“For we’ve never in the least known what!” Mrs. Grose declared. “For wickedness. For what else--when he’s so clever and beautiful and perfect? Is he stupid? Is he untidy? Is he infirm? Is he ill-natured? He’s exquisite--so it can be only _that_; and that would open up the whole thing. After all,” I said, “it’s their uncle’s fault. If he left here such people----!” “He didn’t really in the least know them. The fault’s mine.” She had turned quite pale. “Well, you shan’t suffer,” I answered. “The children shan’t!” she emphatically returned. I was silent awhile; we looked at each other. “Then what am I to tell him?” “You needn’t tell him anything. _I’ll_ tell him.” I measured this. “Do you mean you’ll write----?” Remembering she couldn’t, I caught myself up. “How do you communicate?” “I tell the bailiff. _He_ writes.” “And should you like him to write our story?” My question had a sarcastic force that I had not fully intended, and it made her, after a moment, inconsequently break down. The tears were again in her eyes. “Ah, Miss, _you_ write!” “Well--tonight,” I at last answered; and on this we separated. XVII I went so far, in the evening, as to make a beginning. The weather had changed back, a great wind was abroad, and beneath the lamp, in my room, with Flora at peace beside me, I sat for a long time before a blank sheet of paper and listened to the lash of the rain and the batter of the gusts. Finally I went out, taking a candle; I crossed the passage and listened a minute at Miles’s door. What, under my endless obsession, I had been impelled to listen for was some betrayal of his not being at rest, and I presently caught one, but not in the form I had expected. His voice tinkled out. “I say, you there--come in.” It was a gaiety in the gloom! I went in with my light and found him, in bed, very wide awake, but very much at his ease. “Well, what are _you_ up to?” he asked with a grace of sociability in which it occurred to me that Mrs. Grose, had she been present, might have looked in vain for proof that anything was “out.” I stood over him with my candle. “How did you know I was there?” “Why, of course I heard you. Did you fancy you made no noise? You’re like a troop of cavalry!” he beautifully laughed. “Then you weren’t asleep?” “Not much! I lie awake and think.” I had put my candle, designedly, a short way off, and then, as he held out his friendly old hand to me, had sat down on the edge of his bed. “What is it,” I asked, “that you think of?” “What in the world, my dear, but _you_?” “Ah, the pride I take in your appreciation doesn’t insist on that! I had so far rather you slept.” “Well, I think also, you know, of this queer business of ours.” I marked the coolness of his firm little hand. “Of what queer business, Miles?” “Why, the way you bring me up. And all the rest!”