The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: was in short a magnificent chance. This chance presented
itself to me in an image richly material. I was a screen--
I was to stand before them. The more I saw, the less they would.
I began to watch them in a stifled suspense, a disguised
excitement that might well, had it continued too long,
have turned to something like madness. What saved me,
as I now see, was that it turned to something else altogether.
It didn't last as suspense--it was superseded by horrible proofs.
Proofs, I say, yes--from the moment I really took hold.
This moment dated from an afternoon hour that I happened
to spend in the grounds with the younger of my pupils alone.
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