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XXI
Before dawn Mrs. Grose comes to the governess’s bedside with worse news. Flora is feverish, and her fears are not of Miss Jessel returning but of the governess herself. Flora is passionately protesting against any re-entrance of her present governess on the scene. She persists in denying she has ever seen anything, and the denial has aged her utterly.
The governess sees it all clearly. Flora resents the imputation on her truthfulness and respectability, and she intends to work this grievance to the end, to make the governess out to her uncle as the lowest creature. The governess has a better idea, however: it is Mrs. Grose who must go, taking Flora straight to her uncle. She will remain alone with Miles. She believes he wants to give her an opening, that he wants to speak. The previous evening by the firelight, she felt it almost coming.
Mrs. Grose is bewildered and frightened. She hesitates, then confesses that she cannot stay. She has heard things from Flora, horrors, appalling language about the governess, that have shocked her deeply. The child’s words are an extraordinary justification of everything the governess has feared.
There remains the matter of the letter. Mrs. Grose reveals that the letter never went. It was not where the governess had placed it. Luke declared he had not touched it. The governess concludes that Miles must have taken it, read it, and destroyed it. And Mrs. Grose, with simple sharpness, gives a disillusioned nod. “He stole.” The governess decides that what Miles had on his mind last evening was the need of confession. If he confesses, he is saved. If he is saved, so is she. Mrs. Grose kisses her and departs that morning with Flora.
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