness. So for a moment we remained, while I stared about me and saw
that the drawn curtains were unstirred and the window tight. “Why,
the candle’s out!” I then cried.
“It was I who blew it, dear!” said Miles.