“To get hold of her.” Mrs. Grose—her eyes just lingering on mine—gave a
shudder and walked to the window; and while she stood there looking out
I completed my statement. “_That’s_ what Flora knows.”
After a little she turned round. “The person was in black, you say?”
“In mourning—rather poor, almost shabby. But—yes—with extraordinary
beauty.” I now recognized to what I had at last, stroke by stroke,
brought the victim of my confidence, for she quite visibly weighed
this. “Oh, handsome—very, very,” I insisted; “wonderfully handsome. But
infamous.”
She slowly came back to me. “Miss Jessel—_was_ infamous.” She once more
took my hand in both her own, holding it as tight as if to fortify me
against the increase of alarm I might draw from this disclosure. “They
were both infamous,” she finally said.
So, for a little, we faced it once more together; and I found
absolutely a degree of help in seeing it now so straight. “I
appreciate,” I said, “the great decency of your not having hitherto
spoken; but the time has certainly come to give me the whole thing.”
She appeared to assent to this, but still only in silence; seeing which
I went on: “I must have it now. Of what did she die? Come, there was
something between them.”
“There was everything.”
“In spite of the difference—?”
“Oh, of their rank, their condition”—she brought it woefully out.
“_She_ was a lady.”