Armadale

ARMADALE

By Wilkie Collins

TO

JOHN FORSTER.

In acknowledgment of the services which he has rendered to the cause of

literature by his “Life of Goldsmith;” and in affectionate remembrance

of a friendship which is associated with some of the happiest years of

my life.

Readers in general--on whose friendly reception experience has given me

some reason to rely--will, I venture to hope, appreciate whatever merit

there may be in this story without any prefatory pleading for it on my

part. They will, I think, see that it has not been hastily meditated or

idly wrought out. They will judge it accordingly, and I ask no more.

Readers in particular will, I have some reason to suppose, be here

and there disturbed, perhaps even offended, by finding that “Armadale”

oversteps, in more than one direction, the narrow limits within which

they are disposed to restrict the development of modern fiction--if they

can.

Nothing that I could say to these persons here would help me with them

as Time will help me if my work lasts. I am not afraid of my design

being permanently misunderstood, provided the execution has done it any

sort of justice. Estimated by the clap-trap morality of the present day,

this may be a very daring book. Judged by the Christian morality which

is of all time, it is only a book that is daring enough to speak the

truth.

LONDON, April, 1866.

ARMADALE.

PROLOGUE.

I. THE TRAVELERS.

It was the opening of the season of eighteen hundred and thirty-two, at

the Baths of Wildbad.

The evening shadows were beginning to gather over the quiet little

German town, and the diligence was expected every minute. Before the

door of the principal inn, waiting the arrival of the first visitors

of the year, were assembled the three notable personages of Wildbad,

accompanied by their wives--the mayor, representing the inhabitants;

the doctor, representing the waters; the landlord, representing his own

establishment. Beyond this select circle, grouped snugly about the trim

little square in front of the inn, appeared the towns-people in general,

mixed here and there with the country people, in their quaint German

costume, placidly expectant of the diligence--the men in short black

jackets, tight black breeches, and three-cornered beaver hats; the women

with their long light hair hanging in one thickly plaited tail behind

them, and the waists of their short woolen gowns inserted modestly

in the region of their shoulder-blades. Round the outer edge of the

assemblage thus formed, flying detachments of plump white-headed

children careered in perpetual motion; while, mysteriously apart from

the rest of the inhabitants, the musicians of the Baths stood collected

in one lost corner, waiting the appearance of the first visitors to play

the first tune of the season in the form of a serenade. The light of

a May evening was still bright on the tops of the great wooded hills

watching high over the town on the right hand and the left; and the

cool breeze that comes before sunset came keenly fragrant here with the

balsamic odor of the first of the Black Forest.

“Mr. Landlord,” said the mayor’s wife (giving the landlord his title),

“have you any foreign guests coming on this first day of the season?”

“Madame Mayoress,” replied the landlord (returning the compliment), “I

have two. They have written--the one by the hand of his servant, the

other by his own hand apparently--to order their rooms; and they

are from England, both, as I think by their names. If you ask me to

pronounce those names, my tongue hesitates; if you ask me to spell them,

here they are, letter by letter, first and second in their order as

they come. First, a high-born stranger (by title Mister) who introduces

himself in eight letters, A, r, m, a, d, a, l, e--and comes ill in his

own carriage. Second, a high-born stranger (by title Mister also), who

introduces himself in four letters--N, e, a, l--and comes ill in the

diligence. His excellency of the eight letters writes to me (by his

servant) in French; his excellency of the four letters writes to me in

German. The rooms of both are ready. I know no more.”

“Perhaps,” suggested the mayor’s wife, “Mr. Doctor has heard from one or

both of these illustrious strangers?”

“From one only, Madam Mayoress; but not, strictly speaking, from the

person himself. I have received a medical report of his excellency of

the eight letters, and his case seems a bad one. God help him!”

“The diligence!” cried a child from the outskirts of the crowd.

The musicians seized their instruments, and silence fell on the whole

community. From far away in the windings of the forest gorge, the ring

of horses’ bells came faintly clear through the evening stillness. Which

carriage was approaching--the private carriage with Mr. Armadale, or the

public carriage with Mr. Neal?

“Play, my friends!” cried the mayor to the musicians. “Public or

private, here are the first sick people of the season. Let them find us

cheerful.”

The band played a lively dance tune, and the children in the square

footed it merrily to the music. At the same moment, their elders near

the inn door drew aside, and disclosed the first shadow of gloom that

fell over the gayety and beauty of the scene. Through the opening made

on either hand, a little procession of stout country girls advanced,

each drawing after her an empty chair on wheels; each in waiting (and

knitting while she waited) for the paralyzed wretches who came helpless

by hundreds then--who come helpless by thousands now--to the waters of

Wildbad for relief.

While the band played, while the children danced, while the buzz of many

talkers deepened, while the strong young nurses of the coming cripples

knitted impenetrably, a woman’s insatiable curiosity about other women

asserted itself in the mayor’s wife. She drew the landlady aside, and

whispered a question to her on the spot.

“A word more, ma’am,” said the mayor’s wife, “about the two strangers

from England. Are their letters explicit? Have they got any ladies with

them?”

“The one by the diligence--no,” replied the landlady. “But the one by

the private carriage--yes. He comes with a child; he comes with a nurse;

and,” concluded the landlady, skillfully keeping the main point of

interest till the last, “he comes with a Wife.”

The mayoress brightened; the doctoress (assisting at the conference)

brightened; the landlady nodded significantly. In the minds of all three

the same thought started into life at the same moment--“We shall see the

Fashions!”

In a minute more, there was a sudden movement in the crowd; and a chorus

of voices proclaimed that the travelers were at hand.

By this time the coming vehicle was in sight, and all further doubt was

at an end. It was the diligence that now approached by the long street

leading into the square--the diligence (in a dazzling new coat of yellow

paint) that delivered the first visitors of the season at the inn door.

Of the ten travelers released from the middle compartment and the back

compartment of the carriage--all from various parts of Germany--three

were lifted out helpless, and were placed in the chairs on wheels to be

drawn to their lodgings in the town. The front compartment contained

two passengers only--Mr. Neal and his traveling servant. With an arm

on either side to assist him, the stranger (whose malady appeared to

be locally confined to a lameness in one of his feet) succeeded in

descending the steps of the carriage easily enough. While he steadied

himself on the pavement by the help of his stick--looking not

over-patiently toward the musicians who were serenading him with the

waltz in “Der Freischutz”--his personal appearance rather damped the

enthusiasm of the friendly little circle assembled to welcome him. He

was a lean, tall, serious, middle-aged man, with a cold gray eye and a

long upper lip, with overhanging eyebrows and high cheek-bones; a man

who looked what he was--every inch a Scotchman.

“Where is the proprietor of this hotel?” he asked, speaking in the

German language, with a fluent readiness of expression, and an icy

coldness of manner. “Fetch the doctor,” he continued, when the landlord

had presented himself, “I want to see him immediately.”

“I am here already, sir,” said the doctor, advancing from the circle of

friends, “and my services are entirely at your disposal.”

“Thank you,” said Mr. Neal, looking at the doctor, as the rest of us

look at a dog when we have whistled and the dog has come. “I shall be

glad to consult you to-morrow morning, at ten o’clock, about my own

case. I only want to trouble you now with a message which I have

undertaken to deliver. We overtook a traveling carriage on the road here

with a gentleman in it--an Englishman, I believe--who appeared to be

seriously ill. A lady who was with him begged me to see you immediately

on my arrival, and to secure your professional assistance in removing

the patient from the carriage. Their courier has met with an accident,

and has been left behind on the road, and they are obliged to travel

very slowly. If you are here in an hour, you will be here in time to

receive them. That is the message. Who is this gentleman who appears to

be anxious to speak to me? The mayor? If you wish to see my passport,

sir, my servant will show it to you. No? You wish to welcome me to the

place, and to offer your services? I am infinitely flattered. If you

have any authority to shorten the performances of your town band, you

would be doing me a kindness to exert it. My nerves are irritable, and

I dislike music. Where is the landlord? No; I want to see my rooms. I

don’t want your arm; I can get upstairs with the help of my stick. Mr.

Mayor and Mr. Doctor, we need not detain one another any longer. I wish

you good-night.”

Both mayor and doctor looked after the Scotchman as he limped upstairs,

and shook their heads together in mute disapproval of him. The ladies,

as usual, went a step further, and expressed their opinions openly in

the plainest words. The case under consideration (so far as _they_ were

concerned) was the scandalous case of a man who had passed them over

entirely without notice. Mrs. Mayor could only attribute such an outrage

to the native ferocity of a savage. Mrs. Doctor took a stronger view

still, and considered it as proceeding from the inbred brutality of a

hog.

The hour of waiting for the traveling-carriage wore on, and the creeping

night stole up the hillsides softly. One by one the stars appeared, and

the first lights twinkled in the windows of the inn. As the darkness

came, the last idlers deserted the square; as the darkness came,

the mighty silence of the forest above flowed in on the valley, and

strangely and suddenly hushed the lonely little town.

The hour of waiting wore out, and the figure of the doctor, walking

backward and forward anxiously, was still the only living figure left in

the square. Five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes, were counted out

by the doctor’s watch, before the first sound came through the night

silence to warn him of the approaching carriage. Slowly it emerged into

the square, at the walking pace of the horses, and drew up, as a hearse

might have drawn up, at the door of the inn.

“Is the doctor here?” asked a woman’s voice, speaking, out of the

darkness of the carriage, in the French language.

“I am here, madam,” replied the doctor, taking a light from the

landlord’s hand and opening the carriage door.

The first face that the light fell on was the face of the lady who had

just spoken--a young, darkly beautiful woman, with the tears standing

thick and bright in her eager black eyes. The second face revealed was

the face of a shriveled old negress, sitting opposite the lady on the

back seat. The third was the face of a little sleeping child in the

negress’s lap. With a quick gesture of impatience, the lady signed to

the nurse to leave the carriage first with the child. “Pray take them

out of the way,” she said to the landlady; “pray take them to their

room.” She got out herself when her request had been complied with.

Then the light fell clear for the first time on the further side of the

carriage, and the fourth traveler was disclosed to view.

He lay helpless on a mattress, supported by a stretcher; his hair, long

and disordered, under a black skull-cap; his eyes wide open, rolling

to and fro ceaselessly anxious; the rest of his face as void of all

expression of the character within him, and the thought within him, as

if he had been dead. There was no looking at him now, and guessing what

he might once have been. The leaden blank of his face met every question

as to his age, his rank, his temper, and his looks which that face might

once have answered, in impenetrable silence. Nothing spoke for him now

but the shock that had struck him with the death-in-life of paralysis.

The doctor’s eye questioned his lower limbs, and Death-in-Life answered,

_I am here_. The doctor’s eye, rising attentively by way of his hands

and arms, questioned upward and upward to the muscles round his mouth,

and Death-in-Life answered, _I am coming_.

In the face of a calamity so unsparing and so dreadful, there was

nothing to be said. The silent sympathy of help was all that could be

offered to the woman who stood weeping at the carriage door.

As they bore him on his bed across the hall of the hotel, his wandering

eyes encountered the face of his wife. They rested on her for a moment,

and in that moment he spoke.

“The child?” he said in English, with a slow, thick, laboring

articulation.

“The child is safe upstairs,” she answered, faintly.

“My desk?”

“It is in my hands. Look! I won’t trust it to anybody; I am taking care

of it for you myself.”

He closed his eyes for the first time after that answer, and said no

more. Tenderly and skillfully he was carried up the stairs, with his

wife on one side of him, and the doctor (ominously silent) on the other.

