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He looked as if he had succeeded enough to be able still a little to bargain. “Very much smaller?” “Yes, a mere fraction of the whole. Tell me”—oh, her work preoccupied her, and she was offhand—“if, yesterday afternoon, from the table in the hall, you took, you know, my letter.”
XXIV
The next thing she knew, something had split her attention clean in two. She was on her feet, had him by the arm, had him close, and was falling with him against the nearest piece of furniture, instinctively keeping his back to the window. For there, full upon them as on that other dreadful occasion, Peter Quint had come into view like a sentinel before a prison. He had reached the glass from outside, and now, close to the pane, glaring in through it, he offered once more to the room his white face of damnation. The horror of the immediate presence struck her, but in that very horror came the inspiration: she felt how voluntarily, how transcendently, she might. It was like fighting with a demon for a human soul. She saw how the human soul, held out in the tremor of her hands at arm’s length, had a perfect dew of sweat upon a lovely childish forehead.
Miles answered her question. “Yes—I took it.” With a moan of joy she drew him to her breast and felt the tremendous pulse of his little heart, while her eyes remained on the thing at the window. The thing shifted its posture, prowling like a baffled beast, and she had to shade, as it were, her flame. “What did you take it for?” “To see what you said about me.” “You opened the letter?” “I opened it.” His little face, as she held him off again, showed her how complete was the ravage of his uneasiness. She let her elation out. “And you found nothing!” He gave the most mournful, thoughtful little headshake. “Nothing.” “Nothing, nothing!” she almost shouted. “Nothing, nothing,” he sadly repeated.
She kissed his drenched forehead. “So what have you done with it?” “I’ve burnt it.” And then, because it was now or never: “Is that what you did at school?” “At school?” “Did you take letters?—or other things?” “Other things?” He appeared to be thinking of something far off. “Did I steal?” She reddened to the roots of her hair. “Was it for that you mightn’t go back?” “Did you know I mightn’t go back?” “I know everything.” He gave her the longest and strangest look. “Everything?” “Everything. Therefore did you——?” But she could not say it again. Miles could, very simply. “No. I didn’t steal.”
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