III. THE DIARY BROKEN OFF.

“London, November 19th.--I am alone again in the Great City; alone, for

the first time since our marriage. Nearly a week since I started on my

homeward journey, leaving Midwinter behind me at Turin.

“The days have been so full of events since the month began, and I have

been so harassed, in mind and body both, for the greater part of the

time, that my Diary has been wretchedly neglected. A few notes, written

in such hurry and confusion that I can hardly understand them myself,

are all that I possess to remind me of what has happened since the night

when Armadale’s yacht left Naples. Let me try if I can set this right

without more loss of time; let me try if I can recall the circumstances

in their order as they have followed each other from the beginning of

the month.

“On the 3d of November--being then still at Naples--Midwinter received

a hurried letter from Armadale, date ‘Messina.’ ‘The weather,’ he said,

‘had been lovely, and the yacht had made one of the quickest passages on

record. The crew were rather a rough set to look at; but Captain

Manuel and his English mate’ (the latter described as ‘the best of good

fellows’) ‘managed them admirably.’ After this prosperous beginning,

Armadale had arranged, as a matter of course, to prolong the cruise;

and, at the sailing-master’s suggestion, he had decided to visit some

of the ports in the Adriatic, which the captain had described as full of

character, and well worth seeing.

“A postscript followed, explaining that Armadale had written in a hurry

to catch the steamer to Naples, and that he had opened his letter again,

before sending it off, to add something that he had forgotten. On the

day before the yacht sailed, he had been at the banker’s to get ‘a few

hundreds in gold,’ and he believed he had left his cigar-case there. It

was an old friend of his, and he begged that Midwinter would oblige him

by endeavoring recover it, and keeping it for him till they met again.

“That was the substance of the letter.

“I thought over it carefully when Midwinter had left me alone again,

after reading it. My idea was then (and is still) that Manuel had not

persuaded Armadale to cruise in a sea like the Adriatic, so much less

frequented by ships than the Mediterranean, for nothing. The terms, too,

in which the trifling loss of the cigar-case was mentioned struck me as

being equally suggestive of what was coming. I concluded that Armadale’s

circular notes had not been transformed into those ‘few hundreds in

gold’ through any forethought or business knowledge of his own. Manuel’s

influence, I suspected, had been exerted in this matter also, and once

more not without reason. At intervals through the wakeful night these

considerations came back again and again to me; and time after time they

pointed obstinately (so far as my next movements were concerned) in one

and the same way--the way back to England.

“How to get there, and especially how to get there unaccompanied by

Midwinter, was more than I had wit enough to discover that night. I

tried and tried to meet the difficulty, and fell asleep exhausted toward

the morning without having met it.

“Some hours later, as soon as I was dressed, Midwinter came in, with

news received by that morning’s post from his employers in London. The

proprietors of the newspaper had received from the editor so favorable

a report of his correspondence from Naples that they had determined on

advancing him to a place of greater responsibility and greater emolument

at Turin. His instructions were inclosed in the letter, and he was

requested to lose no time in leaving Naples for his new post.

“On hearing this, I relieved his mind, before he could put the question,

of all anxiety about my willingness to remove. Turin had the great

attraction, in my eyes, of being on the road to England. I assured him

at once that I was ready to travel as soon as he pleased.

“He thanked me for suiting myself to his plans, with more of his old

gentleness and kindness than I had seen in him for some time past. The

good news from Armadale on the previous day seemed to have roused him a

little from the dull despair in which he had been sunk since the sailing

of the yacht. And now the prospect of advancement in his profession,

and, more than that, the prospect of leaving the fatal place in which

the Third Vision of the Dream had come true, had (as he owned himself)

additionally cheered and relieved him. He asked, before he went away to

make the arrangements for our journey, whether I expected to hear from

my ‘family’ in England, and whether he should give instructions for the

forwarding of my letters with his own to the _poste restante_ at Turin.

I instantly thanked him, and accepted the offer. His proposal had

suggested to me, the moment he made it, that my fictitious ‘family

circumstances’ might be turned to good account once more, as a reason

for unexpectedly summoning me from Italy to England.

“On the ninth of the month we were installed at Turin.

“On the thirteenth, Midwinter--being then very busy--asked if I would

save him a loss of time by applying for any letters which might have

followed us from Naples. I had been waiting for the opportunity he now

offered me; and I determined to snatch at it without allowing myself

time to hesitate. There were no letters at the _poste restante_ for

either of us. But when he put the question on my return, I told him

that there had been a letter for me, with alarming news from ‘home.’

My ‘mother’ was dangerously ill, and I was entreated to lose no time in

hurrying back to England to see her.

“It seems quite unaccountable--now that I am away from him--but it is

none the less true, that I could not, even yet, tell him a downright

premeditated falsehood, without a sense of shrinking and shame, which

other people would think, and which I think myself, utterly inconsistent

with such a character as mine. Inconsistent or not, I felt it. And what

is stranger--perhaps I ought to say madder--still, if he had persisted

in his first resolution to accompany me himself to England rather than

allow me to travel alone, I firmly believe I should have turned my back

on temptation for the second time, and have lulled myself to rest once

more in the old dream of living out my life happy and harmless in my

husband’s love.

“Am I deceiving myself in this? It doesn’t matter--I dare say I am.

Never mind what _might_ have happened. What _did_ happen is the only

thing of any importance now.

“It ended in Midwinter’s letting me persuade him that I was old enough

to take care of myself on the journey to England, and that he owed it to

the newspaper people, who had trusted their interests in his hands, not

to leave Turin just as he was established there. He didn’t suffer at

taking leave of me as he suffered when he saw the last of his friend. I

saw that, and set down the anxiety he expressed that I should write to

him at its proper value. I have quite got over my weakness for him at

last. No man who really loved me would have put what he owed to a peck

of newspaper people before what he owed to his wife. I hate him for

letting me convince him! I believe he was glad to get rid of me. I

believe he has seen some woman whom he likes at Turin. Well, let

him follow his new fancy, if he pleases! I shall be the widow of Mr.

Armadale of Thorpe Ambrose before long; and what will his likes or

dislikes matter to me then?

“The events on the journey were not worth mentioning, and my arrival in

London stands recorded already on the top of the new page.

“As for to-day, the one thing of any importance that I have done since I

got to the cheap and quiet hotel at which I am now staying, has been

to send for the landlord, and ask him to help me to a sight of the back

numbers of _The Times_ newspaper. He has politely offered to accompany

me himself to-morrow morning to some place in the City where all the

papers are kept, as he calls it, in file. Till to-morrow, then, I must

control my impatience for news of Armadale as well as I can. And so

good-night to the pretty reflection of myself that appears in these

pages!”

“November 20th.--Not a word of news yet, either in the obituary column

or in any other part of the paper. I looked carefully through each

number in succession, dating from the day when Armadale’s letter was

written at Messina to this present 20th of the month, and I am certain,

whatever may have happened, that nothing is known in England as yet.

Patience! The newspaper is to meet me at the breakfast-table every

morning till further notice; and any day now may show me what I most

want to see.”

“November 21st.--No news again. I wrote to Midwinter to-day, to keep up

appearances.

“When the letter was done, I fell into wretchedly low spirits--I can’t

imagine why--and felt such a longing for a little company that, in

despair of knowing where else to go, I actually went to Pimlico, on the

chance that Mother Oldershaw might have returned to her old quarters.

“There were changes since I had seen the place during my former stay

in London. Doctor Downward’s side of the house was still empty. But

the shop was being brightened up for the occupation of a milliner and

dress-maker. The people, when I went in to make inquiries, were all

strangers to me. They showed, however, no hesitation in giving me Mrs.

Oldershaw’s address when I asked for it--from which I infer that the

little ‘difficulty’ which forced her to be in hiding in August last is

at an end, so far as she is concerned. As for the doctor, the people at

the shop either were, or pretended to be, quite unable to tell me what

had become of him.

“I don’t know whether it was the sight of the place at Pimlico that

sickened me, or whether it was my own perversity, or what. But now that

I had got Mrs. Oldershaw’s address, I felt as if she was the very last

person in the world that I wanted to see. I took a cab, and told the man

to drive to the street she lived in, and then told him to drive back to

the hotel. I hardly know what is the matter with me--unless it is that

I am getting more impatient every hour for information about Armadale.

When will the future look a little less dark, I wonder? To-morrow is

Saturday. Will to-morrow’s newspaper lift the veil?”

“November 22d.--Saturday’s newspaper _has_ lifted the veil! Words are

vain to express the panic of astonishment in which I write. I never once

anticipated it; I can’t believe it or realize it, now it has happened.

The winds and waves themselves have turned my accomplices! The yacht has

foundered at sea, and every soul on board has perished!

“Here is the account cut out of this morning’s newspaper:

“‘DISASTER AT SEA.--Intelligence has reached the Royal Yacht Squadron

and the insurers which leaves no reasonable doubt, we regret to say,

of the total loss, on the fifth of the present month, of the yacht

_Dorothea_, with every soul on board. The particulars are as follows:

At daylight, on the morning of the sixth, the Italian brig _Speranza_,

bound from Venice to Marsala for orders, encountered some floating

objects off Cape Spartivento (at the southernmost extremity of Italy)

which attracted the curiosity of the people of the brig. The previous

day had been marked by one of the most severe of the sudden and violent

storms, peculiar to these southern seas, which has been remembered

for years. The _Speranza_ herself having been in danger while the gale

lasted, the captain and crew concluded that they were on the traces of

a wreck, and a boat was lowered for the purpose of examining the objects

in the water. A hen-coop, some broken spars, and fragments of shattered

plank were the first evidences discovered of the terrible disaster that

had happened. Some of the lighter articles of cabin furniture, wrenched

and shattered, were found next. And, lastly, a memento of melancholy

interest turned up, in the shape of a lifebuoy, with a corked bottle

attached to it. These latter objects, with the relics of cabin

furniture, were brought on board the _Speranza_. On the buoy the name

of the vessel was painted, as follows: “_Dorothea, R. Y. S._” (meaning

Royal Yacht Squadron). The bottle, on being uncorked, contained a sheet

of note-paper, on which the following lines were hurriedly traced in

pencil: “Off Cape Spartivento; two days out from Messina. Nov. 5th, 4

P.M.” (being the hour at which the log of the Italian brig showed the

storm to have been at its height). “Both our boats are stove in by the

sea. The rudder is gone, and we have sprung a leak astern which is more

than we can stop. The Lord help us all--we are sinking. (Signed) John

Mitchenden, Mate.” On reaching Marsala, the captain of the brig made his

report to the British consul, and left the objects discovered in that

gentleman’s charge. Inquiry at Messina showed that the ill-fated vessel

had arrived there from Naples. At the latter port it was ascertained

that the _Dorothea_ had been hired from the owner’s agent by an English

gentleman, Mr. Armadale, of Thorpe Ambrose, Norfolk. Whether Mr.