The landlord and the servants following saw the door of his room open

and close on him; heard the lady burst out crying hysterically as soon

as she was alone with the doctor and the sick man; saw the doctor come

out, half an hour later, with his ruddy face a shade paler than usual;

pressed him eagerly for information, and received but one answer to all

their inquiries--“Wait till I have seen him to-morrow. Ask me nothing

to-night.” They all knew the doctor’s ways, and they augured ill when he

left them hurriedly with that reply.

So the two first English visitors of the year came to the Baths of

Wildbad in the season of eighteen hundred and thirty-two.

II. THE SOLID SIDE OF THE SCOTCH CHARACTER.

AT ten o’clock the next morning, Mr. Neal--waiting for the medical visit

which he had himself appointed for that hour--looked at his watch, and

discovered, to his amazement, that he was waiting in vain. It was close

on eleven when the door opened at last, and the doctor entered the room.

“I appointed ten o’clock for your visit,” said Mr. Neal. “In my country,

a medical man is a punctual man.”

“In my country,” returned the doctor, without the least ill-humor, “a

medical man is exactly like other men--he is at the mercy of accidents.

Pray grant me your pardon, sir, for being so long after my time; I have

been detained by a very distressing case--the case of Mr. Armadale,

whose traveling-carriage you passed on the road yesterday.”

Mr. Neal looked at his medical attendant with a sour surprise. There

was a latent anxiety in the doctor’s eye, a latent preoccupation in the

doctor’s manner, which he was at a loss to account for. For a moment

the two faces confronted each other silently, in marked national

contrast--the Scotchman’s, long and lean, hard and regular; the

German’s, plump and florid, soft and shapeless. One face looked as if it

had never been young; the other, as if it would never grow old.

“Might I venture to remind you,” said Mr. Neal, “that the case now under

consideration is MY case, and not Mr. Armadale’s?”

“Certainly,” replied the doctor, still vacillating between the case

he had come to see and the case he had just left. “You appear to be

suffering from lameness; let me look at your foot.”

Mr. Neal’s malady, however serious it might be in his own estimation,

was of no extraordinary importance in a medical point of view. He was

suffering from a rheumatic affection of the ankle-joint. The necessary

questions were asked and answered and the necessary baths were

prescribed. In ten minutes the consultation was at an end, and the

patient was waiting in significant silence for the medical adviser to

take his leave.

“I cannot conceal from myself,” said the doctor, rising, and hesitating

a little, “that I am intruding on you. But I am compelled to beg your

indulgence if I return to the subject of Mr. Armadale.”

“May I ask what compels you?”

“The duty which I owe as a Christian,” answered the doctor, “to a dying

man.”

Mr. Neal started. Those who touched his sense of religious duty touched

the quickest sense in his nature.

“You have established your claim on my attention,” he said, gravely. “My

time is yours.”

“I will not abuse your kindness,” replied the doctor, resuming his

chair. “I will be as short as I can. Mr. Armadale’s case is briefly

this: He has passed the greater part of his life in the West Indies--a

wild life, and a vicious life, by his own confession. Shortly after

his marriage--now some three years since--the first symptoms of an

approaching paralytic affection began to show themselves, and his

medical advisers ordered him away to try the climate of Europe. Since

leaving the West Indies he has lived principally in Italy, with no

benefit to his health. From Italy, before the last seizure attacked him,

he removed to Switzerland, and from Switzerland he has been sent to this

place. So much I know from his doctor’s report; the rest I can tell you

from my own personal experience. Mr. Armadale has been sent to Wildbad

too late: he is virtually a dead man. The paralysis is fast spreading

upward, and disease of the lower part of the spine has already taken

place. He can still move his hands a little, but he can hold nothing

in his fingers. He can still articulate, but he may wake speechless

to-morrow or next day. If I give him a week more to live, I give him

what I honestly believe to be the utmost length of his span. At his own

request I told him, as carefully and as tenderly as I could, what I

have just told you. The result was very distressing; the violence of the

patient’s agitation was a violence which I despair of describing to you.

I took the liberty of asking him whether his affairs were unsettled.

Nothing of the sort. His will is in the hands of his executor in London,

and he leaves his wife and child well provided for. My next question

succeeded better; it hit the mark: ‘Have you something on your mind

to do before you die which is not done yet?’ He gave a great gasp of

relief, which said, as no words could have said it, Yes. ‘Can I help

you?’ ‘Yes. I have something to write that I _must_ write; can you make

me hold a pen?’

“He might as well have asked me if I could perform a miracle. I could

only say No. ‘If I dictate the words,’ he went on, ‘can you write what I

tell you to write?’ Once more I could only say No I understand a

little English, but I can neither speak it nor write it. Mr. Armadale

understands French when it is spoken (as I speak it to him) slowly, but

he cannot express himself in that language; and of German he is totally

ignorant. In this difficulty, I said, what any one else in my situation

would have said: ‘Why ask _me_? there is Mrs. Armadale at your service

in the next room.’ Before I could get up from my chair to fetch her,

he stopped me--not by words, but by a look of horror which fixed me, by

main force of astonishment, in my place. ‘Surely,’ I said, ‘your wife

is the fittest person to write for you as you desire?’ ‘The last person

under heaven!’ he answered. ‘What!’ I said, ‘you ask me, a foreigner

and a stranger, to write words at your dictation which you keep a secret

from your wife!’ Conceive my astonishment when he answered me, without

a moment’s hesitation, ‘Yes!’ I sat lost; I sat silent. ‘If _you_

can’t write English,’ he said, ‘find somebody who can.’ I tried to

remonstrate. He burst into a dreadful moaning cry--a dumb entreaty, like

the entreaty of a dog. ‘Hush! hush!’ I said, ‘I will find somebody.’

‘To-day!’ he broke out, ‘before my speech fails me, like my hand.’

‘To-day, in an hour’s time.’ He shut his eyes; he quieted himself

instantly. ‘While I am waiting for you,’ he said, ‘let me see my little

boy.’ He had shown no tenderness when he spoke of his wife, but I saw

the tears on his cheeks when he asked for his child. My profession, sir,

has not made me so hard a man as you might think; and my doctor’s heart

was as heavy, when I went out to fetch the child, as if I had not been a

doctor at all. I am afraid you think this rather weak on my part?”

The doctor looked appealingly at Mr. Neal. He might as well have looked

at a rock in the Black Forest. Mr. Neal entirely declined to be drawn by

any doctor in Christendom out of the regions of plain fact.

“Go on,” he said. “I presume you have not told me all that you have to

tell me, yet?”

“Surely you understand my object in coming here, now?” returned the

other.

“Your object is plain enough, at last. You invite me to connect myself

blindfold with a matter which is in the last degree suspicious, so far.

I decline giving you any answer until I know more than I know now. Did

you think it necessary to inform this man’s wife of what had passed

between you, and to ask her for an explanation?”

“Of course I thought it necessary!” said the doctor, indignant at the

reflection on his humanity which the question seemed to imply. “If ever

I saw a woman fond of her husband, and sorry for her husband, it is this

unhappy Mrs. Armadale. As soon as we were left alone together, I sat

down by her side, and I took her hand in mine. Why not? I am an ugly old

man, and I may allow myself such liberties as these!”

“Excuse me,” said the impenetrable Scotchman. “I beg to suggest that you

are losing the thread of the narrative.”

“Nothing more likely,” returned the doctor, recovering his good humor.

“It is in the habit of my nation to be perpetually losing the thread;

and it is evidently in the habit of yours, sir, to be perpetually

finding it. What an example here of the order of the universe, and the

everlasting fitness of things!”

“Will you oblige me, once for all, by confining yourself to the facts,”

persisted Mr. Neal, frowning impatiently. “May I inquire, for my own

information, whether Mrs. Armadale could tell you what it is her husband

wishes me to write, and why it is that he refuses to let her write for

him?”

“There is my thread found--and thank you for finding it!” said the

doctor. “You shall hear what Mrs. Armadale had to tell me, in

Mrs. Armadale’s own words. ‘The cause that now shuts me out of his

confidence,’ she said, ‘is, I firmly believe, the same cause that has

always shut me out of his heart. I am the wife he has wedded, but I am

not the woman he loves. I knew when he married me that another man had

won from him the woman he loved. I thought I could make him forget her.

I hoped when I married him; I hoped again when I bore him a son. Need

I tell you the end of my hopes--you have seen it for yourself.’ (Wait,

sir, I entreat you! I have not lost the thread again; I am following it

inch by inch.) ‘Is this all you know?’ I asked. ‘All I knew,’ she said,

‘till a short time since. It was when we were in Switzerland, and when

his illness was nearly at its worst, that news came to him by accident

of that other woman who has been the shadow and the poison of my

life--news that she (like me) had borne her husband a son. On the

instant of his making that discovery--a trifling discovery, if ever

there was one yet--a mortal fear seized on him: not for me, not for

himself; a fear for his own child. The same day (without a word to me)

he sent for the doctor. I was mean, wicked, what you please--I listened

at the door. I heard him say: _I have something to tell my son, when

my son grows old enough to understand me. Shall I live to tell it_? The

doctor would say nothing certain. The same night (still without a word

to me) he locked himself into his room. What would any woman, treated

as I was, have done in my place? She would have done as I did--she would

have listened again. I heard him say to himself: _I shall not live to

tell it: I must write it before I die_. I heard his pen scrape, scrape,

scrape over the paper; I heard him groaning and sobbing as he wrote;

I implored him for God’s sake to let me in. The cruel pen went scrape,

scrape, scrape; the cruel pen was all the answer he gave me. I waited

at the door--hours--I don’t know how long. On a sudden, the pen stopped;

and I heard no more. I whispered through the keyhole softly; I said I

was cold and weary with waiting; I said, Oh, my love, let me in! Not

even the cruel pen answered me now: silence answered me. With all the

strength of my miserable hands I beat at the door. The servants came up

and broke it in. We were too late; the harm was done. Over that fatal

letter, the stroke had struck him--over that fatal letter, we found him

paralyzed as you see him now. Those words which he wants you to write

are the words he would have written himself if the stroke had spared him

till the morning. From that time to this there has been a blank place

left in the letter; and it is that blank place which he has just asked

you to fill up.’--In those words Mrs. Armadale spoke to me; in those

words you have the sum and substance of all the information I can give.

Say, if you please, sir, have I kept the thread at last? Have I

shown you the necessity which brings me here from your countryman’s

death-bed?”

“Thus far,” said Mr. Neal, “you merely show me that you are exciting

yourself. This is too serious a matter to be treated as you are treating

it now. You have involved me in the business, and I insist on seeing my

way plainly. Don’t raise your hands; your hands are not a part of the

question. If I am to be concerned in the completion of this mysterious

letter, it is only an act of justifiable prudence on my part to inquire

what the letter is about. Mrs. Armadale appears to have favored you with

an infinite number of domestic particulars--in return, I presume, for

your polite attention in taking her by the hand. May I ask what she

could tell you about her husband’s letter, so far as her husband has

written it?”

“Mrs. Armadale could tell me nothing,” replied the doctor, with a sudden

formality in his manner, which showed that his forbearance was at last

failing him. “Before she was composed enough to think of the letter, her

husband had asked for it, and had caused it to be locked up in his desk.

She knows that he has since, time after time, tried to finish it, and

that, time after time, the pen has dropped from his fingers. She knows,

when all other hope of his restoration was at an end, that his medical

advisers encouraged him to hope in the famous waters of this place. And

last, she knows how that hope has ended; for she knows what I told her

husband this morning.”

The frown which had been gathering latterly on Mr. Neal’s face deepened

and darkened. He looked at the doctor as if the doctor had personally

offended him.

“The more I think of the position you are asking me to take,” he said,

“the less I like it. Can you undertake to say positively that Mr.

Armadale is in his right mind?”

“Yes; as positively as words can say it.”

“Does his wife sanction your coming here to request my interference?”

