“Tell me how you know,” she said.

“Then you agree it’s 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 mean—?”

“Dear me, no— She never looked at me. She only looked at the child.”

Mrs. Grose tried to understand. “Looked at her?”

“Ah, with such awful eyes!”

“Do you mean with dislike?”

“God help us, no. With something much worse.”

“Worse than dislike?”

“With great determination[42]. With a kind of evil intent[43].”

Her face turned pale. “Intent?”

“To take possession of Flora.” Mrs. Grose walked towards the window. As she looked outside, I finished, “That’s what Flora knows.”

After a bit, she turned around. “The person was dressed in black, you say?”

“Yes, but with great beauty. She was wonderfully beautiful. But insidious[44].”

She came back to me slowly. “Miss Jessel was insidious.” She once again took my hand and said, “They were both insidious.”

“I appreciate[45],” I said, “that you haven’t spoken about it until now, but it’s time for you to tell me everything.” She seemed to agree with this, but still stayed silent. I continued: “I need to know. What did she die from? Come, there was something between them.”

“There was everything.”

“But what about their differences?”

“Oh, their social status, their situation,” she said sadly. “She was a lady.”

I thought about it; I understood again. “Yes, she was a lady.”

“And he was so far below,” said Mrs. Grose.

“He was a bad person.”

Mrs. Grose quietly said “I’ve never seen anyone like him. He did what he wished.”

“With her?”

“With them all.”

It was as if my friend saw Miss Jessel again with her own eyes. For a moment, I felt like I could see her too, just like I saw her at the lake. I said, “That must have been what she wanted too!”

Mrs. Grose’s expression showed that it was true, but she also said: “Poor woman—she paid for it!”

“Then you do know what she died of?” I asked.

“No—I know nothing. I didn’t want to know; I was glad enough I didn’t!”

“Yet you had, then, your idea—”

“About why she left? Oh yes, I had that. She couldn’t have stayed. Imagine being a governess here! And then I started imagining… and what I imagine is horrible.”

“It’s not as horrible as what I do,” I replied, and then I realized my defeat “I can’t do it!” I cried in despair. “I can’t save or protect them! It’s worse than I imagined—they’re lost!”

What I told Mrs. Grose was true enough: there were things in the situation that were difficult for me to understand and explore. We both agreed that it was important to stop imagining strange things. Late that night, while the house slept, we had another talk in my room. I asked her how, if I had “made it up,” I could describe each person’s looks in detail, and she named them right away[46]. She wanted to forget about that, and I told her that I was trying to find a way to escape[47] from it. I said that I might get used to the danger with time, but my new suspicion was still unbearable[48]. However, as the day went on, I felt a little better about the situation.

The next morning, I had of course returned to my pupils. I spent time with Flora and realized that she could tell when something was wrong with me. Looking into her beautiful eyes, I knew that her innocence was real and not a trick. But I knew that Flora saw the visitor, but she pretended she didn’t to make me wonder if I saw it too. Flora tried to distract me with games and songs, because she didn’t want me to talk about it.