She met it as if really a shade bewildered at his own misconception; she was literally so far off from any vision of her parent in himself, a philosopher might have said, that it took her an instant to do the question justice. "Oh no—I mean that your uncle can. It was your own report of that to him, with Miss Mumby backing you, that put things in the bad light to him."
"So bad a light that Mr. Gaw is in danger by it?" This was catching on of a truth to realities—and most of all to the one he had most to face. "I've been then at the bottom of that?"
He was to wonder afterwards if she had very actually gone so far as to let slip a dim smile for the intensity of his candour on this point, or whether her so striking freedom from intensity in the general connection had but suggested to him one of the images that were most in opposition. Her answer at any rate couldn't have had more of the eminence of her plainness. "That you yourself, after your uncertainties, should have found Mr. Betterman surprising was perfectly natural—and how indeed could you have dreamed that father so wanted him to die?" And then as Gray, affected by the extreme salience of this link in the chain of her logic, threw up his head a little for the catching of his breath, her supreme lucidity, and which was lucidity all in his interest, further shone out. "Father is indeed ill. He has had these bad times before, but nothing quite of the present gravity. He has been in a critical state for months, but one thing has kept him alive—the wish to see your uncle so far on his way that there could be no doubt. It was the appearance of doubt so suddenly this afternoon that gave him the shock." She continued to explain the case without prejudice. "To take it there from you for possible that Mr. Betterman might revive and that he should have in his own so unsteady condition to wait was simply what father couldn't stand."
"So that I just dealt the blow——?"
But it was as if she cared too little even to try to make that right. "He doesn't want, you see, to live after."
"After having found he is mistaken?"
She had a faint impatience. "He isn't of course really—since what I told you of your uncle is true. And he knows that now, having my word for it."
Gray couldn't be clear enough about her clearness. "Your word for it that my uncle has revived but for the moment?"
"Absolutely. Wasn't my giving him that," Rosanna asked, "a charming filial touch?"
This was tremendously much again to take in, but Gray's capacity grew. "Promising him, you mean, for his benefit, that my uncle shan't last?"