“His wife sends me to you--the only Englishman in Wildbad--to write for

your dying countryman what he cannot write for himself; and what no one

else in this place but you can write for him.”

That answer drove Mr. Neal back to the last inch of ground left him to

stand on. Even on that inch the Scotchman resisted still.

“Wait a little!” he said. “You put it strongly; let us be quite sure you

put it correctly as well. Let us be quite sure there is nobody to take

this responsibility but myself. There is a mayor in Wildbad, to

begin with--a man who possesses an official character to justify his

interference.”

“A man of a thousand,” said the doctor. “With one fault--he knows no

language but his own.”

“There is an English legation at Stuttgart,” persisted Mr. Neal.

“And there are miles on miles of the forest between this and Stuttgart,”

rejoined the doctor. “If we sent this moment, we could get no help from

the legation before to-morrow; and it is as likely as not, in the

state of this dying man’s articulation, that to-morrow may find him

speechless. I don’t know whether his last wishes are wishes harmless to

his child and to others, wishes hurtful to his child and to others; but

I _do_ know that they must be fulfilled at once or never, and that you

are the only man that can help him.”

That open declaration brought the discussion to a close. It fixed Mr.

Neal fast between the two alternatives of saying Yes, and committing an

act of imprudence, or of saying No, and committing an act of inhumanity.

There was a silence of some minutes. The Scotchman steadily reflected;

and the German steadily watched him.

The responsibility of saying the next words rested on Mr. Neal, and in

course of time Mr. Neal took it. He rose from his chair with a sullen

sense of injury lowering on his heavy eyebrows, and working sourly in

the lines at the corners of his mouth.

“My position is forced on me,” he said. “I have no choice but to accept

it.”

The doctor’s impulsive nature rose in revolt against the merciless

brevity and gracelessness of that reply. “I wish to God,” he broke out

fervently, “I knew English enough to take your place at Mr. Armadale’s

bedside!”

“Bating your taking the name of the Almighty in vain,” answered the

Scotchman, “I entirely agree with you. I wish you did.”

Without another word on either side, they left the room together--the

doctor leading the way.

III. THE WRECK OF THE TIMBER SHIP.

NO one answered the doctor’s knock when he and his companion reached the

antechamber door of Mr. Armadale’s apartments. They entered unannounced;

and when they looked into the sitting-room, the sitting-room was empty.

“I must see Mrs. Armadale,” said Mr. Neal. “I decline acting in the

matter unless Mrs. Armadale authorizes my interference with her own

lips.”

“Mrs. Armadale is probably with her husband,” replied the doctor.

He approached a door at the inner end of the sitting-room while he

spoke--hesitated--and, turning round again, looked at his sour companion

anxiously. “I am afraid I spoke a little harshly, sir, when we were

leaving your room,” he said. “I beg your pardon for it, with all my

heart. Before this poor afflicted lady comes in, will you--will you

excuse my asking your utmost gentleness and consideration for her?”

“No, sir,” retorted the other harshly; “I won’t excuse you. What right

have I given you to think me wanting in gentleness and consideration

toward anybody?”

The doctor saw it was useless. “I beg your pardon again,” he said,

resignedly, and left the unapproachable stranger to himself.

Mr. Neal walked to the window, and stood there, with his eyes

mechanically fixed on the prospect, composing his mind for the coming

interview.

It was midday; the sun shone bright and warm; and all the little world

of Wildbad was alive and merry in the genial springtime. Now and again

heavy wagons, with black-faced carters in charge, rolled by the window,

bearing their precious lading of charcoal from the forest. Now and

again, hurled over the headlong current of the stream that runs

through the town, great lengths of timber, loosely strung together in

interminable series--with the booted raftsmen, pole in hand, poised

watchful at either end--shot swift and serpent-like past the houses

on their course to the distant Rhine. High and steep above the gabled

wooden buildings on the river-bank, the great hillsides, crested black

with firs, shone to the shining heavens in a glory of lustrous green.

In and out, where the forest foot-paths wound from the grass through the

trees, from the trees over the grass, the bright spring dresses of women

and children, on the search for wild flowers, traveled to and fro in

the lofty distance like spots of moving light. Below, on the walk by the

stream side, the booths of the little bazar that had opened punctually

with the opening season showed all their glittering trinkets, and

fluttered in the balmy air their splendor of many-colored flags.

Longingly, here the children looked at the show; patiently the sunburned

lasses plied their knitting as they paced the walk; courteously the

passing townspeople, by fours and fives, and the passing visitors, by

ones and twos, greeted each other, hat in hand; and slowly, slowly,

the cripple and the helpless in their chairs on wheels came out in the

cheerful noontide with the rest, and took their share of the blessed

light that cheers, of the blessed sun that shines for all.

On this scene the Scotchman looked, with eyes that never noted its

beauty, with a mind far away from every lesson that it taught. One by

one he meditated the words he should say when the wife came in. One by

one he pondered over the conditions he might impose before he took the

pen in hand at the husband’s bedside.

“Mrs. Armadale is here,” said the doctor’s voice, interposing suddenly

between his reflections and himself.

He turned on the instant, and saw before him, with the pure midday light

shining full on her, a woman of the mixed blood of the European and the

African race, with the Northern delicacy in the shape of her face, and

the Southern richness in its color--a woman in the prime of her beauty,

who moved with an inbred grace, who looked with an inbred fascination,

whose large, languid black eyes rested on him gratefully, whose little

dusky hand offered itself to him in mute expression of her thanks, with

the welcome that is given to the coming of a friend. For the first time

in his life the Scotchman was taken by surprise. Every self-preservative

word that he had been meditating but an instant since dropped out of his

memory. His thrice impenetrable armor of habitual suspicion, habitual

self-discipline, and habitual reserve, which had never fallen from him

in a woman’s presence before, fell from him in this woman’s presence,

and brought him to his knees, a conquered man. He took the hand she

offered him, and bowed over it his first honest homage to the sex, in

silence.

She hesitated on her side. The quick feminine perception which,

in happier circumstances, would have pounced on the secret of his

embarrassment in an instant, failed her now. She attributed his

strange reception of her to pride, to reluctance--to any cause but the

unexpected revelation of her own beauty. “I have no words to thank you,”

she said, faintly, trying to propitiate him. “I should only distress you

if I tried to speak.” Her lip began to tremble, she drew back a little,

and turned away her head in silence.

The doctor, who had been standing apart, quietly observant in a corner,

advanced before Mr. Neal could interfere, and led Mrs. Armadale to a

chair. “Don’t be afraid of him,” whispered the good man, patting her

gently on the shoulder. “He was hard as iron in my hands, but I think,

by the look of him, he will be soft as wax in yours. Say the words I

told you to say, and let us take him to your husband’s room, before

those sharp wits of his have time to recover themselves.”

She roused her sinking resolution, and advanced half-way to the window

to meet Mr. Neal. “My kind friend, the doctor, has told me, sir, that

your only hesitation in coming here is a hesitation on my account,” she

said, her head drooping a little, and her rich color fading away while

she spoke. “I am deeply grateful, but I entreat you not to think

of _me_. What my husband wishes--” Her voice faltered; she waited

resolutely, and recovered herself. “What my husband wishes in his last

moments, I wish too.”

This time Mr. Neal was composed enough to answer her. In low, earnest

tones, he entreated her to say no more. “I was only anxious to show you

every consideration,” he said. “I am only anxious now to spare you every

distress.” As he spoke, something like a glow of color rose slowly on

his sallow face. Her eyes were looking at him, softly attentive; and he

thought guiltily of his meditations at the window before she came in.

The doctor saw his opportunity. He opened the door that led into Mr.

Armadale’s room, and stood by it, waiting silently. Mrs. Armadale

entered first. In a minute more the door was closed again; and Mr.

Neal stood committed to the responsibility that had been forced on

him--committed beyond recall.

The room was decorated in the gaudy continental fashion, and the warm

sunlight was shining in joyously. Cupids and flowers were painted on

the ceiling; bright ribbons looped up the white window-curtains; a smart

gilt clock ticked on a velvet-covered mantelpiece; mirrors gleamed on

the walls, and flowers in all the colors of the rainbow speckled the

carpet. In the midst of the finery, and the glitter, and the light,

lay the paralyzed man, with his wandering eyes, and his lifeless lower

face--his head propped high with many pillows; his helpless hands laid

out over the bed-clothes like the hands of a corpse. By the bed head

stood, grim, and old, and silent, the shriveled black nurse; and on the

counter-pane, between his father’s outspread hands, lay the child, in

his little white frock, absorbed in the enjoyment of a new toy. When the

door opened, and Mrs. Armadale led the way in, the boy was tossing

his plaything--a soldier on horseback--backward and forward over the

helpless hands on either side of him; and the father’s wandering

eyes were following the toy to and fro, with a stealthy and ceaseless

vigilance--a vigilance as of a wild animal, terrible to see.

The moment Mr. Neal appeared in the doorway, those restless eyes

stopped, looked up, and fastened on the stranger with a fierce eagerness

of inquiry. Slowly the motionless lips struggled into movement. With

thick, hesitating articulation, they put the question which the eyes

asked mutely, into words: “Are you the man?”

Mr. Neal advanced to the bedside, Mrs. Armadale drawing back from it

as he approached, and waiting with the doctor at the further end of

the room. The child looked up, toy in hand, as the stranger came near,

opened his bright brown eyes in momentary astonishment, and then went on

with his game.

“I have been made acquainted with your sad situation, sir,” said

Mr. Neal; “and I have come here to place my services at your

disposal--services which no one but myself, as your medical attendant

informs me, is in a position to render you in this strange place.

My name is Neal. I am a writer to the signet in Edinburgh; and I may

presume to say for myself that any confidence you wish to place in me

will be confidence not improperly bestowed.”

The eyes of the beautiful wife were not confusing him now. He spoke

to the helpless husband quietly and seriously, without his customary

harshness, and with a grave compassion in his manner which presented him

at his best. The sight of the death-bed had steadied him.

“You wish me to write something for you?” he resumed, after waiting for

a reply, and waiting in vain.

“Yes!” said the dying man, with the all-mastering impatience which his

tongue was powerless to express, glittering angrily in his eye. “My hand

is gone, and my speech is going. Write!”

Before there was time to speak again, Mr. Neal heard the rustling of a

woman’s dress, and the quick creaking of casters on the carpet behind

him. Mrs. Armadale was moving the writing-table across the room to

the foot of the bed. If he was to set up those safeguards of his own

devising that were to bear him harmless through all results to come, now

was the time, or never. He, kept his back turned on Mrs. Armadale, and

put his precautionary question at once in the plainest terms.

“May I ask, sir, before I take the pen in hand, what it is you wish me

to write?”

The angry eyes of the paralyzed man glittered brighter and brighter. His

lips opened and closed again. He made no reply.

Mr. Neal tried another precautionary question, in a new direction.

“When I have written what you wish me to write,” he asked, “what is to

be done with it?”

This time the answer came:

“Seal it up in my presence, and post it to my ex--”

His laboring articulation suddenly stopped and he looked piteously in

the questioner’s face for the next word.

“Do you mean your executor?”

“Yes.”

“It is a letter, I suppose, that I am to post?” There was no answer.

“May I ask if it is a letter altering your will?”

“Nothing of the sort.”

Mr. Neal considered a little. The mystery was thickening. The one way

out of it, so far, was the way traced faintly through that strange story

of the unfinished letter which the doctor had repeated to him in Mrs.

Armadale’s words. The nearer he approached his unknown responsibility,

the more ominous it seemed of something serious to come. Should he risk

another question before he pledged himself irrevocably? As the doubt

crossed his mind, he felt Mrs. Armadale’s silk dress touch him on the

side furthest from her husband. Her delicate dark hand was laid gently

on his arm; her full deep African eyes looked at him in submissive

entreaty. “My husband is very anxious,” she whispered. “Will you quiet

his anxiety, sir, by taking your place at the writing-table?”