Armadale had any friends on board with him has not been clearly

discovered. But there is unhappily no doubt that the ill-fated gentleman

himself sailed in the yacht from Naples, and that he was also on board

of the vessel when she left Messina.’

“Such is the story of the wreck, as the newspaper tells it in the

plainest and fewest words. My head is in a whirl; my confusion is so

great that I think of fifty different things in trying to think of one.

I must wait--a day more or less is of no consequence now--I must wait

till I can face my new position, without feeling bewildered by it.”

“November 23d.--Eight in the morning.--I rose an hour ago, and saw

my way clearly to the first step that I must take under present

circumstances.

“It is of the utmost importance to me to know what is doing at Thorpe

Ambrose; and it would be the height of rashness, while I am quite in the

dark in this matter, to venture there myself. The only other alternative

is to write to somebody on the spot for news; and the only person I can

write to is--Bashwood.

“I have just finished the letter. It is headed ‘private and

confidential,’ and signed ‘Lydia Armadale.’ There is nothing in it to

compromise me, if the old fool is mortally offended by my treatment of

him, and if he spitefully shows my letter to other people. But I don’t

believe he will do this. A man at his age forgives a woman anything,

if the woman only encourages him. I have requested him, as a personal

favor, to keep our correspondence for the present strictly private. I

have hinted that my married life with my deceased husband has not been

a happy one; and that I feel the injudiciousness of having married a

_young_ man. In the postscript I go further still, and venture boldly on

these comforting words: ‘I can explain, dear Mr. Bashwood, what may have

seemed fake and deceitful in my conduct toward you when you give me a

personal opportunity.’ If he was on the right side of sixty, I should

feel doubtful of results. But he is on the wrong side of sixty, and I

believe he will give me my personal opportunity.

“Ten o’clock.--I have been looking over the copy of my marriage

certificate, with which I took care to provide myself on the

wedding-day; and I have discovered, to my inexpressible dismay, an

obstacle to my appearance in the character of Armadale’s widow which I

now see for the first time.

“The description of Midwinter (under his own name) which the certificate

presents answers in every important particular to what would have been

the description of Armadale of Thorpe Ambrose, if I had really married

him. ‘Name and Surname’--Allan Armadale. ‘Age’--twenty-one,

instead of twenty-two, which might easily pass for a mistake.

‘Condition’--Bachelor. ‘Rank or profession’--Gentleman. ‘Residence at

the time of Marriage’--Frant’s Hotel, Darley Street. ‘Father’s Name and

Surname’--Allan Armadale. ‘Rank or Profession of Father’--Gentleman.

Every particular (except the year’s difference in their two ages) which

answers for the one answers for the other. But suppose, when I produce

my copy of the certificate, that some meddlesome lawyer insists on

looking at the original register? Midwinter’s writing is as different as

possible from the writing of his dead friend. The hand in which he has

written ‘Allan Armadale’ in the book has not a chance of passing for

the hand in which Armadale of Thorpe Ambrose was accustomed to sign his

name.

“Can I move safely in the matter, with such a pitfall as I see here open

under my feet? How can I tell? Where can I find an experienced person to

inform me? I must shut up my diary and think.”

“Seven o’clock.--My prospects have changed again since I made my last

entry. I have received a warning to be careful in the future which I

shall not neglect; and I have (I believe) succeeded in providing myself

with the advice and assistance of which I stand in need.

“After vainly trying to think of some better person to apply to in the

difficulty which embarrassed me, I made a virtue of necessity, and set

forth to surprise Mrs. Oldershaw by a visit from her darling Lydia! It

is almost needless to add that I determined to sound her carefully, and

not to let any secret of importance out of my own possession.

“A sour and solemn old maid-servant admitted me into the house. When I

asked for her mistress, I was reminded with the bitterest emphasis that

I had committed the impropriety of calling on a Sunday. Mrs. Oldershaw

was at home, solely in consequence of being too unwell to go to church!

The servant thought it very unlikely that she would see me. I thought

it highly probable, on the contrary, that she would honor me with

an interview in her own interests, if I sent in my name as ‘Miss

Gwilt’--and the event proved that I was right. After being kept waiting

some minutes I was shown into the drawing-room.

“There sat Mother Jezebel, with the air of a woman resting on the

high-road to heaven, dressed in a slate-colored gown, with gray mittens

on her hands, a severely simple cap on her head, and a volume of sermons

on her lap. She turned up the whites of her eyes devoutly at the sight

of me, and the first words she said were--‘Oh, Lydia! Lydia! why are you

not at church?’

“If I had been less anxious, the sudden presentation of Mrs. Oldershaw

in an entirely new character might have amused me. But I was in no

humor for laughing, and (my notes of hand being all paid) I was under

no obligation to restrain my natural freedom of speech. ‘Stuff and

nonsense!’ I said. ‘Put your Sunday face in your pocket. I have got some

news for you, since I last wrote from Thorpe Ambrose.’

“The instant I mentioned ‘Thorpe Ambrose,’ the whites of the old

hypocrite’s eyes showed themselves again, and she flatly refused to

hear a word more from me on the subject of my proceedings in Norfolk. I

insisted; but it was quite useless. Mother Oldershaw only shook her

head and groaned, and informed me that her connection with the pomps and

vanities of the world was at an end forever. ‘I have been born again,

Lydia,’ said the brazen old wretch, wiping her eyes. ‘Nothing will

induce me to return to the subject of that wicked speculation of yours

on the folly of a rich young man.’

“After hearing this, I should have left her on the spot, but for one

consideration which delayed me a moment longer.

“It was easy to see, by this time, that the circumstances (whatever they

might have been) which had obliged Mother Oldershaw to keep in hiding,

on the occasion of my former visit to London, had been sufficiently

serious to force her into giving up, or appearing to give up, her old

business. And it was hardly less plain that she had found it to her

advantage--everybody in England finds it to their advantage in some way

to cover the outer side of her character carefully with a smooth varnish

of Cant. This was, however, no business of mine; and I should have made

these reflections outside instead of inside the house, if my interests

had not been involved in putting the sincerity of Mother Oldershaw’s

reformation to the test--so far as it affected her past connection with

myself. At the time when she had fitted me out for our enterprise, I

remembered signing a certain business document which gave her a handsome

pecuniary interest in my success, if I became Mrs. Armadale of Thorpe

Ambrose. The chance of turning this mischievous morsel of paper to

good account, in the capacity of a touchstone, was too tempting to be

resisted. I asked my devout friend’s permission to say one last word

before I left the house.

“‘As you have no further interest in my wicked speculation at Thorpe

Ambrose,’ I said, ‘perhaps you will give me back the written paper that

I signed, when you were not quite such an exemplary person as you are

now?’

“The shameless old hypocrite instantly shut her eyes and shuddered.

“‘Does that mean Yes, or No’?’ I asked.

“‘On moral and religious grounds, Lydia,’ said Mrs. Oldershaw, ‘it means

No.’

“‘On wicked and worldly grounds,’ I rejoined, ‘I beg to thank you for

showing me your hand.’

“There could, indeed, be no doubt now about the object she really had

in view. She would run no more risks and lend no more money; she would

leave me to win or lose single-handed. If I lost, she would not be

compromised. If I won, she would produce the paper I had signed, and

profit by it without remorse. In my present situation, it was mere waste

of time and words to prolong the matter by any useless recrimination on

my side. I put the warning away privately in my memory for future use,

and got up to go.

“At the moment when I left my chair there was a sharp double knock at

the street door. Mrs. Oldershaw evidently recognized it. She rose in a

violent hurry, and rang the bell. ‘I am too unwell to see anybody,’ she

said, when the servant appeared. ‘Wait a moment, if you please,’ she

added, turning sharply on me, when the woman had left us to answer the

door.

“It was small, very small, spitefulness on my part, I know; but the

satisfaction of thwarting Mother Jezebel, even in a trifle, was not to

be resisted. ‘I can’t wait,’ I said; ‘you reminded me just now that I

ought to be at church.’ Before she could answer I was out of the room.

“As I put my foot on the first stair the street door was opened, and a

man’s voice inquired whether Mrs. Oldershaw was at home.

“I instantly recognized the voice. Doctor Downward!

“The doctor repeated the servant’s message in a tone which betrayed

unmistakable irritation at finding himself admitted no further than the

door.

“‘Your mistress is not well enough to see visitors? Give her that card,’

said the doctor, ‘and say I expect her, the next time I call, to be well

enough to see _me_.’

“If his voice had not told me plainly that he felt in no friendly mood

toward Mrs. Oldershaw, I dare say I should have let him go without

claiming his acquaintance; but, as things were, I felt an impulse to

speak to him or to anybody who had a grudge against Mother Jezebel.

There was more of my small spitefulness in this, I suppose. Anyway, I

slipped downstairs; and, following the doctor out quietly, overtook him

in the street.

