It took of course more than that particular passage to place us together in presence of what we had now to live with as we could—my dreadful liability to impressions of the order so vividly² exemplified, and my companion’s knowledge, henceforth—a knowledge half consternation³ and half compassion—of that liability. There had been, this evening, after the revelation left me, for an hour, so prostrate—there had been, for either of us, no attendance on any service but a little service of tears and vows⁴, of prayers and promises, a climax⁵ to the series of mutual⁶ challenges and pledges that had straightway ensued on our retreating together to the schoolroom and shutting ourselves up there to have everything out. The result of our having everything out was simply to reduce our situation to the last rigor⁷ of its elements. She herself had seen nothing, not the shadow of a shadow, and nobody in the house but the governess was in the governess’s plight⁸; yet she accepted without directly impugning¹⁰ my sanity¹¹ the truth as I gave it to her, and ended by showing me, on this ground, an awestricken tenderness, an expression of the sense of my more than questionable¹² privilege, of which the very breath has remained with me as that of the sweetest of human charities.