It was from _her_ lips that the request came--from the lips of the

person who had the best right to hesitate, the wife who was excluded

from the secret! Most men in Mr. Neal’s position would have given up all

their safeguards on the spot. The Scotchman gave them all up but one.

“I will write what you wish me to write,” he said, addressing Mr.

Armadale. “I will seal it in your presence; and I will post it to your

executor myself. But, in engaging to do this, I must beg you to remember

that I am acting entirely in the dark; and I must ask you to excuse

me, if I reserve my own entire freedom of action, when your wishes

in relation to the writing and the posting of the letter have been

fulfilled.”

“Do you give me your promise?”

“If you want my promise, sir, I will give it--subject to the condition I

have just named.”

“Take your condition, and keep your promise. My desk,” he added, looking

at his wife for the first time.

She crossed the room eagerly to fetch the desk from a chair in a corner.

Returning with it, she made a passing sign to the negress, who still

stood, grim and silent, in the place that she had occupied from the

first. The woman advanced, obedient to the sign, to take the child from

the bed. At the instant when she touched him, the father’s eyes--fixed

previously on the desk--turned on her with the stealthy quickness of

a cat. “No!” he said. “No!” echoed the fresh voice of the boy, still

charmed with his plaything, and still liking his place on the bed. The

negress left the room, and the child, in high triumph, trotted his toy

soldier up and down on the bedclothes that lay rumpled over his father’s

breast. His mother’s lovely face contracted with a pang of jealousy as

she looked at him.

“Shall I open your desk?” she asked, pushing back the child’s plaything

sharply while she spoke. An answering look from her husband guided her

hand to the place under his pillow where the key was hidden. She opened

the desk, and disclosed inside some small sheets of manuscript pinned

together. “These?” she inquired, producing them.

“Yes,” he said. “You can go now.”

The Scotchman sitting at the writing-table, the doctor stirring a

stimulant mixture in a corner, looked at each other with an anxiety in

both their faces which they could neither of them control. The words

that banished the wife from the room were spoken. The moment had come.

“You can go now,” said Mr. Armadale, for the second time.

She looked at the child, established comfortably on the bed, and an ashy

paleness spread slowly over her face. She looked at the fatal

letter which was a sealed secret to her, and a torture of jealous

suspicion--suspicion of that other woman who had been the shadow and

the poison of her life--wrung her to the heart. After moving a few

steps from the bedside, she stopped, and came back again. Armed with the

double courage of her love and her despair, she pressed her lips on

her dying husband’s cheek, and pleaded with him for the last time. Her

burning tears dropped on his face as she whispered to him: “Oh, Allan,

think how I have loved you! think how hard I have tried to make you

happy! think how soon I shall lose you! Oh, my own love! don’t, don’t

send me away!”

The words pleaded for her; the kiss pleaded for her; the recollection

of the love that had been given to him, and never returned, touched the

heart of the fast-sinking man as nothing had touched it since the day

of his marriage. A heavy sigh broke from him. He looked at her, and

hesitated.

“Let me stay,” she whispered, pressing her face closer to his.

“It will only distress you,” he whispered back.

“Nothing distresses me, but being sent away from _you_!”

He waited. She saw that he was thinking, and waited too.

“If I let you stay a little--?”

“Yes! yes!”

“Will you go when I tell you?”

“I will.”

“On your oath?”

The fetters that bound his tongue seemed to be loosened for a moment in

the great outburst of anxiety which forced that question to his lips. He

spoke those startling words as he had spoken no words yet.

“On my oath!” she repeated, and, dropping on her knees at the bedside,

passionately kissed his hand. The two strangers in the room turned their

heads away by common consent. In the silence that followed, the one

sound stirring was the small sound of the child’s toy, as he moved it

hither and thither on the bed.

The doctor was the first who broke the spell of stillness which had

fallen on all the persons present. He approached the patient, and

examined him anxiously. Mrs. Armadale rose from her knees; and, first

waiting for her husband’s permission, carried the sheets of manuscript

which she had taken out of the desk to the table at which Mr. Neal was

waiting. Flushed and eager, more beautiful than ever in the vehement

agitation which still possessed her, she stooped over him as she put

the letter into his hands, and, seizing on the means to her end with a

woman’s headlong self-abandonment to her own impulses, whispered to

him, “Read it out from the beginning. I must and will hear it!” Her

eyes flashed their burning light into his; her breath beat on his cheek.

Before he could answer, before he could think, she was back with her

husband. In an instant she had spoken, and in that instant her beauty

had bent the Scotchman to her will. Frowning in reluctant acknowledgment

of his own inability to resist her, he turned over the leaves of the

letter; looked at the blank place where the pen had dropped from the

writer’s hand and had left a blot on the paper; turned back again to the

beginning, and said the words, in the wife’s interest, which the wife

herself had put into his lips.

“Perhaps, sir, you may wish to make some corrections,” he began, with

all his attention apparently fixed on the letter, and with every outward

appearance of letting his sour temper again get the better of him.

“Shall I read over to you what you have already written?”

Mrs. Armadale, sitting at the bed head on one side, and the doctor, with

his fingers on the patient’s pulse, sitting on the other, waited with

widely different anxieties for the answer to Mr. Neal’s question. Mr.

Armadale’s eyes turned searchingly from his child to his wife.

“You _will_ hear it?” he said. Her breath came and went quickly; her

hand stole up and took his; she bowed her head in silence. Her husband

paused, taking secret counsel with his thoughts, and keeping his eyes

fixed on his wife. At last he decided, and gave the answer. “Read it,”

he said, “and stop when I tell you.”

It was close on one o’clock, and the bell was ringing which summoned the

visitors to their early dinner at the inn. The quick beat of footsteps,

and the gathering hum of voices outside, penetrated gayly into the room,

as Mr. Neal spread the manuscript before him on the table, and read the

opening sentences in these words:

“I address this letter to my son, when my son is of an age to understand

it. Having lost all hope of living to see my boy grow up to manhood, I

have no choice but to write here what I would fain have said to him at a

future time with my own lips.

“I have three objects in writing. First, to reveal the circumstances

which attended the marriage of an English lady of my acquaintance, in

the island of Madeira. Secondly, to throw the true light on the death of

her husband a short time afterward, on board the French timber ship _La

Grace de Dieu_. Thirdly, to warn my son of a danger that lies in wait

for him--a danger that will rise from his father’s grave when the earth

has closed over his father’s ashes.

“The story of the English lady’s marriage begins with my inheriting the

great Armadale property, and my taking the fatal Armadale name.

“I am the only surviving son of the late Mathew Wrentmore, of Barbadoes.

I was born on our family estate in that island, and I lost my father

when I was still a child. My mother was blindly fond of me; she denied

me nothing, she let me live as I pleased. My boyhood and youth were

passed in idleness and self-indulgence, among people--slaves and

half-castes mostly--to whom my will was law. I doubt if there is a

gentleman of my birth and station in all England as ignorant as I am at

this moment. I doubt if there was ever a young man in this world whose

passions were left so entirely without control of any kind as mine were

in those early days.

“My mother had a woman’s romantic objection to my father’s homely

Christian name. I was christened Allan, after the name of a wealthy

cousin of my father’s--the late Allan Armadale--who possessed estates in

our neighborhood, the largest and most productive in the island, and who

consented to be my godfather by proxy. Mr. Armadale had never seen his

West Indian property. He lived in England; and, after sending me the

customary godfather’s present, he held no further communication with my

parents for years afterward. I was just twenty-one before we heard again

from Mr. Armadale. On that occasion my mother received a letter from

him asking if I was still alive, and offering no less (if I was) than to

make me the heir to his West Indian property.

“This piece of good fortune fell to me entirely through the misconduct

of Mr. Armadale’s son, an only child. The young man had disgraced

himself beyond all redemption; had left his home an outlaw; and had been

thereupon renounced by his father at once and forever. Having no other

near male relative to succeed him, Mr. Armadale thought of his cousin’s

son and his own godson; and he offered the West Indian estate to me, and

my heirs after me, on one condition--that I and my heirs should take

his name. The proposal was gratefully accepted, and the proper legal

measures were adopted for changing my name in the colony and in the

mother country. By the next mail information reached Mr. Armadale that

his condition had been complied with. The return mail brought news

from the lawyers. The will had been altered in my favor, and in a week

afterward the death of my benefactor had made me the largest proprietor

and the richest man in Barbadoes.

“This was the first event in the chain. The second event followed it six

weeks afterward.

“At that time there happened to be a vacancy in the clerk’s office on

the estate, and there came to fill it a young man about my own age who

had recently arrived in the island. He announced himself by the name of

Fergus Ingleby. My impulses governed me in everything; I knew no law but

the law of my own caprice, and I took a fancy to the stranger the moment

I set eyes on him. He had the manners of a gentleman, and he possessed

the most attractive social qualities which, in my small experience, I

had ever met with. When I heard that the written references to character

which he had brought with him were pronounced to be unsatisfactory, I

interfered, and insisted that he should have the place. My will was law,

and he had it.

“My mother disliked and distrusted Ingleby from the first. When she

found the intimacy between us rapidly ripening; when she found me

admitting this inferior to the closest companionship and confidence

(I had lived with my inferiors all my life, and I liked it), she made

effort after effort to part us, and failed in one and all. Driven to her

last resources, she resolved to try the one chance left--the chance of

persuading me to take a voyage which I had often thought of--a voyage to

England.

“Before she spoke to me on the subject, she resolved to interest me

in the idea of seeing England, as I had never been interested yet. She

wrote to an old friend and an old admirer of hers, the late Stephen

Blanchard, of Thorpe Ambrose, in Norfolk--a gentleman of landed estate,

and a widower with a grown-up family. After-discoveries informed me that

she must have alluded to their former attachment (which was checked,

I believe, by the parents on either side); and that, in asking Mr.

Blanchard’s welcome for her son when he came to England, she made

inquiries about his daughter, which hinted at the chance of a marriage

uniting the two families, if the young lady and I met and liked one

another. We were equally matched in every respect, and my mother’s

recollection of her girlish attachment to Mr. Blanchard made the

prospect of my marrying her old admirer’s daughter the brightest and

happiest prospect that her eyes could see. Of all this I knew nothing

until Mr. Blanchard’s answer arrived at Barbadoes. Then my mother showed

me the letter, and put the temptation which was to separate me from

Fergus Ingleby openly in my way.

“Mr. Blanchard’s letter was dated from the Island of Madeira. He was

out of health, and he had been ordered there by the doctors to try the

climate. His daughter was with him. After heartily reciprocating all my

mother’s hopes and wishes, he proposed (if I intended leaving Barbadoes

shortly) that I should take Madeira on my way to England, and pay him a

visit at his temporary residence in the island. If this could not be,

he mentioned the time at which he expected to be back in England, when

I might be sure of finding a welcome at his own house of Thorpe

Ambrose. In conclusion, he apologized for not writing at greater length;

explaining that his sight was affected, and that he had disobeyed the

doctor’s orders by yielding to the temptation of writing to his old

friend with his own hand.

“Kindly as it was expressed, the letter itself might have had little

influence on me. But there was something else besides the letter; there

was inclosed in it a miniature portrait of Miss Blanchard. At the back

of the portrait, her father had written, half-jestingly, half-tenderly,

‘I can’t ask my daughter to spare my eyes as usual, without telling her

of your inquiries, and putting a young lady’s diffidence to the blush.

So I send her in effigy (without her knowledge) to answer for herself.

It is a good likeness of a good girl. If she likes your son--and if I

like him, which I am sure I shall--we may yet live, my good friend, to

see our children what we might once have been ourselves--man and wife.’