“I had recognized his voice, and I recognized his back as I walked

behind him. But when I called him by his name, and when he turned round

with a start and confronted me, I followed his example, and started on

my side. The doctor’s face was transformed into the face of a perfect

stranger! His baldness had hidden itself under an artfully grizzled wig.

He had allowed his whiskers to grow, and had dyed them to match his new

head of hair. Hideous circular spectacles bestrode his nose in place of

the neat double eyeglass that he used to carry in his hand; and a

black neckerchief, surmounted by immense shirt-collars, appeared as the

unworthy successor of the clerical white cravat of former times. Nothing

remained of the man I once knew but the comfortable plumpness of his

figure, and the confidential courtesy and smoothness of his manner and

his voice.

“‘Charmed to see you again,’ said the doctor, looking about him a little

anxiously, and producing his card-case in a very precipitate manner.

‘But, my dear Miss Gwilt, permit me to rectify a slight mistake on

your part. Doctor Downward of Pimlico is dead and buried; and you will

infinitely oblige me if you will never, on any consideration, mention

him again!’

“I took the card he offered me, and discovered that I was now supposed

to be speaking to ‘Doctor Le Doux, of the Sanitarium, Fairweather Vale,

Hampstead!’

“‘You seem to have found it necessary,’ I said, ‘to change a great many

things since I last saw you? Your name, your residence, your personal

appearance--?’

“‘And my branch of practice,’ interposed the doctor. ‘I have purchased

of the original possessor (a person of feeble enterprise and no

resources) a name, a diploma, and a partially completed sanitarium for

the reception of nervous invalids. We are open already to the inspection

of a few privileged friends--come and see us. Are you walking my way?

Pray take my arm, and tell me to what happy chance I am indebted for the

pleasure of seeing you again?’

“I told him the circumstances exactly as they had happened, and I added

(with a view to making sure of his relations with his former ally at

Pimlico) that I had been greatly surprised to hear Mrs. Oldershaw’s door

shut on such an old friend as himself. Cautious as he was, the doctor’s

manner of receiving my remark satisfied me at once that my suspicions

of an estrangement were well founded. His smile vanished, and he settled

his hideous spectacles irritably on the bridge of his nose.

“‘Pardon me if I leave you to draw your own conclusions,’ he said. ‘The

subject of Mrs. Oldershaw is, I regret to say, far from agreeable to me

under existing circumstances--a business difficulty connected with our

late partnership at Pimlico, entirely without interest for a young and

brilliant woman like yourself. Tell me your news! Have you left your

situation at Thorpe Ambrose? Are you residing in London? Is there

anything, professional or otherwise, that I can do for you?’

“That last question was a more important one than he supposed. Before

I answered it, I felt the necessity of parting company with him and of

getting a little time to think.

“‘You have kindly asked me, doctor, to pay you a visit,’ I said. ‘In

your quiet house at Hampstead, I may possibly have something to say to

you which I can’t say in this noisy street. When are you at home at the

Sanitarium? Should I find you there later in the day?’

“The doctor assured me that he was then on his way back, and begged that

I would name my own hour. I said, ‘Toward the afternoon;’ and, pleading

an engagement, hailed the first omnibus that passed us. ‘Don’t forget

the address,’ said the doctor, as he handed me in. ‘I have got your

card,’ I answered, and so we parted.

“I returned to the hotel, and went up into my room, and thought over it

very anxiously.

“The serious obstacle of the signature on the marriage register still

stood in my way as unmanageably as ever. All hope of getting assistance

from Mrs. Oldershaw was at an end. I could only regard her henceforth

as an enemy hidden in the dark--the enemy, beyond all doubt now, who

had had me followed and watched when I was last in London. To what other

counselor could I turn for the advice which my unlucky ignorance of

law and business obliged me to seek from some one more experienced than

myself? Could I go to the lawyer whom I consulted when I was about to

marry Midwinter in my maiden name? Impossible! To say nothing of his

cold reception of me when I had last seen him, the advice I wanted this

time related (disguise the facts as I might) to commission of a Fraud--a

fraud of the sort that no prosperous lawyer would consent to assist if

he had a character to lose. Was there any other competent person I

could think of? There was one, and one only--the doctor who had died at

Pimlico, and had revived again at Hampstead.

“I knew him to be entirely without scruples; to have the business

experience that I wanted myself; and to be as cunning, as clever, and

as far-seeing a man as could be found in all London. Beyond this, I had

made two important discoveries in connection with him that morning. In

the first place, he was on bad terms with Mrs. Oldershaw, which would

protect me from all danger of the two leaguing together against me if

I trusted him. In the second place, circumstances still obliged him to

keep his identity carefully disguised, which gave me a hold over him in

no respect inferior to any hold that _I_ might give him over _me_. In

every way he was the right man, the only man, for my purpose; and yet I

hesitated at going to him--hesitated for a full hour and more, without

knowing why!

“It was two o’clock before I finally decided on paying the doctor a

visit. Having, after this, occupied nearly another hour in determining

to a hair-breadth how far I should take him into my confidence, I

sent for a cab at last, and set off toward three in the afternoon for

Hampstead.

“I found the Sanitarium with some little difficulty.

“Fairweather Vale proved to be a new neighborhood, situated below the

high ground of Hampstead, on the southern side. The day was overcast,

and the place looked very dreary. We approached it by a new road running

between trees, which might once have been the park avenue of a country

house. At the end we came upon a wilderness of open ground, with

half-finished villas dotted about, and a hideous litter of boards,

wheelbarrows, and building materials of all sorts scattered in every

direction. At one corner of this scene of desolation, stood a great

overgrown dismal house, plastered with drab-colored stucco, and

surrounded by a naked, unfinished garden, without a shrub or a flower

in it, frightful to behold. On the open iron gate that led into this

inclosure was a new brass plate, with ‘Sanitarium’ inscribed on it in

great black letters. The bell, when the cabman rang it, pealed through

the empty house like a knell; and the pallid, withered old man-servant

in black who answered the door looked as if he had stepped up out of his

grave to perform that service. He let out on me a smell of damp plaster

and new varnish; and he let in with me a chilling draft of the damp

November air. I didn’t notice it at the time, but, writing of it now, I

remember that I shivered as I crossed the threshold.

“I gave my name to the servant as ‘Mrs. Armadale,’ and was shown into

the waiting-room. The very fire itself was dying of damp in the grate.

The only books on the table were the doctor’s Works, in sober drab

covers; and the only object that ornamented the walls was the foreign

Diploma (handsomely framed and glazed), of which the doctor had

possessed himself by purchase, along with the foreign name.

“After a moment or two, the proprietor of the Sanitarium came in, and

held up his hands in cheerful astonishment at the sight of me.

“‘I hadn’t an idea who “Mrs. Armadale” was!’ he said. ‘My dear lady,

have _you_ changed your name too? How sly of you not to tell me when

we met this morning! Come into my private snuggery--I can’t think of

keeping an old and dear friend like you in the patients’ waiting-room.’

“The doctor’s private snuggery was at the back of the house, looking

out on fields and trees, doomed but not yet destroyed by the builder.

Horrible objects in brass and leather and glass, twisted and turned as

if they were sentient things writhing in agonies of pain, filled up one

end of the room. A great book-case with glass doors extended over the

whole of the opposite wall, and exhibited on its shelves long rows of

glass jars, in which shapeless dead creatures of a dull white color

floated in yellow liquid. Above the fireplace hung a collection of

photographic portraits of men and women, inclosed in two large frames

hanging side by side with a space between them. The left-hand frame

illustrated the effects of nervous suffering as seen in the face; the

right-hand frame exhibited the ravages of insanity from the same

point of view; while the space between was occupied by an elegantly

illuminated scroll, bearing inscribed on it the time-honored motto,

‘Prevention is better than Cure.’

“‘Here I am, with my galvanic apparatus, and my preserved specimens,

and all the rest of it,’ said the doctor, placing me in a chair by the

fireside. ‘And there is my System mutely addressing you just above

your head, under a form of exposition which I venture to describe as

frankness itself. This is no mad-house, my dear lady. Let other men

treat insanity, if they like--_I_ stop it! No patients in the house as

yet. But we live in an age when nervous derangement (parent of insanity)

is steadily on the increase; and in due time the sufferers will come. I

can wait as Harvey waited, as Jenner waited. And now do put your feet up

on the fender, and tell me about yourself. You are married, of

course? And what a pretty name! Accept my best and most heart-felt

congratulations. You have the two greatest blessings that can fall to a

woman’s lot; the two capital H’s, as I call them--Husband and Home.’

“I interrupted the genial flow of the doctor’s congratulations at the

first opportunity.

“‘I am married; but the circumstances are by no means of the ordinary

kind,’ I said, seriously. My present position includes none of the

blessings that are usually supposed to fall to a woman’s lot. I am

already in a situation of very serious difficulty; and before long I may

be in a situation of very serious danger as well.’

“The doctor drew his chair a little nearer to me, and fell at once into

his old professional manner and his old confidential tone.

“‘If you wish to consult me,’ he said, softly, ‘you know that I have

kept some dangerous secrets in my time, and you also know that I possess

two valuable qualities as an adviser. I am not easily shocked; and I can

be implicitly trusted.’

“I hesitated even now, at the eleventh hour, sitting alone with him

in his own room. It was so strange to me to be trusting to anybody

but myself! And yet, how could I help trusting another person in a

difficulty which turned on a matter of law?

“‘Just as you please, you know,’ added the doctor. ‘I never invite

confidences. I merely receive them.’

“There was no help for it; I had come there not to hesitate, but to

speak. I risked it, and spoke.

“‘The matter on which I wish to consult you,’ I said, ‘is not (as you

seem to think) within your experience as a professional man. But I

believe you may be of assistance to me, if I trust myself to your larger

experience as a man of the world. I warn you beforehand that I shall

certainly surprise, and possibly alarm, you before I have done.’

“With that preface I entered on my story, telling him what I had settled

to tell him, and no more.

