It was not that I didn't wait, on this occasion,
for more, for I was rooted as deeply as I was shaken.
Was there a "secret" at Bly--a mystery of Udolpho or an insane,
an unmentionable relative kept in unsuspected confinement?
I can't say how long I turned it over, or how long, in a confusion
of curiosity and dread, I remained where I had had my collision;
I only recall that when I re-entered the house darkness had quite
closed in. Agitation, in the interval, certainly had held me
and driven me, for I must, in circling about the place, have walked
three miles; but I was to be, later on, so much more overwhelmed
that this mere dawn of alarm was a comparatively human chill.
The most singular part of it, in fact--singular as the rest had been--
was the part I became, in the hall, aware of in meeting Mrs. Grose.
This picture comes back to me in the general train--the impression,
as I received it on my return, of the wide white panelled space,
bright in the lamplight and with its portraits and red carpet,
and of the good surprised look of my friend, which immediately
told me she had missed me. It came to me straightway,
under her contact, that, with plain heartiness, mere relieved
anxiety at my appearance, she knew nothing whatever that
could bear upon the incident I had there ready for her.
I had not suspected in advance that her comfortable face would
pull me up, and I somehow measured the importance of what I
had seen by my thus finding myself hesitate to mention it.
Scarce anything in the whole history seems to me so odd
as this fact that my real beginning of fear was one,
as I may say, with the instinct of sparing my companion.
On the spot, accordingly, in the pleasant hall and with her