My mother gave me the miniature with the letter. The portrait at once

struck me--I can’t say why, I can’t say how--as nothing of the kind had

ever struck me before.

“Harder intellects than mine might have attributed the extraordinary

impression produced on me to the disordered condition of my mind at that

time; to the weariness of my own base pleasures which had been gaining

on me for months past, to the undefined longing which that weariness

implied for newer interests and fresher hopes than any that had

possessed me yet. I attempted no such sober self-examination as this: I

believed in destiny then, I believe in destiny now. It was enough for

me to know--as I did know--that the first sense I had ever felt of

something better in my nature than my animal self was roused by that

girl’s face looking at me from her picture as no woman’s face had ever

looked at me yet. In those tender eyes--in the chance of making that

gentle creature my wife--I saw my destiny written. The portrait which

had come into my hands so strangely and so unexpectedly was the silent

messenger of happiness close at hand, sent to warn, to encourage, to

rouse me before it was too late. I put the miniature under my pillow at

night; I looked at it again the next morning. My conviction of the day

before remained as strong as ever; my superstition (if you please to

call it so) pointed out to me irresistibly the way on which I should go.

There was a ship in port which was to sail for England in a fortnight,

touching at Madeira. In that ship I took my passage.”

Thus far the reader had advanced with no interruption to disturb him.

But at the last words the tones of another voice, low and broken,

mingled with his own.

“Was she a fair woman,” asked the voice, “or dark, like me?”

Mr. Neal paused, and looked up. The doctor was still at the bed head,

with his fingers mechanically on the patient’s pulse. The child, missing

his midday sleep, was beginning to play languidly with his new toy. The

father’s eyes were watching him with a rapt and ceaseless attention. But

one great change was visible in the listeners since the narrative had

begun. Mrs. Armadale had dropped her hold of her husband’s hand, and sat

with her face steadily turned away from him The hot African blood burned

red in her dusky cheeks as she obstinately repeated the question: “Was

she a fair woman, or dark, like me?”

“Fair,” said her husband, without looking at her.

Her hands, lying clasped together in her lap, wrung each other hard--she

said no more. Mr. Neal’s overhanging eyebrows lowered ominously as

he returned to the narrative. He had incurred his own severe

displeasure--he had caught himself in the act of secretly pitying her.

“I have said”--the letter proceeded--“that Ingleby was admitted to my

closest confidence. I was sorry to leave him; and I was distressed by

his evident surprise and mortification when he heard that I was going

away. In my own justification, I showed him the letter and the likeness,

and told him the truth. His interest in the portrait seemed to be hardly

inferior to my own. He asked me about Miss Blanchard’s family and

Miss Blanchard’s fortune with the sympathy of a true friend; and he

strengthened my regard for him, and my belief in him, by putting himself

out of the question, and by generously encouraging me to persist in my

new purpose. When we parted, I was in high health and spirits. Before

we met again the next day, I was suddenly struck by an illness which

threatened both my reason and my life.

“I have no proof against Ingleby. There was more than one woman on the

island whom I had wronged beyond all forgiveness, and whose vengeance

might well have reached me at that time. I can accuse nobody. I can only

say that my life was saved by my old black nurse; and that the woman

afterward acknowledged having used the known negro antidote to a known

negro poison in those parts. When my first days of convalescence came,

the ship in which my passage had been taken had long since sailed. When

I asked for Ingleby, he was gone. Proofs of his unpardonable misconduct

in his situation were placed before me, which not even my partiality for

him could resist. He had been turned out of the office in the first days

of my illness, and nothing more was known of him but that he had left

the island.

“All through my sufferings the portrait had been under my pillow. All

through my convalescence it was my one consolation when I remembered the

past, and my one encouragement when I thought of the future. No words

can describe the hold that first fancy had now taken of me--with time

and solitude and suffering to help it. My mother, with all her interest

in the match, was startled by the unexpected success of her own project.

She had written to tell Mr. Blanchard of my illness, but had received no

reply. She now offered to write again, if I would promise not to leave

her before my recovery was complete. My impatience acknowledged no

restraint. Another ship in port gave me another chance of leaving for

Madeira. Another examination of Mr. Blanchard’s letter of invitation

assured me that I should find him still in the island, if I seized

my opportunity on the spot. In defiance of my mother’s entreaties, I

insisted on taking my passage in the second ship--and this time, when

the ship sailed, I was on board.

“The change did me good; the sea-air made a man of me again. After an

unusually rapid voyage, I found myself at the end of my pilgrimage. On

a fine, still evening which I can never forget, I stood alone on the

shore, with her likeness in my bosom, and saw the white walls of the

house where I knew that she lived.

“I strolled round the outer limits of the grounds to compose myself

before I went in. Venturing through a gate and a shrubbery, I looked

into the garden, and saw a lady there, loitering alone on the lawn. She

turned her face toward me--and I beheld the original of my portrait, the

fulfillment of my dream! It is useless, and worse than useless, to write

of it now. Let me only say that every promise which the likeness had

made to my fancy the living woman kept to my eyes in the moment when

they first looked on her. Let me say this--and no more.

“I was too violently agitated to trust myself in her presence. I drew

back undiscovered, and, making my way to the front door of the house,

asked for her father first. Mr. Blanchard had retired to his room,

and could see nobody. Upon that I took courage, and asked for Miss

Blanchard. The servant smiled. ‘My young lady is not Miss Blanchard any

longer, sir,’ he said. ‘She is married.’ Those words would have struck

some men, in my position, to the earth. They fired my hot blood, and I

seized the servant by the throat, in a frenzy of rage ‘It’s a lie!’ I

broke out, speaking to him as if he had been one of the slaves on my own

estate. ‘It’s the truth,’ said the man, struggling with me; ‘her husband

is in the house at this moment.’ ‘Who is he, you scoundrel?’ The servant

answered by repeating my own name, to my own face: ‘_Allan Armadale_.’

“You can now guess the truth. Fergus Ingleby was the outlawed son whose

name and whose inheritance I had taken. And Fergus Ingleby was even with

me for depriving him of his birthright.

“Some account of the manner in which the deception had been carried out

is necessary to explain--I don’t say to justify--the share I took in the

events that followed my arrival at Madeira.

“By Ingleby’s own confession, he had come to Barbadoes--knowing of his

father’s death and of my succession to the estates--with the settled

purpose of plundering and injuring me. My rash confidence put such an

opportunity into his hands as he could never have hoped for. He had

waited to possess himself of the letter which my mother wrote to Mr.

Blanchard at the outset of my illness--had then caused his own dismissal

from his situation--and had sailed for Madeira in the very ship that was

to have sailed with me. Arrived at the island, he had waited again till

the vessel was away once more on her voyage, and had then presented

himself at Mr. Blanchard’s--not in the assumed name by which I shall

continue to speak of him here, but in the name which was as certainly

his as mine, ‘Allan Armadale.’ The fraud at the outset presented few

difficulties. He had only an ailing old man (who had not seen my mother

for half a lifetime) and an innocent, unsuspicious girl (who had never

seen her at all) to deal with; and he had learned enough in my service

to answer the few questions that were put to him as readily as I might

have answered them myself. His looks and manners, his winning ways with

women, his quickness and cunning, did the rest. While I was still on my

sickbed, he had won Miss Blanchard’s affections. While I was dreaming

over the likeness in the first days of my convalescence, he had secured

Mr. Blanchard’s consent to the celebration of the marriage before he and

his daughter left the island.

“Thus far Mr. Blanchard’s infirmity of sight had helped the deception.

He had been content to send messages to my mother, and to receive the

messages which were duly invented in return. But when the suitor was

accepted, and the wedding-day was appointed, he felt it due to his old

friend to write to her, asking her formal consent and inviting her to

the marriage. He could only complete part of the letter himself; the

rest was finished, under his dictation, by Miss Blanchard. There was no

chance of being beforehand with the post-office this time; and Ingleby,

sure of his place in the heart of his victim, waylaid her as she came

out of her father’s room with the letter, and privately told her the

truth. She was still under age, and the position was a serious one.

If the letter was posted, no resource would be left but to wait and be

parted forever, or to elope under circumstances which made detection

almost a certainty. The destination of any ship which took them away

would be known beforehand; and the fast-sailing yacht in which Mr.

Blanchard had come to Madeira was waiting in the harbor to take him back

to England. The only other alternative was to continue the deception by

suppressing the letter, and to confess the truth when they were securely

married. What arts of persuasion Ingleby used--what base advantage he

might previously have taken of her love and her trust in him to degrade

Miss Blanchard to his own level--I cannot say. He did degrade her. The

letter never went to its destination; and, with the daughter’s privity

and consent, the father’s confidence was abused to the very last.

“The one precaution now left to take was to fabricate the answer from

my mother which Mr. Blanchard expected, and which would arrive in due

course of post before the day appointed for the marriage. Ingleby had

my mother’s stolen letter with him; but he was without the imitative

dexterity which would have enabled him to make use of it for a forgery

of her handwriting. Miss Blanchard, who had consented passively to the

deception, refused to take any active share in the fraud practiced on

her father. In this difficulty, Ingleby found an instrument ready to

his hand in an orphan girl of barely twelve years old, a marvel of

precocious ability, whom Miss Blanchard had taken a romantic fancy

to befriend and whom she had brought away with her from England to

be trained as her maid. That girl’s wicked dexterity removed the one

serious obstacle left to the success of the fraud. I saw the imitation

of my mother’s writing which she had produced under Ingleby’s

instructions and (if the shameful truth must be told) with her young

mistress’s knowledge--and I believe I should have been deceived by it

myself. I saw the girl afterward--and my blood curdled at the sight of

her. If she is alive now, woe to the people who trust her! No creature

more innately deceitful and more innately pitiless ever walked this

earth.

“The forged letter paved the way securely for the marriage; and when I

reached the house, they were (as the servant had truly told me) man and

wife. My arrival on the scene simply precipitated the confession

which they had both agreed to make. Ingleby’s own lips shamelessly

acknowledged the truth. He had nothing to lose by speaking out--he was

married, and his wife’s fortune was beyond her father’s control. I pass

over all that followed--my interview with the daughter, and my interview

with the father--to come to results. For two days the efforts of the

wife, and the efforts of the clergyman who had celebrated the marriage,

were successful in keeping Ingleby and myself apart. On the third day

I set my trap more successfully, and I and the man who had mortally

injured me met together alone, face to face.

“Remember how my confidence had been abused; remember how the one good

purpose of my life had been thwarted; remember the violent passions

rooted deep in my nature, and never yet controlled--and then imagine for

yourself what passed between us. All I need tell here is the end. He was

a taller and a stronger man than I, and he took his brute’s advantage

with a brute’s ferocity. He struck me.

“Think of the injuries I had received at that man’s hands, and then

think of his setting his mark on my face by a blow!

“I went to an English officer who had been my fellow-passenger on the

voyage from Barbadoes. I told him the truth, and he agreed with me that

a meeting was inevitable. Dueling had its received formalities and its

established laws in those days; and he began to speak of them. I stopped

him. ‘I will take a pistol in my right hand,’ I said, ‘and he shall take

a pistol in his: I will take one end of a handkerchief in my left hand,

and he shall take the other end in his; and across that handkerchief the

duel shall be fought.’ The officer got up, and looked at me as if I had

personally insulted him. ‘You are asking me to be present at a murder

and a suicide,’ he said; ‘I decline to serve you.’ He left the room. As

soon as he was gone I wrote down the words I had said to the officer and

sent them by a messenger to Ingleby. While I was waiting for an answer,

I sat down before the glass, and looked at his mark on my face. ‘Many a

man has had blood on his hands and blood on his conscience,’ I thought,

‘for less than this.’