“I made no secret, at the outset, of my intention to personate

Armadale’s widow; and I mentioned without reserve (knowing that the

doctor could go to the office and examine the will for himself) the

handsome income that would be settled on me in the event of my success.

Some of the circumstances that followed next in succession I thought it

desirable to alter or conceal. I showed him the newspaper account of the

loss of the yacht, but I said nothing about events at Naples. I informed

him of the exact similarity of the two names; leaving him to imagine

that it was accidental. I told him, as an important element in the

matter, that my husband had kept his real name a profound secret from

everybody but myself; but (to prevent any communication between them)

I carefully concealed from the doctor what the assumed name under which

Midwinter had lived all his life really was. I acknowledged that I had

left my husband behind me on the Continent; but when the doctor put the

question, I allowed him to conclude--I couldn’t, with all my resolution,

tell him positively!--that Midwinter knew of the contemplated Fraud, and

that he was staying away purposely, so as not to compromise me by his

presence. This difficulty smoothed over--or, as I feel it now, this

baseness committed--I reverted to myself, and came back again to the

truth. One after another I mentioned all the circumstances connected

with my private marriage, and with the movements of Armadale and

Midwinter, which rendered any discovery of the false personation

(through the evidence of other people) a downright impossibility. ‘So

much,’ I said, in conclusion, ‘for the object in view. The next thing is

to tell you plainly of a very serious obstacle that stands in my way.’

“The doctor, who had listened thus far without interrupting me, begged

permission here to say a few words on his side before I went on.

“The ‘few words’ proved to be all questions--clever, searching,

suspicious questions--which I was, however, able to answer with little

or no reserve, for they related, in almost every instance, to the

circumstances under which I had been married, and to the chances for and

against my lawful husband if he chose to assert his claim to me at any

future time.

“My replies informed the doctor, in the first place, that I had so

managed matters at Thorpe Ambrose as to produce a general impression

that Armadale intended to marry me; in the second place, that my

husband’s early life had not been of a kind to exhibit him favorably

in the eyes of the world; in the third place, that we had been married,

without any witnesses present who knew us, at a large parish church

in which two other couples had been married the same morning, to

say nothing of the dozens on dozens of other couples (confusing all

remembrance of us in the minds of the officiating people) who had

been married since. When I had put the doctor in possession of these

facts--and when he had further ascertained that Midwinter and I had gone

abroad among strangers immediately after leaving the church; and that

the men employed on board the yacht in which Armadale had sailed from

Somersetshire (before my marriage) were now away in ships voyaging to

the other end of the world--his confidence in my prospects showed itself

plainly in his face. ‘So far as I can see,’ he said, ‘your husband’s

claim to you (after you have stepped into the place of the dead Mr.

Armadale’s widow) would rest on nothing but his own bare assertion.

And _that_ I think you may safely set at defiance. Excuse my apparent

distrust of the gentleman. But there might be a misunderstanding between

you in the future, and it is highly desirable to ascertain beforehand

exactly what he could or could not do under those circumstances. And now

that we have done with the main obstacle that _I_ see in the way of your

success, let us by all means come to the obstacle that _you_ see next!’

“I was willing enough to come to it. The tone in which he spoke

of Midwinter, though I myself was responsible for it, jarred on me

horribly, and roused for the moment some of the old folly of feeling

which I fancied I had laid asleep forever. I rushed at the chance of

changing the subject, and mentioned the discrepancy in the register

between the hand in which Midwinter had signed the name of Allan

Armadale, and the hand in which Armadale of Thorpe Ambrose had been

accustomed to write his name, with an eagerness which it quite diverted

the doctor to see.

“‘Is _that_ all?’ he asked, to my infinite surprise and relief, when

I had done. ‘My dear lady, pray set your mind at ease! If the late Mr.

Armadale’s lawyers want a proof of your marriage, they won’t go to the

church-register for it, I can promise you!’

“‘What!’ I exclaimed, in astonishment. ‘Do you mean to say that the

entry in the register is not a proof of my marriage?’

“‘It is a proof,’ said the doctor, ‘that you have been married to

somebody. But it is no proof that you have been married to Mr. Armadale

of Thorpe Ambrose. Jack Nokes or Tom Styles (excuse the homeliness of

the illustration!) might have got the license, and gone to the church to

be married to you under Mr. Armadale’s name; and the register (how

could it do otherwise?) must in that case have innocently assisted the

deception. I see I surprise you. My dear madam, when you opened this

interesting business you surprised _me_--I may own it now--by laying so

much stress on the curious similarity between the two names. You might

have entered on the very daring and romantic enterprise in which you

are now engaged, without necessarily marrying your present husband. Any

other man would have done just as well, provided he was willing to take

Mr. Armadale’s name for the purpose.’

“I felt my temper going at this. ‘Any other man would _not_ have done

just as well,’ I rejoined, instantly. ‘But for the similarity of the

names, I should never have thought of the enterprise at all.’

“The doctor admitted that he had spoken too hastily. ‘That personal view

of the subject had, I confess, escaped me,’ he said. ‘However, let us

get back to the matter in hand. In the course of what I may term an

adventurous medical life, I have been brought more than once into

contact with the gentlemen of the law, and have had opportunities

of observing their proceedings in cases of, let us say, Domestic

Jurisprudence. I am quite sure I am correct in informing you that the

proof which will be required by Mr. Armadale’s representatives will be

the evidence of a witness present at the marriage who can speak to the

identity of the bride and bridegroom from his own personal knowledge.’

“‘But I have already told you,’ I said, ‘that there was no such person

present.’

“‘Precisely,’ rejoined the doctor. ‘In that case, what you now want,

before you can safely stir a step in the matter, is--if you will pardon

me the expression--a ready-made witness, possessed of rare moral

and personal resources, who can be trusted to assume the necessary

character, and to make the necessary Declaration before a magistrate. Do

you know of any such person?’ asked the doctor, throwing himself back in

his chair, and looking at me with the utmost innocence.

“‘I only know you,’ I said.

“The doctor laughed softly. ‘So like a woman!’ he remarked, with the

most exasperating good humor. ‘The moment she sees her object, she

dashes at it headlong the nearest way. Oh, the sex! the sex!’

“‘Never mind the sex!’ I broke out, impatiently. ‘I want a serious

answer--Yes or No?’

“The doctor rose, and waved his hand with great gravity and dignity all

round the room. ‘You see this vast establishment,’ he began; ‘you

can possibly estimate to some extent the immense stake I have in its

prosperity and success. Your excellent natural sense will tell you that

the Principal of this Sanitarium must be a man of the most unblemished

character--’

“‘Why waste so many words,’ I said, ‘when one word will do? You mean

No!’

“The Principal of the Sanitarium suddenly relapsed into the character of

my confidential friend.

“‘My dear lady,’ he said, ‘it isn’t Yes, and it isn’t No, at a moment’s

notice. Give me till to-morrow afternoon. By that time I engage to

be ready to do one of two things--either to withdraw myself from this

business at once, or to go into it with you heart and soul. Do you agree

to that? Very good; we may drop the subject, then, till to-morrow. Where

can I call on you when I have decided what to do?’

“There was no objection to my trusting him with my address at the hotel.

I had taken care to present myself there as ‘Mrs. Armadale’; and I had

given Midwinter an address at the neighboring post-office to write to

when he answered my letters. We settled the hour at which the doctor was

to call on me; and, that matter arranged, I rose to go, resisting all

offers of refreshment, and all proposals to show me over the house. His

smooth persistence in keeping up appearances after we had thoroughly

understood each other disgusted me. I got away from him as soon as I

could, and came back to my diary and my own room.

“We shall see how it ends to-morrow. My own idea is that my confidential

friend will say Yes.”

“November 24th.--The doctor has said Yes, as I supposed; but on terms

which I never anticipated. The condition on which I have secured his

services amounts to nothing less than the payment to him, on my stepping

into the place of Armadale’s widow, of half my first year’s income--in

other words, six hundred pounds!

“I protested against this extortionate demand in every way I could

think of. All to no purpose. The doctor met me with the most engaging

frankness. Nothing, he said, but the accidental embarrassment of his

position at the present time would have induced him to mix himself up in

the matter at all. He would honestly confess that he had exhausted his

own resources, and the resources of other persons whom he described as

his ‘backers,’ in the purchase and completion of the Sanitarium. Under

those circumstances, six hundred pounds in prospect was an object

to him. For that sum he would run the serious risk of advising and

assisting me. Not a farthing less would tempt him; and there he left it,

with his best and friendliest wishes, in my hands!

“It ended in the only way in which it could end. I had no choice but to

accept the terms, and to let the doctor settle things on the spot as he

pleased. The arrangement once made between us, I must do him the justice

to say that he showed no disposition to let the grass grow under his

feet. He called briskly for pen, ink and paper, and suggested opening

the campaign at Thorpe Ambrose by to-night’s post.

“We agreed on a form of letter which I wrote, and which he copied on the

spot. I entered into no particulars at starting. I simply asserted that

I was the widow of the deceased Mr. Armadale; that I had been privately

married to him; that I had returned to England on his sailing in the

yacht from Naples; and that I begged to inclose a copy of my marriage

certificate, as a matter of form with which I presumed it was customary

to comply. The letter was addressed to ‘The Representatives of the late

Allan Armadale, Esq., Thorpe Ambrose, Norfolk.’ And the doctor himself

carried it away, and put it in the post.

“I am not so excited and so impatient for results as I expected to be,

now that the first step is taken. The thought of Midwinter haunts me

like a ghost. I have been writing to him again--as before, to keep

up appearances. It will be my last letter, I think. My courage feels

shaken, my spirits get depressed, when my thoughts go back to Turin.

I am no more capable of facing the consideration of Midwinter at this

moment than I was in the by-gone time, The day of reckoning with him,

once distant and doubtful, is a day that may come to me now, I know

not how soon. And here I am, trusting myself blindly to the chapter of

Accidents still!”

