It is evident from the middle-half and onward that the governess's measures to confront and counter the bad influences of the former caretakers of the children are much more open and aggressive. For the first time the governess openly tells Mrs. Grose of how she believes the children are purposely meeting the visitants. The governess also lays out complicated plans and theories from which to try and trap the children into admitting their assumed visits in secret. Paralleling the governess's openness to connive is her more disturbed aura that is manifested in the way she regards and approaches the children. As another first, she calls the children wretches freely in her mind, not in a condescending, pitying way, but with a derogatory and spiteful connotation. Thirdly, the specters of Mr. Quint and Ms. Jessel are more frequently shown from the perspective of the governess.
Later on, the increased instances of their appearances truly starts to get to the governess. In a way, the greater frequency of instances can be directly correlated to how much more readily apparent it is that the governess is losing her sanity, or at least her composure. She regards the children as false angels now, whose beauty is fake and artificial. The governess constantly tries to catch the children wandering off ever since the incidents of Flora and Miles doing suspicious activities around the house. When Miles goes into a nearby church, the governess, presumably due to what is probably a mixture of over-thinking and loathing, does not follow. Later she remarks she sees an extremely unsettling female apparition when finally searching for the boy, and runs off to the schoolroom to get her belongings. What then ensues is a face-off between the two governesses. After what is described to be a minute, Mrs. Jessel's phantom disappears.
To make matters worse for the governess in the latter set of the increasingly more interesting and eventful chapters, Miles tries to exercise his increased freedom, referring to the governess as a dear in his usual angelic voice. Interestingly enough, even though the ratio of the governess's remarks of the previously lauded angelic aureole of the children is increasingly shifted to be more negative, the most eventful occurrences only take place when she gives in, as the governess herself describes it, to the facade the children have maintained. Regardless, Miles wishes for the governess to send a letter to his uncle and true beneficiary requesting a meeting. The governess goes into a full-on panic as to the maintenance of her position and starts to imagine conversations indicative of a disgruntled, conniving, almost demonic Miles. In the conversations, he straight out threatens her and criticizes her upbringing, desperately wanting to return to school.
The governess is quite upset at this and devises a plan. She, under the behest of Miles, agrees to write a letter to his uncle. While Mrs. Grose wants someone else to write it, the governess wishes to write it herself, and she goes to the lengths of offending Mrs. Grose, her only friend, to do so and thus reflecting her increased desperation. After the sightings of Quint and Jessel popping up left and right, the governess is obviously apprehensive and entraps Miles, a revelation only made plain in the final chapter. During the supposed wait from sending the letter and receiving a reply, Miles one day begins to beautifully play the piano. As the governess has been exhausted due to her constant plotting and suspicion, she drifts off for a while. When she regains the full extent of her senses, Flora, who has been more or less sidelined, is gone.
Thus the governess calmly begins her response to the children's tacit torments. She informs Mrs. Grose of what has transpired, and declares that Flora has gone to see Jessel. It is a rainy day and Flora, who does not wear a hat just like Jessel, is followed by a determined governess and worried Mrs. Grose to the lake, the location which the governess has hypothesized Flora would go to. The pair find Flora and Mrs. Grose hugs her. Accordingly, the governess is somewhat disgusted and tells the girl she can see Jessel. As a result Flora howls while Mrs. Grose is still hugging her, commenting that she cannot see Jessel. Perhaps due to stirring up bad memories, Flora remarks that she now hates the governess and is carried off by Mrs. Grose with high fever, no doubt due to being exposed to the elements. Mrs. Grose remarks that they must now tell the children's uncle, and the governess proposes that Mrs. Grose leave with Flora so to discuss the continuing employment of the governess. Miles returns sometime after the governess to the house, having left sometime by himself during their absence. In order to do her part, the governess sits silently with Miles and she believes that Miles almost reveals his secret. Later, the governess arranges dinner alone with Miles and the servant in the dining room leaves. Now Miles is alone with the governess. She begins small and slowly eases him up to ask for what he knows. So Miles apprehensively replies, having been warmed by the governess's concern and repeated declaration of placing his safety above her live, to one day tell the governess what she wishes to know. Although it is not made plain what the boy has in mind as the governess herself is more or less just playing along, she asks him of what he has seen after asking whether he opened the letter. It is revealed that, after asking of the nature of his expulsion, that Miles had been spreading some words, the exact nature of which is never revealed. As the governess frees Miles from her hold and gives him the freedom he apparently desires, she utters the name of Quint in desperation to know more. Quint appears and the governess once more holds the boy, Miles's back against the window. A howling is described in much the same fashion as Flora's, and Miles also develops a high fever. Most tragically of all, Miles, now without the preoccupation of Quint, weakens and says that he does not need Quint as he now has the governess, as the latter has promised to be with Miles. In contrast to how Flora is described to lose her more angelic features and even be an old woman by the governess, Miles is depicted in such a way so that his extraordinary features are accentuated, likely due to the fact that the governess associates him as being more obedient and key to her plan. Sadly, Miles dies and it is likely that Flora does as well in much the same way.
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