“The messenger came back with Ingleby’s answer. It appointed a meeting

for three o’clock the next day, at a lonely place in the interior of the

island. I had resolved what to do if he refused; his letter released

me from the horror of my own resolution. I felt grateful to him--yes,

absolutely grateful to him--for writing it.

“The next day I went to the place. He was not there. I waited two hours,

and he never came. At last the truth dawned on me. ‘Once a coward,

always a coward,’ I thought. I went back to Mr. Blanchard’s house.

Before I got there, a sudden misgiving seized me, and I turned aside

to the harbor. I was right; the harbor was the place to go to. A ship

sailing for Lisbon that afternoon had offered him the opportunity of

taking a passage for himself and his wife, and escaping me. His answer

to my challenge had served its purpose of sending me out of the way into

the interior of the island. Once more I had trusted in Fergus Ingleby,

and once more those sharp wits of his had been too much for me.

“I asked my informant if Mr. Blanchard was aware as yet of his

daughter’s departure. He had discovered it, but not until the ship had

sailed. This time I took a lesson in cunning from Ingleby. Instead of

showing myself at Mr. Blanchard’s house, I went first and looked at Mr.

Blanchard’s yacht.

“The vessel told me what the vessel’s master might have concealed--the

truth. I found her in the confusion of a sudden preparation for sea.

All the crew were on board, with the exception of some few who had been

allowed their leave on shore, and who were away in the interior of the

island, nobody knew where. When I discovered that the sailing-master was

trying in, to supply their places with the best men he could pick up at

a moment’s notice, my resolution was instantly taken. I knew the duties

on board a yacht well enough, having had a vessel of my own, and having

sailed her myself. Hurrying into the town, I changed my dress for a

sailor’s coat and hat, and, returning to the harbor, I offered myself as

one of the volunteer crew. I don’t know what the sailing-master saw in

my face. My answers to his questions satisfied him, and yet he looked at

me and hesitated. But hands were scarce, and it ended in my being taken

on board. An hour later Mr. Blanchard joined us, and was assisted into

the cabin, suffering pitiably in mind and body both. An hour after

that we were at sea, with a starless night overhead, and a fresh breeze

behind us.

“As I had surmised, we were in pursuit of the vessel in which Ingleby

and his wife had left the island that afternoon. The ship was French,

and was employed in the timber trade: her name was _La Grace de Dieu_.

Nothing more was known of her than that she was bound for Lisbon; that

she had been driven out of her course; and that she had touched at

Madeira, short of men and short of provisions. The last want had been

supplied, but not the first. Sailors distrusted the sea-worthiness of

the ship, and disliked the look of the vagabond crew. When those two

serious facts had been communicated to Mr. Blanchard, the hard words he

had spoken to his child in the first shock of discovering that she had

helped to deceive him smote him to the heart. He instantly determined to

give his daughter a refuge on board his own vessel, and to quiet her by

keeping her villain of a husband out of the way of all harm at my hands.

The yacht sailed three feet and more to the ship’s one. There was no

doubt of our overtaking _La Grace de Dieu_; the only fear was that we

might pass her in the darkness.

“After we had been some little time out, the wind suddenly dropped, and

there fell on us an airless, sultry calm. When the order came to get

the topmasts on deck, and to shift the large sails, we all knew what to

expect. In little better than an hour more, the storm was upon us, the

thunder was pealing over our heads, and the yacht was running for it.

She was a powerful schooner-rigged vessel of three hundred tons,

as strong as wood and iron could make her; she was handled by a

sailing-master who thoroughly understood his work, and she behaved

nobly. As the new morning came, the fury of the wind, blowing still from

the southwest quarter, subsided a little, and the sea was less heavy.

Just before daybreak we heard faintly, through the howling of the gale,

the report of a gun. The men collected anxiously on deck, looked at each

other, and said: ‘There she is!’

“With the daybreak we saw the vessel, and the timber-ship it was. She

lay wallowing in the trough of the sea, her foremast and her mainmast

both gone--a water-logged wreck. The yacht carried three boats;

one amidships, and two slung to davits on the quarters; and the

sailing-master, seeing signs of the storm renewing its fury before long,

determined on lowering the quarter-boats while the lull lasted. Few as

the people were on board the wreck, they were too many for one boat, and

the risk of trying two boats at once was thought less, in the critical

state of the weather, than the risk of making two separate trips from

the yacht to the ship. There might be time to make one trip in safety,

but no man could look at the heavens and say there would be time enough

for two.

“The boats were manned by volunteers from the crew, I being in the

second of the two. When the first boat was got alongside of the

timber-ship--a service of difficulty and danger which no words can

describe--all the men on board made a rush to leave the wreck together.

If the boat had not been pulled off again before the whole of them had

crowded in, the lives of all must have been sacrificed. As our boat

approached the vessel in its turn, we arranged that four of us should

get on board--two (I being one of them) to see to the safety of Mr.

Blanchard’s daughter, and two to beat back the cowardly remnant of the

crew if they tried to crowd in first. The other three--the coxswain and

two oarsmen--were left in the boat to keep her from being crushed by the

ship. What the others saw when they first boarded _La Grace de Dieu_ I

don’t know; what I saw was the woman whom I had lost, the woman

vilely stolen from me, lying in a swoon on the deck. We lowered her,

insensible, into the boat. The remnant of the crew--five in number--were

compelled by main force to follow her in an orderly manner, one by one,

and minute by minute, as the chance offered for safely taking them in. I

was the last who left; and, at the next roll of the ship toward us, the

empty length of the deck, without a living creature on it from stem to

stern, told the boat’s crew that their work was done. With the louder

and louder howling of the fast-rising tempest to warn them, they rowed

for their lives back to the yacht.

“A succession of heavy squalls had brought round the course of the

new storm that was coming, from the south to the north; and the

sailing-master, watching his opportunity, had wore the yacht to be ready

for it. Before the last of our men had got on board again, it burst on

us with the fury of a hurricane. Our boat was swamped, but not a life

was lost. Once more we ran before it, due south, at the mercy of the

wind. I was on deck with the rest, watching the one rag of sail we could

venture to set, and waiting to supply its place with another, if it blew

out of the bolt-ropes, when the mate came close to me, and shouted in my

ear through the thunder of the storm: ‘She has come to her senses in the

cabin, and has asked for her husband. Where is he?’ Not a man on board

knew. The yacht was searched from one end to another without finding

him. The men were mustered in defiance of the weather--he was not among

them. The crews of the two boats were questioned. All the first crew

could say was that they had pulled away from the wreck when the rush

into their boat took place, and that they knew nothing of whom they let

in or whom they kept out. All the second crew could say was that they

had brought back to the yacht every living soul left by the first boat

on the deck of the timber-ship. There was no blaming anybody; but, at

the same time, there was no resisting the fact that the man was missing.

“All through that day the storm, raging unabatedly, never gave us even

the shadow of a chance of returning and searching the wreck. The one

hope for the yacht was to scud. Toward evening the gale, after having

carried us to the southward of Madeira, began at last to break--the wind

shifted again--and allowed us to bear up for the island. Early the next

morning we got back into port. Mr. Blanchard and his daughter were taken

ashore, the sailing-master accompanying them, and warning us that he

should have something to say on his return which would nearly concern

the whole crew.

“We were mustered on deck, and addressed by the sailing-master as soon

as he came on board again. He had Mr. Blanchard’s orders to go back at

once to the timber-ship and to search for the missing man. We were bound

to do this for his sake, and for the sake of his wife, whose reason was

despaired of by the doctors if something was not done to quiet her. We

might be almost sure of finding the vessel still afloat, for her ladling

of timber would keep her above water as long as her hull held together.

If the man was on board--living or dead--he must be found and brought

back. And if the weather continued to be moderate, there was no reason

why the men, with proper assistance, should not bring the ship back,

too, and (their master being quite willing) earn their share of the

salvage with the officers of the yacht.

“Upon this the crew gave three cheers, and set to work forthwith to get

the schooner to sea again. I was the only one of them who drew back

from the enterprise. I told them the storm had upset me--I was ill, and

wanted rest. They all looked me in the face as I passed through them on

my way out of the yacht, but not a man of them spoke to me.

“I waited through that day at a tavern on the port for the first

news from the wreck. It was brought toward night-fall by one of the

pilot-boats which had taken part in the enterprise--a successful

enterprise, as the event proved--for saving the abandoned ship. _La

Grace de Dieu_ had been discovered still floating, and the body of

Ingleby had been found on board, drowned in the cabin. At dawn the next

morning the dead man was brought back by the yacht; and on the same day

the funeral took place in the Protestant cemetery.”

“Stop!” said the voice from the bed, before the reader could turn to a

new leaf and begin the next paragraph.

There was a change in the room, and there were changes in the audience,

since Mr. Neal had last looked up from the narrative. A ray of sunshine

was crossing the death-bed; and the child, overcome by drowsiness, lay

peacefully asleep in the golden light. The father’s countenance had

altered visibly. Forced into action by the tortured mind, the muscles of

the lower face, which had never moved yet, were moving distortedly now.

Warned by the damps gathering heavily on his forehead, the doctor had

risen to revive the sinking man. On the other side of the bed the wife’s

chair stood empty. At the moment when her husband had interrupted the

reading, she had drawn back behind the bed head, out of his sight.

Supporting herself against the wall, she stood there in hiding, her eyes

fastened in hungering suspense on the manuscript in Mr. Neal’s hand.

In a minute more the silence was broken again by Mr. Armadale.

“Where is she?” he asked, looking angrily at his wife’s empty chair. The

doctor pointed to the place. She had no choice but to come forward. She

came slowly and stood before him.

“You promised to go when I told you,” he said. “Go now.”

Mr. Neal tried hard to control his hand as it kept his place between the

leaves of the manuscripts but it trembled in spite of him. A suspicion

which had been slowly forcing itself on his mind, while he was reading,

became a certainty when he heard those words. From one revelation to

another the letter had gone on, until it had now reached the brink of a

last disclosure to come. At that brink the dying man had predetermined

to silence the reader’s voice, before he had permitted his wife to hear

the narrative read. There was the secret which the son was to know

in after years, and which the mother was never to approach. From that

resolution, his wife’s tenderest pleadings had never moved him an

inch--and now, from his own lips, his wife knew it.

She made him no answer. She stood there and looked at him; looked her

last entreaty--perhaps her last farewell. His eyes gave her back no

answering glance: they wandered from her mercilessly to the sleeping

boy. She turned speechless from the bed. Without a look at the

child--without a word to the two strangers breathlessly watching

her--she kept the promise she had given, and in dead silence left the

room.

There was something in the manner of her departure which shook the

self-possession of both the men who witnessed it. When the door closed

on her, they recoiled instinctively from advancing further in the dark.

The doctor’s reluctance was the first to express itself. He attempted

to obtain the patient’s permission to withdraw until the letter was

completed. The patient refused.

Mr. Neal spoke next at greater length and to more serious purpose.

“The doctor is accustomed in his profession,” he began, “and I am

accustomed in mine, to have the secrets of others placed in our keeping.

But it is my duty, before we go further, to ask if you really understand

the extraordinary position which we now occupy toward one another. You

have just excluded Mrs. Armadale, before our own eyes, from a place in

your confidence. And you are now offering that same place to two men who

are total strangers to you.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Armadale, “_because_ you are strangers.”

Few as the words were, the inference to be drawn from them was not of a

nature to set distrust at rest. Mr. Neal put it plainly into words.

“You are in urgent need of my help and of the doctor’s help,” he said.

“Am I to understand (so long as you secure our assistance) that the

impression which the closing passages of this letter may produce on us

is a matter of indifference to you?”

“Yes. I don’t spare you. I don’t spare myself. I _do_ spare my wife.”