“November 25th.--At two o’clock to-day the doctor called again by

appointment. He has been to his lawyers (of course without taking them

into our confidence) to put the case simply of proving my marriage.

The result confirms what he has already told me. The pivot on which the

whole matter will turn, if my claim is disputed, will be the question

of identity; and it may be necessary for the witness to make his

Declaration in the magistrate’s presence before the week is out.

“In this position of affairs, the doctor thinks it important that we

should be within easy reach of each other, and proposes to find a quiet

lodging for me in his neighborhood. I am quite willing to go anywhere;

for, among the other strange fancies that have got possession of me, I

have an idea that I shall feel more completely lost to Midwinter if I

move out of the neighborhood in which his letters are addressed to me.

I was awake and thinking of him again last night. This morning I have

finally decided to write to him no more.

“After staying half an hour, the doctor left me, having first inquired

whether I would like to accompany him to Hampstead to look for lodgings.

I informed him that I had some business of my own which would keep me

in London. He inquired what the business was. ‘You will see,’ I said,

‘to-morrow or next day.’

“I had a moment’s nervous trembling when I was by myself again. My

business in London, besides being a serious business in a woman’s eyes,

took my mind back to Midwinter in spite of me. The prospect of removing

to my new lodging had reminded me of the necessity of dressing in my new

character. The time had come now for getting _my widow’s weeds_.

“My first proceeding, after putting my bonnet on, was to provide myself

with money. I got what I wanted to fit me out for the character of

Armadale’s widow by nothing less than the sale of Armadale’s own present

to me on my marriage--the ruby ring! It proved to be a more valuable

jewel than I had supposed. I am likely to be spared all money anxieties

for some time to come.

“On leaving the jeweler’s, I went to the great mourning shop in Regent

Street. In four-and-twenty hours (if I can give them no more) they

have engaged to dress me in my widow’s costume from head to foot. I had

another feverish moment when I left the shop; and, by way of further

excitement on this agitating day, I found a surprise in store for me on

my return to the hotel. An elderly gentleman was announced to be waiting

to see me. I opened my sitting-room door, and there was old Bashwood!

“He had got my letter that morning, and had started for London by the

next train to answer it in person. I had expected a great deal from

him, but I had certainly not expected _that_. It flattered me. For the

moment, I declare it flattered me!

“I pass over the wretched old creature’s raptures and reproaches, and

groans and tears, and weary long prosings about the lonely months he

had passed at Thorpe Ambrose, brooding over my desertion of him. He

was quite eloquent at times; but I don’t want his eloquence here. It

is needless to say that I put myself right with him, and consulted his

feelings before I asked him for his news. What a blessing a woman’s

vanity is sometimes! I almost forgot my risks and responsibilities in

my anxieties to be charming. For a minute or two I felt a warm little

flutter of triumph. And it was a triumph--even with an old man! In

a quarter of an hour I had him smirking and smiling, hanging on my

lightest words in an ecstasy, and answering all the questions I put to

him like a good little child.

“Here is his account of affairs at Thorpe Ambrose, as I gently extracted

it from him bit by bit:

“In the first place, the news of Armadale’s death has reached Miss

Milroy. It has so completely overwhelmed her that her father has been

compelled to remove her from the school. She is back at the cottage,

and the doctor is in daily attendance. Do I pity her? Yes! I pity her

exactly as much as she once pitied me!

“In the next place, the state of affairs at the great house, which I

expected to find some difficulty in comprehending, turns out to be quite

intelligible, and certainly not discouraging so far. Only yesterday, the

lawyers on both sides came to an understanding. Mr. Darch (the family

solicitor of the Blanchards, and Armadale’s bitter enemy in past times)

represents the interests of Miss Blanchard, who (in the absence of any

male heir) is next heir to the estate, and who has, it appears, been in

London for some time past. Mr. Smart, of Norwich (originally employed to

overlook Bashwood), represents the deceased Armadale. And this is what

the two lawyers have settled between them.

“Mr. Darch, acting for Miss Blanchard, has claimed the possession of the

estate, and the right of receiving the rents at the Christmas audit,

in her name. Mr. Smart, on his side, has admitted that there is great

weight in the family solicitor’s application. He cannot see his way, as

things are now, to contesting the question of Armadale’s death, and he

will consent to offer no resistance to the application, if Mr. Darch

will consent, on his side, to assume the responsibility of taking

possession in Miss Blanchard’s name. This Mr. Darch has already done;

and the estate is now virtually in Miss Blanchard’s possession.

“One result of this course of proceeding will be (as Bashwood thinks)

to put Mr. Darch in the position of the person who really decides on

my claim to the widow’s place and the widow’s money. The income being

charged on the estate, it must come out of Miss Blanchard’s pocket; and

the question of paying it would appear, therefore, to be a question for

Miss Blanchard’s lawyer. To-morrow will probably decide whether this

view is the right one, for my letter to Armadale’s representatives will

have been delivered at the great house this morning.

“So much for what old Bashwood had to tell me. Having recovered my

influence over him, and possessed myself of all his information so

far, the next thing to consider was the right use to turn him to in the

future. He was entirely at my disposal, for his place at the steward’s

office has been already taken by Miss Blanchard’s man of business, and

he pleaded hard to be allowed to stay and serve my interests in London.

There would not have been the least danger in letting him stay, for I

had, as a matter of course, left him undisturbed in his conviction

that I really am the widow of Armadale of Thorpe Ambrose. But with the

doctor’s resources at my command, I wanted no assistance of any sort in

London; and it occurred to me that I might make Bashwood more useful by

sending him back to Norfolk to watch events there in my interests.

“He looked sorely disappointed (having had an eye evidently to paying

his court to me in my widowed condition!) when I told him of the

conclusion at which I had arrived. But a few words of persuasion, and

a modest hint that he might cherish hopes in the future if he served

me obediently in the present, did wonders in reconciling him to the

necessity of meeting my wishes. He asked helplessly for ‘instructions’

when it was time for him to leave me and travel back by the evening

train. I could give him none, for I had no idea as yet of what the

legal people might or might not do. ‘But suppose something happens,’ he

persisted, ‘that I don’t understand, what am I to do, so far away from

you?’ I could only give him one answer. ‘Do nothing,’ I said. ‘Whatever

it is, hold your tongue about it, and write, or come up to London

immediately to consult me.’ With those parting directions, and with an

understanding that we were to correspond regularly, I let him kiss my

hand, and sent him off to the train.

“Now that I am alone again, and able to think calmly of the interview

between me and my elderly admirer, I find myself recalling a certain

change in old Bashwood’s manner which puzzled me at the time, and which

puzzles me still.

“Even in his first moments of agitation at seeing me, I thought that his

eyes rested on my face with a new kind of interest while I was speaking

to him. Besides this, he dropped a word or two afterward, in telling me

of his lonely life at Thorpe Ambrose, which seemed to imply that he

had been sustained in his solitude by a feeling of confidence about his

future relations with me when we next met. If he had been a younger and

a bolder man (and if any such discovery had been possible), I should

almost have suspected him of having found out something about my past

life which had made him privately confident of controlling me, if I

showed any disposition to deceive and desert him again. But such an idea

as this in connection with old Bashwood is simply absurd. Perhaps I am

overexcited by the suspense and anxiety of my present position? Perhaps

the merest fancies and suspicions are leading me astray? Let this be as

it may, I have, at any rate, more serious subjects than the subject

of old Bashwood to occupy me now. Tomorrow’s post may tell me what

Armadale’s representatives think of the claim of Armadale’s widow.”

“November 26th.--The answer has arrived this morning, in the form (as

Bashwood supposed) of a letter from Mr. Darch. The crabbed old lawyer

acknowledges my letter in three lines. Before he takes any steps, or

expresses any opinion on the subject, he wants evidence of identity as

well as the evidence of the certificate; and he ventures to suggest that

it may be desirable, before we go any further, to refer him to my legal

advisers.

“Two o’clock.--The doctor called shortly after twelve to say that he had

found a lodging for me within twenty minutes’ walk of the Sanitarium. In

return for his news, I showed him Mr. Darch’s letter. He took it away at

once to his lawyers, and came back with the necessary information for

my guidance. I have answered Mr. Darch by sending him the address of

my legal advisers--otherwise, the doctor’s lawyers--without making any

comment on the desire that he has expressed for additional evidence of

the marriage. This is all that can be done to-day. To-morrow will bring

with it events of greater interest, for to-morrow the doctor is to make

his Declaration before the magistrate, and to-morrow I am to move to my

new lodging in my widow’s weeds.”

“November 27th.--Fairweather Vale Villas.--The Declaration has been

made, with all the necessary formalities. And I have taken possession,

in my widow’s costume, of my new rooms.

“I ought to be excited by the opening of this new act in the drama, and

by the venturesome part that I am playing in it myself. Strange to say,

I am quiet and depressed. The thought of Midwinter has followed me to my

new abode, and is pressing on me heavily at this moment. I have no fear

of any accident happening, in the interval that must still pass before

I step publicly into the place of Armadale’s widow. But when that time

comes, and when Midwinter finds me (as sooner or later find me he must!)

figuring in my false character, and settled in the position that I have

usurped--_then_, I ask myself, What will happen? The answer still comes

as it first came to me this morning, when I put on my widow’s dress.

Now, as then, the presentiment is fixed in my mind that he will kill me.

If it was not too late to draw back--Absurd! I shall shut up my journal.”

“November 28th.--The lawyers have heard from Mr. Darch, and have sent

him the Declaration by return of post.

“When the doctor brought me this news, I asked him whether his lawyers

were aware of my present address; and, finding that he had not yet

mentioned it to them, I begged that he would continue to keep it a

secret for the future. The doctor laughed. ‘Are you afraid of Mr.

Darch’s stealing a march on us, and coming to attack you personally?’

he asked. I accepted the imputation, as the easiest way of making him

comply with my request. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I am afraid of Mr. Darch.’