“You force me to a conclusion, sir, which is a very serious one,” said

Mr. Neal. “If I am to finish this letter under your dictation, I must

claim permission--having read aloud the greater part of it already--to

read aloud what remains, in the hearing of this gentleman, as a

witness.”

“Read it.”

Gravely doubting, the doctor resumed his chair. Gravely doubting, Mr.

Neal turned the leaf, and read the next words:

“There is more to tell before I can leave the dead man to his rest. I

have described the finding of his body. But I have not described the

circumstances under which he met his death.

“He was known to have been on deck when the yacht’s boats were seen

approaching the wreck; and he was afterward missed in the confusion

caused by the panic of the crew. At that time the water was five feet

deep in the cabin, and was rising fast. There was little doubt of his

having gone down into that water of his own accord. The discovery of his

wife’s jewel box, close under him, on the floor, explained his presence

in the cabin. He was known to have seen help approaching, and it was

quite likely that he had thereupon gone below to make an effort at

saving the box. It was less probable--though it might still have been

inferred--that his death was the result of some accident in diving,

which had for the moment deprived him of his senses. But a discovery

made by the yacht’s crew pointed straight to a conclusion which struck

the men, one and all, with the same horror. When the course of their

search brought them to the cabin, they found the scuttle bolted, and the

door locked on the outside. Had some one closed the cabin, not knowing

he was there? Setting the panic-stricken condition of the crew out of

the question, there was no motive for closing the cabin before leaving

the wreck. But one other conclusion remained. Had some murderous hand

purposely locked the man in, and left him to drown as the water rose

over him?

“Yes. A murderous hand had locked him in, and left him to drown. That

hand was mine.”

The Scotchman started up from the table; the doctor shrank from the

bedside. The two looked at the dying wretch, mastered by the same

loathing, chilled by the same dread. He lay there, with his child’s

head on his breast; abandoned by the sympathies of man, accursed by the

justice of God--he lay there, in the isolation of Cain, and looked back

at them.

At the moment when the two men rose to their feet, the door leading into

the next room was shaken heavily on the outer side, and a sound like

the sound of a fall, striking dull on their ears, silenced them both.

Standing nearest to the door, the doctor opened it, passed through, and

closed it instantly. Mr. Neal turned his back on the bed, and waited the

event in silence. The sound, which had failed to awaken the child, had

failed also to attract the father’s notice. His own words had taken him

far from all that was passing at his deathbed. His helpless body was

back on the wreck, and the ghost of his lifeless hand was turning the

lock of the cabin door.

A bell rang in the next room--eager voices talked; hurried footsteps

moved in it--an interval passed, and the doctor returned. “Was she

listening?” whispered Mr. Neal, in German. “The women are restoring

her,” the doctor whispered back. “She has heard it all. In God’s name,

what are we to do next?” Before it was possible to reply, Mr. Armadale

spoke. The doctor’s return had roused him to a sense of present things.

“Go on,” he said, as if nothing had happened.

“I refuse to meddle further with your infamous secret,” returned Mr.

Neal. “You are a murderer on your own confession. If that letter is to

be finished, don’t ask _me_ to hold the pen for you.”

“You gave me your promise,” was the reply, spoken with the same

immovable self-possession. “You must write for me, or break your word.”

For the moment, Mr. Neal was silenced. There the man lay--sheltered

from the execration of his fellow-creatures, under the shadow of

Death--beyond the reach of all human condemnation, beyond the dread of

all mortal laws; sensitive to nothing but his one last resolution to

finish the letter addressed to his son.

Mr. Neal drew the doctor aside. “A word with you,” he said, in German.

“Do you persist in asserting that he may be speechless before we can

send to Stuttgart?”

“Look at his lips,” said the doctor, “and judge for yourself.”

His lips answered for him: the reading of the narrative had left its

mark on them already. A distortion at the corners of his mouth, which

had been barely noticeable when Mr. Neal entered the room, was plainly

visible now. His slow articulation labored more and more painfully with

every word he uttered. The position was emphatically a terrible one.

After a moment more of hesitation, Mr. Neal made a last attempt to

withdraw from it.

“Now my eyes are open,” he said, sternly, “do you dare hold me to an

engagement which you forced on me blindfold?”

“No,” answered Mr. Armadale. “I leave you to break your word.”

The look which accompanied that reply stung the Scotchman’s pride to the

quick. When he spoke next, he spoke seated in his former place at the

table.

“No man ever yet said of me that I broke my word,” he retorted, angrily;

“and not even you shall say it of me now. Mind this! If you hold me to

my promise, I hold you to my condition. I have reserved my freedom of

action, and I warn you I will use it at my own sole discretion, as soon

as I am released from the sight of you.”

“Remember he is dying,” pleaded the doctor, gently.

“Take your place, sir,” said Mr. Neal, pointing to the empty chair.

“What remains to be read, I will only read in your hearing. What remains

to be written, I will only write in your presence. _You_ brought me

here. I have a right to insist--and I do insist--on your remaining as a

witness to the last.”

The doctor accepted his position without remonstrance. Mr. Neal returned

to the manuscript, and read what remained of it uninterruptedly to the

end:

“Without a word in my own defense, I have acknowledged my guilt. Without

a word in my own defense, I will reveal how the crime was committed.

“No thought of him was in my mind, when I saw his wife insensible on the

deck of the timber-ship. I did my part in lowering her safely into the

boat. Then, and not till then, I felt the thought of him coming back. In

the confusion that prevailed while the men of the yacht were forcing the

men of the ship to wait their time, I had an opportunity of searching

for him unobserved. I stepped back from the bulwark, not knowing whether

he was away in the first boat, or whether he was still on board--I

stepped back, and saw him mount the cabin stairs empty-handed, with the

water dripping from him. After looking eagerly toward the boat (without

noticing me), he saw there was time to spare before the crew were taken.

‘Once more!’ he said to himself--and disappeared again, to make a last

effort at recovering the jewel box. The devil at my elbow whispered,

‘Don’t shoot him like a man: drown him like a dog!’ He was under water

when I bolted the scuttle. But his head rose to the surface before I

could close the cabin door. I looked at him, and he looked at me--and I

locked the door in his face. The next minute, I was back among the last

men left on deck. The minute after, it was too late to repent. The storm

was threatening us with destruction, and the boat’s crew were pulling

for their lives from the ship.

“My son! I have pursued you from my grave with a confession which my

love might have spared you. Read on, and you will know why.

“I will say nothing of my sufferings; I will plead for no mercy to my

memory. There is a strange sinking at my heart, a strange trembling in

my hand, while I write these lines, which warns me to hasten to the end.

I left the island without daring to look for the last time at the woman

whom I had lost so miserably, whom I had injured so vilely. When I left,

the whole weight of the suspicion roused by the manner of Ingleby’s

death rested on the crew of the French vessel. No motive for the

supposed murder could be brought home to any of them; but they were

known to be, for the most part, outlawed ruffians capable of any crime,

and they were suspected and examined accordingly. It was not till

afterward that I heard by accident of the suspicion shifting round at

last to me. The widow alone recognized the vague description given

of the strange man who had made one of the yacht’s crew, and who had

disappeared the day afterward. The widow alone knew, from that time

forth, why her husband had been murdered, and who had done the deed.

When she made that discovery, a false report of my death had been

previously circulated in the island. Perhaps I was indebted to the

report for my immunity from all legal proceedings; perhaps (no eye but

Ingleby’s having seen me lock the cabin door) there was not evidence

enough to justify an inquiry; perhaps the widow shrank from the

disclosures which must have followed a public charge against me, based

on her own bare suspicion of the truth. However it might be, the crime

which I had committed unseen has remained a crime unpunished from that

time to this.

“I left Madeira for the West Indies in disguise. The first news that met

me when the ship touched at Barbadoes was the news of my mother’s death.

I had no heart to return to the old scenes. The prospect of living at

home in solitude, with the torment of my own guilty remembrances gnawing

at me day and night, was more than I had the courage to confront.

Without landing, or discovering myself to any one on shore, I went on as

far as the ship would take me--to the island of Trinidad.

“At that place I first saw your mother. It was my duty to tell her the

truth--and I treacherously kept my secret. It was my duty to spare

her the hopeless sacrifice of her freedom and her happiness to such an

existence as mine--and I did her the injury of marrying her. If she is

alive when you read this, grant her the mercy of still concealing the

truth. The one atonement I can make to her is to keep her unsuspicious

to the last of the man she has married. Pity her, as I have pitied her.

Let this letter be a sacred confidence between father and son.

“The time when you were born was the time when my health began to give

way. Some months afterward, in the first days of my recovery, you were

brought to me; and I was told that you had been christened during

my illness. Your mother had done as other loving mothers do--she had

christened her first-born by his father’s name. You, too, were Allan

Armadale. Even in that early time--even while I was happily ignorant of

what I have discovered since--my mind misgave me when I looked at you,

and thought of that fatal name.

“As soon as I could be moved, my presence was required at my estates in

Barbadoes. It crossed my mind--wild as the idea may appear to you--to

renounce the condition which compelled my son as well as myself to take

the Armadale name, or lose the succession to the Armadale property.

But, even in those days, the rumor of a contemplated emancipation of

the slaves--the emancipation which is now close at hand--was spreading

widely in the colony. No man could tell how the value of West Indian

property might be affected if that threatened change ever took place.

No man could tell--if I gave you back my own paternal name, and left you

without other provision in the future than my own paternal estate--how

you might one day miss the broad Armadale acres, or to what future

penury I might be blindly condemning your mother and yourself. Mark how

the fatalities gathered one on the other! Mark how your Christian name

came to you, how your surname held to you, in spite of me!

“My health had improved in my old home--but it was for a time only. I

sank again, and the doctors ordered me to Europe. Avoiding England (why,

you may guess), I took my passage, with you and your mother, for France.

From France we passed into Italy. We lived here; we lived there. It was

useless. Death had got met and Death followed me, go where I might. I

bore it, for I had an alleviation to turn to which I had not deserved.

You may shrink in horror from the very memory of me now. In those days,

you comforted me. The only warmth I still felt at my heart was the

warmth you brought to it. My last glimpses of happiness in this world

were the glimpses given me by my infant son.

“We removed from Italy, and went next to Lausanne--the place from which

I am now writing to you. The post of this morning has brought me news,

later and fuller than any I had received thus far, of the widow of the

murdered man. The letter lies before me while I write. It comes from a

friend of my early days, who has seen her, and spoken to her--who has

been the first to inform her that the report of my death in Madeira was

false. He writes, at a loss to account for the violent agitation which

she showed on hearing that I was still alive, that I was married, and

that I had an infant son. He asks me if I can explain it. He speaks in

terms of sympathy for her--a young and beautiful woman, buried in the

retirement of a fishing-village on the Devonshire coast; her father

dead; her family estranged from her, in merciless disapproval of her

marriage. He writes words which might have cut me to the heart, but for

a closing passage in his letter, which seized my whole attention the

instant I came to it, and which has forced from me the narrative that

these pages contain.

“I now know what never even entered my mind as a suspicion till the

letter reached me. I now know that the widow of the man whose death lies

at my door has borne a posthumous child. That child is a boy--a year

older than my own son. Secure in her belief in my death, his mother

has done what my son’s mother did: she has christened her child by his

father’s name. Again, in the second generation, there are two Allan

Armadales as there were in the first. After working its deadly mischief

with the fathers, the fatal resemblance of names has descended to work

its deadly mischief with the sons.

“Guiltless minds may see nothing thus far but the result of a series of

events which could lead no other way. I--with that man’s life to answer

for--I, going down into my grave, with my crime unpunished and unatoned,

see what no guiltless minds can discern. I see danger in the future,

begotten of the danger in the past--treachery that is the offspring of

_his_ treachery, and crime that is the child of _my_ crime. Is the dread

that now shakes me to the soul a phantom raised by the superstition of a

dying man? I look into the Book which all Christendom venerates, and the

Book tells me that the sin of the father shall be visited on the child.