“My spirits have risen since the doctor left me. There is a pleasant

sensation of security in feeling that no strangers are in possession of

my address. I am easy enough in my mind to-day to notice how wonderfully

well I look in my widow’s weeds, and to make myself agreeable to the

people of the house.

“Midwinter disturbed me a little again last night; but I have got over

the ghastly delusion which possessed me yesterday. I know better now

than to dread violence from him when he discovers what I have done. And

there is still less fear of his stooping to assert his claim to a woman

who has practiced on him such a deception as mine. The one serious trial

that I shall be put to when the day of reckoning comes will be the trial

of preserving my false character in his presence. I shall be safe in his

loathing and contempt for me, after that. On the day when I have denied

him to his face, I shall have seen the last of him forever.

“Shall I be able to deny him to his face? Shall I be able to look at him

and speak to him as if he had never been more to me than a friend? How

do I know till the time comes? Was there ever such an infatuated fool

as I am, to be writing of him at all, when writing only encourages me

to think of him? I will make a new resolution. From this time forth, his

name shall appear no more in these pages.”

“Monday, December 1st.--The last month of the worn-out old year 1851! If

I allowed myself to look back, what a miserable year I should see added

to all the other miserable years that are gone! But I have made my

resolution to look forward only, and I mean to keep it.

“I have nothing to record of the last two days, except that on the

twenty-ninth I remembered Bashwood, and wrote to tell him of my new

address. This morning the lawyers heard again from Mr. Darch. He

acknowledges the receipt of the Declaration, but postpones stating the

decision at which he has arrived until he has communicated with the

trustees under the late Mr. Blanchard’s will, and has received his

final instructions from his client, Miss Blanchard. The doctor’s lawyers

declare that this last letter is a mere device for gaining time--with

what object they are, of course, not in a position to guess. The doctor

himself says, facetiously, it is the usual lawyer’s object of making a

long bill. My own idea is that Mr. Darch has his suspicions of something

wrong, and that his purpose in trying to gain time--”

* * * * *

“Ten, at night.--I had written as far as that last unfinished sentence

(toward four in the afternoon) when I was startled by hearing a cab

drive up to the door. I went to the window, and got there just in time

to see old Bashwood getting out with an activity of which I should never

have supposed him capable. So little did I anticipate the tremendous

discovery that was going to burst on me in another minute, that I turned

to the glass, and wondered what the susceptible old gentleman would say

to me in my widow’s cap.

“The instant he entered the room, I saw that some serious disaster had

happened. His eyes were wild, his wig was awry. He approached me with a

strange mixture of eagerness and dismay. ‘I’ve done as you told me,’

he whispered, breathlessly. ‘I’ve held my tongue about it, and come

straight to _you_!’ He caught me by the hand before I could speak, with

a boldness quite new in my experience of him. ‘Oh how can I break it to

you!’ he burst out. ‘I’m beside myself when I think of it!’

“‘When you _can_ speak,’ I said, putting him into a chair, ‘speak out.

I see in your face that you bring me news I don’t look for from Thorpe

Ambrose.’

“He put his hand into the breast-pocket of his coat, and drew out a

letter. He looked at the letter, and looked at me. ‘New--new--news you

don’t look for,’ he stammered; ‘but not from Thorpe Ambrose!’

“‘Not from Thorpe Ambrose!’

“‘No. From the sea!’

“The first dawning of the truth broke on me at those words. I couldn’t

speak--I could only hold out my hand to him for the letter.

“He still shrank from giving it to me. ‘I daren’t! I daren’t!’ he said

to himself, vacantly. ‘The shock of it might be the death of her.’

“I snatched the letter from him. One glance at the writing on the

address was enough. My hands fell on my lap, with the letter fast held

in them. I sat petrified, without moving, without speaking, without

hearing a word of what Bashwood was saying to me, and slowly realized

the terrible truth. The man whose widow I had claimed to be was a living

man to confront me! In vain I had mixed the drink at Naples--in vain I

had betrayed him into Manuel’s hands. Twice I had set the deadly snare

for him, and twice Armadale had escaped me! I came to my sense of

outward things again, and found Bashwood on his knees at my feet,

crying.

“‘You look angry,’ he murmured, helplessly. ‘Are you angry with _me_?

Oh, if you only knew what hopes I had when we last saw each other, and

how cruelly that letter has dashed them all to the ground!’

“I put the miserable old creature back from me, but very gently. ‘Hush!’

I said. ‘Don’t distress me now. I want composure; I want to read the

letter.’

“He went away submissively to the other end of the room. As soon as my

eye was off him, I heard him say to himself, with impotent malignity,

‘If the sea had been of my mind, the sea would have drowned him!’

“One by one I slowly opened the folds of the letter; feeling, while I

did so, the strangest incapability of fixing my attention on the very

lines that I was burning to read. But why dwell any longer on sensations

which I can’t describe? It will be more to the purpose if I place the

letter itself, for future reference, on this page of my journal.

“‘Fiume, Illyria, November 21, 1851.

“MR. BASHWOOD--The address I date from will surprise you; and you will

be more surprised still when you hear how it is that I come to write to

you from a port on the Adriatic Sea.

“I have been the victim of a rascally attempt at robbery and murder. The

robbery has succeeded; and it is only through the mercy of God that the

murder did not succeed too.

“I hired a yacht rather more than a month ago at Naples; and sailed

(I am glad to think now) without any friend with me, for Messina. From

Messina I went for a cruise in the Adriatic. Two days out we were caught

in a storm. Storms get up in a hurry, and go down in a hurry, in those

parts. The vessel behaved nobly: I declare I feel the tears in my eyes

now, when I think of her at the bottom of the sea! Toward sunset it

began to moderate; and by midnight, except for a long, smooth swell, the

sea was as quiet as need be. I went below, a little tired (having helped

in working the yacht while the gale lasted), and fell asleep in five

minutes. About two hours after, I was woke by something falling into my

cabin through a chink of the ventilator in the upper part of the door.

I jumped up, and found a bit of paper with a key wrapped in it, and with

writing on the inner side, in a hand which it was not very easy to read.

“Up to this time I had not had the ghost of a suspicion that I was alone

at sea with a gang of murderous vagabonds (excepting one only) who would

stick at nothing. I had got on very well with my sailing-master (the

worst scoundrel of the lot), and better still with his English mate.

The sailors, being all foreigners, I had very little to say to. They did

their work, and no quarrels and nothing unpleasant happened. If anybody

had told me, before I went to bed on the night after the storm, that the

sailing-master and the crew and the mate (who had been no better than

the rest of them at starting) were all in a conspiracy to rob me of the

money I had on board, and then to drown me in my own vessel afterward, I

should have laughed in his face. Just remember that; and then fancy for

yourself (for I’m sure I can’t tell you) what I must have thought when

I opened the paper round the key, and read what I now copy (from the

mate’s writing), as follows:

“‘SIR--Stay in your bed till you hear a boat shove off from the

starboard side, or you are a dead man. Your money is stolen; and in five

minutes’ time the yacht will be scuttled, and the cabin hatch will be

nailed down on you. Dead men tell no tales; and the sailing-master’s

notion is to leave proofs afloat that the vessel has foundered with

all on board. It was his doing, to begin with, and we were all in it. I

can’t find it in my heart not to give you a chance for your life. It’s

a bad chance, but I can do no more. I should be murdered myself if I

didn’t seem to go with the rest. The key of your cabin door is thrown

back to you, inside this. Don’t be alarmed when you hear the hammer

above. I shall do it, and I shall have short nails in my hand as well as

long, and use the short ones only. Wait till you hear the boat with all

of us shove off, and then pry up the cabin hatch with your back. The

vessel will float a quarter of an hour after the holes are bored in her.

Slip into the sea on the port side, and keep the vessel between you

and the boat. You will find plenty of loose lumber, wrenched away on

purpose, drifting about to hold on by. It’s a fine night and a smooth

sea, and there’s a chance that a ship may pick you up while there’s life

left in you. I can do no more.--Yours truly, J. M.’

“As I came to those last words, I heard the hammering down of the hatch

over my head. I don’t suppose I’m more of a coward than most people, but

there was a moment when the sweat poured down me like rain. I got to

be my own man again before the hammering was done, and found myself

thinking of somebody very dear to me in England. I said to myself:

‘I’ll have a try for my life, for her sake, though the chances are dead

against me.’

“I put a letter from that person I have mentioned into one of the

stoppered bottles of my dressing-case, along with the mate’s warning, in

case I lived to see him again. I hung this, and a flask of whisky, in a

sling round my neck; and, after first dressing myself in my confusion,

thought better of it, and stripped, again, for swimming, to my shirt and

drawers. By the time I had done that the hammering was over and there

was such a silence that I could hear the water bubbling into the

scuttled vessel amidships. The next noise was the noise of the boat and

the villains in her (always excepting my friend, the mate) shoving off

from the starboard side. I waited for the splash of the oars in the

water, and then got my back under the hatch. The mate had kept his

promise. I lifted it easily--crept across the deck, under cover of the

bulwarks, on all fours--and slipped into the sea on the port side.

Lots of things were floating about. I took the first thing I came to--a

hen-coop--and swam away with it about a couple of hundred yards, keeping

the yacht between me and the boat. Having got that distance, I was

seized with a shivering fit, and I stopped (fearing the cramp next) to

take a pull at my flask. When I had closed the flask again, I turned

for a moment to look back, and saw the yacht in the act of sinking. In a

minute more there was nothing between me and the boat but the pieces of

wreck that had been purposely thrown out to float. The moon was shining;

and, if they had had a glass in the boat, I believe they might have seen

my head, though I carefully kept the hen-coop between me and them.

“As it was, they laid on their oars; and I heard loud voices among them

disputing. After what seemed an age to me, I discovered what the dispute

was about. The boat’s head was suddenly turned my way. Some cleverer

scoundrel than the rest (the sailing-master, I dare say) had evidently

persuaded them to row back over the place where the yacht had gone down,

and make quite sure that I had gone down with her.

“They were more than half-way across the distance that separated us, and

I had given myself up for lost, when I heard a cry from one of them, and

saw the boat’s progress suddenly checked. In a minute or two more the

boat’s head was turned again; and they rowed straight away from me like

men rowing for their lives.

“I looked on one side toward the land, and saw nothing. I looked on the

other toward the sea, and discovered what the boat’s crew had discovered

before me--a sail in the distance, growing steadily brighter and bigger

in the moonlight the longer I looked at it. In a quarter of an hour more

the vessel was within hail of me, and the crew had got me on board.

“They were all foreigners, and they quite deafened me by their jabber.

I tried signs, but before I could make them understand me I was seized

with another shivering fit, and was carried below. The vessel held on

her course, I have no doubt, but I was in no condition to know anything

about it. Before morning I was in a fever; and from that time I can

remember nothing clearly till I came to my senses at this place, and

found myself under the care of a Hungarian merchant, the consignee (as

they call it) of the coasting vessel that had picked me up. He speaks

English as well or better than I do; and he has treated me with a

kindness which I can find no words to praise. When he was a young man

he was in England himself, learning business, and he says he has

remembrances of our country which make his heart warm toward an

Englishman. He has fitted me out with clothes, and has lent me the

money to travel with, as soon as the doctor allows me to start for home.

Supposing I don’t get a relapse, I shall be fit to travel in a week’s

time from this. If I can catch the mail at Trieste, and stand the

fatigue, I shall be back again at Thorpe Ambrose in a week or ten days

at most after you get my letter. You will agree with me that it is a

terribly long letter. But I can’t help that. I seem to have lost my old

knack at putting things short, and finishing on the first page. However,

I am near the end now; for I have nothing left to mention but the reason

why I write about what has happened to me, instead of waiting till I get

home, and telling it all by word of mouth.

“I fancy my head is still muddled by my illness. At any rate, it only

struck me this morning that there is barely a chance of some vessel

having passed the place where the yacht foundered, and having picked up

the furniture, and other things wrenched out of her and left to float.

Some false report of my being drowned may, in that case, have reached

England. If this has happened (which I hope to God may be an unfounded

fear on my part), go directly to Major Milroy at the cottage. Show

him this letter--I have written it quite as much for his eye as for

yours--and then give him the inclosed note, and ask him if he doesn’t

think the circumstances justify me in hoping he will send it to Miss

Milroy. I can’t explain why I don’t write directly to the major, or to

Miss Milroy, instead of to you. I can only say there are considerations

I am bound in honor to respect, which oblige me to act in this

roundabout way.

“I don’t ask you to answer this, for I shall be on my way home, I hope,

long before your letter could reach me in this out-of-the-way place.

Whatever you do, don’t lose a moment in going to Major Milroy. Go, on

second thoughts, whether the loss of the yacht is known in England or

not.

“Yours truly, ALLAN ARMADALE.”

“I looked up when I had come to the end of the letter, and saw, for

the first time, that Bashwood had left his chair and had placed himself

opposite to me. He was intently studying my face, with the inquiring

expression of a man who was trying to read my thoughts. His eyes fell

guiltily when they met mine, and he shrank away to his chair. Believing,

as he did, that I was really married to Armadale, was he trying to

discover whether the news of Armadale’s rescue from the sea was good

news or bad news in my estimation? It was no time then for entering into

explanations with him. The first thing to be done was to communicate

instantly with the doctor. I called Bashwood back to me and gave him my

hand.

“‘You have done me a service,’ I said, ‘which makes us closer friends

than ever. I shall say more about this, and about other matters of some

interest to both of us, later in the day. I want you now to lend me Mr.

Armadale’s letter (which I promise to bring back) and to wait here till

I return. Will you do that for me, Mr. Bashwood?’

“He would do anything I asked him, he said. I went into the bedroom and

put on my bonnet and shawl.

“‘Let me be quite sure of the facts before I leave you,’ I resumed, when

I was ready to go out. ‘You have not shown this letter to anybody but

me?’

“‘Not a living soul has seen it but our two selves.’

“‘What have you done with the note inclosed to Miss Milroy?’

“He produced it from his pocket. I ran it over rapidly--saw that there

was nothing in it of the slightest importance--and put it in the fire

on the spot. That done, I left Bashwood in the sitting-room, and went to

the Sanitarium, with Armadale’s letter in my hand.

“The doctor had gone out, and the servant was unable to say positively

at what time he would be back. I went into his study, and wrote a line

preparing him for the news I had brought with me, which I sealed up,

with Armadale’s letter, in an envelope, to await his return. Having told

the servant I would call again in an hour, I left the place.

“It was useless to go back to my lodgings and speak to Bashwood, until I

knew first what the doctor meant to do. I walked about the neighborhood,

up and down new streets and crescents and squares, with a kind of dull,

numbed feeling in me, which prevented, not only all voluntary exercise

of thought, but all sensation of bodily fatigue. I remembered the same

feeling overpowering me, years ago, on the morning when the people of

the prison came to take me into court to be tried for my life. All that

frightful scene came back again to my mind in the strangest manner, as

if it had been a scene in which some other person had figured. Once or

twice I wondered, in a heavy, senseless way, why they had not hanged me!

“When I went back to the Sanitarium, I was informed that the doctor had

returned half an hour since, and that he was in his own room anxiously

waiting to see me.

“I went into the study, and found him sitting close by the fire with

his head down and his hands on his knees. On the table near him, beside

Armadale’s letter and my note, I saw, in the little circle of light

thrown by the reading-lamp, an open railway guide. Was he meditating

flight? It was impossible to tell from his face, when he looked up at

me, what he was meditating, or how the shock had struck him when he

first discovered that Armadale was a living man.

“‘Take a seat near the fire,’ he said. ‘It’s very raw and cold to-day.’

“I took a chair in silence. In silence, on his side, the doctor sat

rubbing his knees before the fire.

“‘Have you nothing to say to me?’ I asked.

“He rose, and suddenly removed the shade from the reading-lamp, so that

the light fell on my face.

“‘You are not looking well,’ he said. ‘What’s the matter?’

“‘My head feels dull, and my eyes are heavy and hot,’ I replied. ‘The

weather, I suppose.’

“It was strange how we both got further and further from the one vitally

important subject which we had both come together to discuss!

“‘I think a cup of tea would do you good,’ remarked the doctor.

“I accepted his suggestion; and he ordered the tea. While it was coming,

he walked up and down the room, and I sat by the fire, and not a word

passed between us on either side.

“The tea revived me; and the doctor noticed a change for the better in

my face. He sat down opposite to me at the table, and spoke out at last.

“‘If I had ten thousand pounds at this moment,’ he began, ‘I would

give the whole of it never to have compromised myself in your desperate

speculation on Mr. Armadale’s death!’

“He said those words with an abruptness, almost with a violence, which

was strangely uncharacteristic of his ordinary manner. Was he frightened

himself, or was he trying to frighten me? I determined to make him

explain himself at the outset, so far as I was concerned. ‘Wait a

moment, doctor,’ I said. ‘Do you hold me responsible for what has

happened?’

“‘Certainly not,’ he replied, stiffly. ‘Neither you nor anybody could

have foreseen what has happened. When I say I would give ten thousand

pounds to be out of this business, I am blaming nobody but myself.

And when I tell you next that I, for one, won’t allow Mr. Armadale’s

resurrection from the sea to be the ruin of me without a fight for it,

I tell you, my dear madam, one of the plainest truths I ever told to man

or woman in the whole course of my life. Don’t suppose I am invidiously

separating my interests from yours in the common danger that now

threatens us both. I simply indicate the difference in the risk that we

have respectively run. _You_ have not sunk the whole of your resources

in establishing a Sanitarium; and _you_ have not made a false

declaration before a magistrate, which is punishable as perjury by the

law.’

“I interrupted him again. His selfishness did me more good than his tea:

it roused my temper effectually. ‘Suppose we let your risk and my risk

alone, and come to the point,’ I said. ‘What do you mean by making a

fight for it? I see a railway guide on your table. Does making a fight

for it mean--running away?’

“‘Running away?’ repeated the doctor. ‘You appear to forget that every

farthing I have in the world is embarked in this establishment.’

“‘You stop here, then?’ I said.

“‘Unquestionably!’

“‘And what do you mean to do when Mr. Armadale comes to England?’

“A solitary fly, the last of his race whom the winter had spared, was

buzzing feebly about the doctor’s face. He caught it before he answered

me, and held it out across the table in his closed hand.

“‘If this fly’s name was Armadale,’ he said, ‘and if you had got him as

I have got him now, what would _you_ do?’

“His eyes, fixed on my face up to this time, turned significantly, as he

ended this question, to my widow’s dress. I, too, looked at it when

he looked. A thrill of the old deadly hatred and the old deadly

determination ran through me again.

“‘I should kill him,’ I said.

“The doctor started to his feet (with the fly still in his hand), and

looked at me--a little too theatrically--with an expression of the

utmost horror.

“‘Kill him!’ repeated the doctor, in a paroxysm of virtuous alarm.

‘Violence--murderous violence--in My Sanitarium! You take my breath

away!’

“I caught his eye while he was expressing himself in this elaborately

indignant manner, scrutinizing me with a searching curiosity which was,

to say the least of it, a little at variance with the vehemence of his

language and the warmth of his tone. He laughed uneasily when our eyes

met, and recovered his smoothly confidential manner in the instant that

elapsed before he spoke again.

“‘I beg a thousand pardons,’ he said. ‘I ought to have known better

than to take a lady too literally at her word. Permit me to remind you,

however, that the circumstances are too serious for anything in the

nature of--let us say, an exaggeration or a joke. You shall hear what I

propose, without further preface.’ He paused, and resumed his figurative

use of the fly imprisoned in his hand. ‘Here is Mr. Armadale. I can let

him out, or keep him in, just as I please--and he knows it. I say to

him,’ continued the doctor, facetiously addressing the fly, ‘Give me

proper security, Mr. Armadale, that no proceedings of any sort shall be

taken against either this lady or myself, and I will let you out of the

hollow of my hand. Refuse--and, be the risk what it may, I will keep you

in.” Can you doubt, my dear madam, what Mr. Armadale’s answer is, sooner

or later, certain to be? Can you doubt,’ said the doctor, suiting the

action to the word, and letting the fly go, ‘that it will end to the

entire satisfaction of all parties, in this way?’

“‘I won’t say at present,’ I answered, ‘whether I doubt or not. Let

me make sure that I understand you first. You propose, if I am not

mistaken, to shut the doors of this place on Mr. Armadale, and not

to let him out again until he has agreed to the terms which it is our

interest to impose on him? May I ask, in that case, how you mean to make

him walk into the trap that you have set for him here?’

“‘I propose,’ said the doctor, with his hand on the railway guide,

‘ascertaining first at what time during every evening of this month the

tidal trains from Dover and Folkestone reach the London Bridge terminus.

And I propose, next, posting a person whom Mr. Armadale knows, and whom

you and I can trust, to wait the arrival of the trains, and to meet our

man at the moment when he steps out of the railway carriage.’

“‘Have you thought,’ I inquired, ‘of who the person is to be?’

“‘I have thought,’ said the doctor, taking up Armadale’s letter ‘of the

person to whom this letter is addressed.’

“The answer startled me. Was it possible that he and Bashwood knew one

another? I put the question immediately.

“‘Until to-day I never so much as heard of the gentleman’s name,’ said

the doctor. ‘I have simply pursued the inductive process of reasoning,

for which we are indebted to the immortal Bacon. How does this very

important letter come into your possession? I can’t insult you by

supposing it to have been stolen. Consequently, it has come to you

with the leave and license of the person to whom it is addressed.

Consequently, that person is in your confidence. Consequently, he is

the first person I think of. You see the process? Very good. Permit me

a question or two, on the subject of Mr. Bashwood, before we go on any

further.’

“The doctor’s questions went as straight to the point as usual. My

answers informed him that Mr. Bashwood stood toward Armadale in the

relation of steward; that he had received the letter at Thorpe Ambrose

that morning, and had brought it straight to me by the first train; that

he had not shown it, or spoken of it before leaving, to Major Milroy or

to any one else; that I had not obtained this service at his hands by

trusting him with my secret; that I had communicated with him in the

character of Armadale’s widow; that he had suppressed the letter, under

those circumstances, solely in obedience to a general caution I had

given him to keep his own counsel, if anything strange happened at

Thorpe Ambrose, until he had first consulted me; and, lastly, that the

reason why he had done as I told him in this matter, was that in this

matter, and in all others, Mr. Bashwood was blindly devoted to my

interests.

“At that point in the interrogatory, the doctor’s eyes began to look at

me distrustfully behind the doctor’s spectacles.

“‘What is the secret of this blind devotion of Mr. Bashwood’s to your

interests?’ he asked.

“I hesitated for a moment--in pity to Bashwood, not in pity to myself.

‘If you must know,’ I answered, ‘Mr. Bashwood is in love with me.’

“‘Ay! ay!’ exclaimed the doctor, with an air of relief. ‘I begin to

understand now. Is he a young man?’

“‘He is an old man.’

“The doctor laid himself back in his chair, and chuckled softly. ‘Better

and better!’ he said. ‘Here is the very man we want. Who so fit as Mr.

Armadale’s steward to meet Mr. Armadale on his return to London? And who

so capable of influencing Mr. Bashwood in the proper way as the charming

object of Mr. Bashwood’s admiration?’

“There could be no doubt that Bashwood was the man to serve the doctor’s

purpose, and that my influence was to be trusted to make him serve

it. The difficulty was not here: the difficulty was in the unanswered

question that I had put to the doctor a minute since. I put it to him

again.

“‘Suppose Mr. Armadale’s steward meets his employer at the terminus,’ I

said. ‘May I ask once more how Mr. Armadale is to be persuaded to come

here?’

“‘Don’t think me ungallant,’ rejoined the doctor in his gentlest manner,

‘if I ask, on my side, how are men persuaded to do nine-tenths of the

foolish acts of their lives? They are persuaded by your charming sex.

The weak side of every man is the woman’s side of him. We have only

to discover the woman’s side of Mr. Armadale--to tickle him on it

gently--and to lead him our way with a silken string. I observe here,’

pursued the doctor, opening Armadale’s letter, ‘a reference to a certain

young lady, which looks promising. Where is the note that Mr. Armadale

speaks of as addressed to Miss Milroy?’

“Instead of answering him, I started, in a sudden burst of excitement,

to my feet. The instant he mentioned Miss Milroy’s name all that I had

heard from Bashwood of her illness, and of the cause of it, rushed back

into my memory. I saw the means of decoying Armadale into the Sanitarium

as plainly as I saw the doctor on the other side of the table, wondering

at the extraordinary change in me. What a luxury it was to make Miss

Milroy serve my interests at last!

“‘Never mind the note,’ I said. ‘It’s burned, for fear of accidents.

I can tell you all (and more) than the note could have told you. Miss

Milroy cuts the knot! Miss Milroy ends the difficulty! She is privately

engaged to him. She has heard the false report of his death; and she has

been seriously ill at Thorpe Ambrose ever since. When Bashwood meets him

at the station, the very first question he is certain to ask--’

“‘I see!’ exclaimed the doctor, anticipating me. ‘Mr. Bashwood has

nothing to do but to help the truth with a touch of fiction. When he

tells his master that the false report has reached Miss Milroy, he has

only to add that the shock has affected her head, and that she is

here under medical care. Perfect! perfect! We shall have him at the

Sanitarium as fast as the fastest cab-horse in London can bring him to

us. And mind! no risk--no necessity for trusting other people. This

is not a mad-house; this is not a licensed establishment; no doctors’

certificates are necessary here! My dear lady, I congratulate you; I

congratulate myself. Permit me to hand you the railway guide, with my

best compliments to Mr. Bashwood, and with the page turned down for him,

as an additional attention, at the right place.’

“Remembering how long I had kept Bashwood waiting for me, I took

the book at once, and wished the doctor good-evening without further

ceremony. As he politely opened the door for me, he reverted, without

the slightest necessity for doing so, and without a word from me to lead

to it, to the outburst of virtuous alarm which had escaped him at the

earlier part of our interview.

“‘I do hope,’ he said, ‘that you will kindly forget and forgive my

extraordinary want of tact and perception when--in short, when I caught

the fly. I positively blush at my own stupidity in putting a literal

interpretation on a lady’s little joke! Violence in My Sanitarium!’

exclaimed the doctor, with his eyes once more fixed attentively on my

face--‘violence in this enlightened nineteenth century! Was there ever

anything so ridiculous? Do fasten your cloak before you go out, it is so

cold and raw! Shall I escort you? Shall I send my servant? Ah, you were

always independent! always, if I may say so, a host in yourself! May

I call to-morrow morning, and hear what you have settled with Mr.

Bashwood?’

“I said yes, and got away from him at last. In a quarter of an hour more

I was back at my lodgings, and was informed by the servant that ‘the

elderly gentleman’ was still waiting for me.

“I have not got the heart or the patience--I hardly know which--to waste

many words on what passed between me and Bashwood. It was so easy, so

degradingly easy, to pull the strings of the poor old puppet in any

way I pleased! I met none of the difficulties which I should have

been obliged to meet in the case of a younger man, or of a man less

infatuated with admiration for me. I left the allusions to Miss Milroy

in Armadale’s letter, which had naturally puzzled him, to be explained

at a future time. I never even troubled myself to invent a plausible

reason for wishing him to meet Armadale at the terminus, and to entrap

him by a stratagem into the doctor’s Sanitarium. All that I found it

necessary to do was to refer to what I had written to Mr. Bashwood, on

my arrival in London, and to what I had afterward said to him, when he

came to answer my letter personally at the hotel.

“‘You know already,’ I said, ‘that my marriage has not been a happy

one. Draw your own conclusions from that; and don’t press me to tell you

whether the news of Mr. Armadale’s rescue from the sea is, or is not,

the welcome news that it ought to be to his wife!’ That was enough to

put his withered old face in a glow, and to set his withered old hopes

growing again. I had only to add, ‘If you will do what I ask you to do,

no matter how incomprehensible and how mysterious my request may seem

to be; and if you will accept my assurances that you shall run no risk

yourself, and that you shall receive the proper explanations at the

proper time, you will have such a claim on my gratitude and my regard as

no man living has ever had yet!’ I had only to say those words, and to

point them by a look and a stolen pressure of his hand, and I had him at

my feet, blindly eager to obey me. If he could have seen what I thought

of myself; but that doesn’t matter: he saw nothing.

“Hours have passed since I sent him away (pledged to secrecy, possessed

of his instructions, and provided with his time-table) to the hotel

near the terminus, at which he is to stay till Armadale appears on the

railway platform. The excitement of the earlier part of the evening has

all worn off; and the dull, numbed sensation has got me again. Are my

energies wearing out, I wonder, just at the time when I most want them?

Or is some foreshadowing of disaster creeping over me which I don’t yet

understand?

“I might be in a humor to sit here for some time longer, thinking

thoughts like these, and letting them find their way into words at their

own will and pleasure, if my Diary would only let me. But my idle pen

has been busy enough to make its way to the end of the volume. I have

reached the last morsel of space left on the last page; and whether I

like it or not, I must close the book this time for good and all, when I

close it to-night.

“Good-by, my old friend and companion of many a miserable day! Having

nothing else to be fond of, I half suspect myself of having been

unreasonably fond of _you_.

“What a fool I am!”