I look out into the world, and I see the living witnesses round me to

that terrible truth. I see the vices which have contaminated the father

descending, and contaminating the child; I see the shame which has

disgraced the father’s name descending, and disgracing the child’s. I

look in on myself, and I see my crime ripening again for the future

in the self-same circumstance which first sowed the seeds of it in the

past, and descending, in inherited contamination of evil, from me to my

son.”

At those lines the writing ended. There the stroke had struck him, and

the pen had dropped from his hand.

He knew the place; he remembered the words. At the instant when the

reader’s voice stopped, he looked eagerly at the doctor. “I have

got what comes next in my mind,” he said, with slower and slower

articulation. “Help me to speak it.”

The doctor administered a stimulant, and signed to Mr. Neal to give him

time. After a little delay, the flame of the sinking spirit leaped up

in his eyes once more. Resolutely struggling with his failing speech,

he summoned the Scotchman to take the pen, and pronounced the closing

sentences of the narrative, as his memory gave them back to him, one by

one, in these words:

“Despise my dying conviction if you will, but grant me, I solemnly

implore you, one last request. My son! the only hope I have left for

you hangs on a great doubt--the doubt whether we are, or are not,

the masters of our own destinies. It may be that mortal free-will can

conquer mortal fate; and that going, as we all do, inevitably to death,

we go inevitably to nothing that is before death. If this be so, indeed,

respect--though you respect nothing else--the warning which I give you

from my grave. Never, to your dying day, let any living soul approach

you who is associated, directly or indirectly, with the crime which your

father has committed. Avoid the widow of the man I killed--if the widow

still lives. Avoid the maid whose wicked hand smoothed the way to the

marriage--if the maid is still in her service. And more than all,

avoid the man who bears the same name as your own. Offend your best

benefactor, if that benefactor’s influence has connected you one with

the other. Desert the woman who loves you, if that woman is a link

between you and him. Hide yourself from him under an assumed name. Put

the mountains and the seas between you; be ungrateful, be unforgiving;

be all that is most repellent to your own gentler nature, rather than

live under the same roof, and breathe the same air, with that man. Never

let the two Allan Armadales meet in this world: never, never, never!

“There lies the way by which you may escape--if any way there be. Take

it, if you prize your own innocence and your own happiness, through all

your life to come!

“I have done. If I could have trusted any weaker influence than the

influence of this confession to incline you to my will, I would have

spared you the disclosure which these pages contain. You are lying on my

breast, sleeping the innocent sleep of a child, while a stranger’s hand

writes these words for you as they fall from my lips. Think what the

strength of my conviction must be, when I can find the courage, on my

death-bed, to darken all your young life at its outset with the shadow

of your father’s crime. Think, and be warned. Think, and forgive me if

you can.”

There it ended. Those were the father’s last words to the son.

Inexorably faithful to his forced duty, Mr. Neal laid aside the pen, and

read over aloud the lines he had just written. “Is there more to add?”

he asked, with his pitilessly steady voice. There was no more to add.

Mr. Neal folded the manuscript, inclosed it in a sheet of paper, and

sealed it with Mr. Armadale’s own seal. “The address?” he said, with his

merciless business formality. “To Allan Armadale, junior,” he wrote, as

the words were dictated from the bed. “Care of Godfrey Hammick, Esq.,

Offices of Messrs. Hammick and Ridge, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London.”

Having written the address, he waited, and considered for a moment. “Is

your executor to open this?” he asked.

“No! he is to give it to my son when my son is of an age to understand

it.”

“In that case,” pursued Mr. Neal, with all his wits in remorseless

working order, “I will add a dated note to the address, repeating your

own words as you have just spoken them, and explaining the circumstances

under which my handwriting appears on the document.” He wrote the note

in the briefest and plainest terms, read it over aloud as he had read

over what went before, signed his name and address at the end, and made

the doctor sign next, as witness of the proceedings, and as medical

evidence of the condition in which Mr. Armadale then lay. This done,

he placed the letter in a second inclosure, sealed it as before, and

directed it to Mr. Hammick, with the superscription of “private” added

to the address. “Do you insist on my posting this?” he asked, rising

with the letter in his hand.

“Give him time to think,” said the doctor. “For the child’s sake, give

him time to think! A minute may change him.”

“I will give him five minutes,” answered Mr. Neal, placing his watch on

the table, implacable just to the very last.

They waited, both looking attentively at Mr. Armadale. The signs of

change which had appeared in him already were multiplying fast. The

movement which continued mental agitation had communicated to the

muscles of his face was beginning, under the same dangerous influence,

to spread downward. His once helpless hands lay still no longer; they

struggled pitiably on the bedclothes. At sight of that warning token,

the doctor turned with a gesture of alarm, and beckoned Mr. Neal to

come nearer. “Put the question at once,” he said; “if you let the five

minutes pass, you may be too late.”

Mr. Neal approached the bed. He, too, noticed the movement of the hands.

“Is that a bad sign?” he asked.

The doctor bent his head gravely. “Put your question at once,” he

repeated, “or you may be too late.”

Mr. Neal held the letter before the eyes of the dying man “Do you know

what this is?”

“My letter.”

“Do you insist on my posting it?”

He mastered his failing speech for the last time, and gave the answer:

“Yes!”

Mr. Neal moved to the door, with the letter in his hand. The German

followed him a few steps, opened his lips to plead for a longer delay,

met the Scotchman’s inexorable eye, and drew back again in silence.

The door closed and parted them, without a word having passed on either

side.

The doctor went back to the bed and whispered to the sinking man: “Let

me call him back; there is time to stop him yet!” It was useless. No

answer came; nothing showed that he heeded, or even heard. His eyes

wandered from the child, rested for a moment on his own struggling hand,

and looked up entreatingly in the compassionate face that bent over him.

The doctor lifted the hand, paused, followed the father’s longing eyes

back to the child, and, interpreting his last wish, moved the hand

gently toward the boy’s head. The hand touched it, and trembled

violently. In another instant the trembling seized on the arm, and

spread over the whole upper part of the body. The face turned from pale

to red, from red to purple, from purple to pale again. Then the toiling

hands lay still, and the shifting color changed no more.

The window of the next room was open, when the doctor entered it from

the death chamber, with the child in his arms. He looked out as he

passed by, and saw Mr. Neal in the street below, slowly returning to the

inn.

“Where is the letter?” he asked.

Three words sufficed for the Scotchman’s answer.

“In the post.”

THE END OF THE PROLOGUE.

THE STORY.

BOOK THE FIRST.

I. THE MYSTERY OF OZIAS MIDWINTER.

ON a warm May night, in the year eighteen hundred and fifty-one,

the Reverend Decimus Brock--at that time a visitor to the Isle of

Man--retired to his bedroom at Castletown, with a serious personal

responsibility in close pursuit of him, and with no distinct idea of the

means by which he might relieve himself from the pressure of his present

circumstances.

The clergyman had reached that mature period of human life at which a

sensible man learns to decline (as often as his temper will let him) all

useless conflict with the tyranny of his own troubles. Abandoning any

further effort to reach a decision in the emergency that now beset him,

Mr. Brock sat down placidly in his shirt sleeves on the side of his bed,

and applied his mind to consider next whether the emergency itself was

as serious as he had hitherto been inclined to think it. Following this

new way out of his perplexities, Mr. Brock found himself unexpectedly

traveling to the end in view by the least inspiriting of all human

journeys--a journey through the past years of his own life.

One by one the events of those years--all connected with the same little

group of characters, and all more or less answerable for the anxiety

which was now intruding itself between the clergyman and his night’s

rest--rose, in progressive series, on Mr. Brock’s memory. The first of

the series took him back, through a period of fourteen years, to his own

rectory on the Somersetshire shores of the Bristol Channel, and closeted

him at a private interview with a lady who had paid him a visit in the

character of a total stranger to the parson and the place.

The lady’s complexion was fair, the lady’s figure was well preserved;

she was still a young woman, and she looked even younger than her age.

There was a shade of melancholy in her expression, and an undertone of

suffering in her voice--enough, in each case, to indicate that she had

known trouble, but not enough to obtrude that trouble on the notice of

others. She brought with her a fine, fair-haired boy of eight years old,

whom she presented as her son, and who was sent out of the way, at the

beginning of the interview, to amuse himself in the rectory garden. Her

card had preceded her entrance into the study, and had announced her

under the name of “Mrs. Armadale.” Mr. Brock began to feel interested in

her before she had opened her lips; and when the son had been dismissed,

he awaited with some anxiety to hear what the mother had to say to him.

Mrs. Armadale began by informing the rector that she was a widow. Her

husband had perished by shipwreck a short time after their union, on the

voyage from Madeira to Lisbon. She had been brought to England,

after her affliction, under her father’s protection; and her child--a

posthumous son--had been born on the family estate in Norfolk. Her

father’s death, shortly afterward, had deprived her of her only

surviving parent, and had exposed her to neglect and misconstruction on

the part of her remaining relatives (two brothers), which had estranged

her from them, she feared, for the rest of her days. For some time past

she had lived in the neighboring county of Devonshire, devoting herself

to the education of her boy, who had now reached an age at which he

required other than his mother’s teaching. Leaving out of the question

her own unwillingness to part with him, in her solitary position, she

was especially anxious that he should not be thrown among strangers by

being sent to school. Her darling project was to bring him up privately

at home, and to keep him, as he advanced in years, from all contact with

the temptations and the dangers of the world.

With these objects in view, her longer sojourn in her own locality

(where the services of the resident clergyman, in the capacity of tutor,

were not obtainable) must come to an end. She had made inquiries, had

heard of a house that would suit her in Mr. Brock’s neighborhood, and

had also been told that Mr. Brock himself had formerly been in the habit

of taking pupils. Possessed of this information, she had ventured to

present herself, with references that vouched for her respectability,

but without a formal introduction; and she had now to ask whether (in

the event of her residing in the neighborhood) any terms that could be

offered would induce Mr. Brock to open his doors once more to a pupil,

and to allow that pupil to be her son.

If Mrs. Armadale had been a woman of no personal attractions, or if

Mr. Brock had been provided with an intrenchment to fight behind in the

shape of a wife, it is probable that the widow’s journey might have been

taken in vain. As things really were, the rector examined the references

which were offered to him, and asked time for consideration. When the

time had expired, he did what Mrs. Armadale wished him to do--he

offered his back to the burden, and let the mother load him with the

responsibility of the son.

This was the first event of the series; the date of it being the year

eighteen hundred and thirty-seven. Mr. Brock’s memory, traveling forward

toward the present from that point, picked up the second event in its

turn, and stopped next at the year eighteen hundred and forty-five.

-------------

The fishing-village on the Somersetshire coast was still the scene, and

the characters were once again--Mrs. Armadale and her son.

Through the eight years that had passed, Mr. Brock’s responsibility had

rested on him lightly enough. The boy had given his mother and his tutor

but little trouble. He was certainly slow over his books, but more from

a constitutional inability to fix his attention on his tasks than from

want of capacity to understand them. His temperament, it could not be

denied, was heedless to the last degree: he acted recklessly on his

first impulses, and rushed blindfold at all his conclusions. On the

other hand, it was to be said in his favor that his disposition was open

as the day; a more generous, affectionate, sweet-tempered lad it

would have been hard to find anywhere. A certain quaint originality of

character, and a natural healthiness in all his tastes, carried him

free of most of the dangers to which his mother’s system of education

inevitably exposed him. He had a thoroughly English love of the sea and

of all that belongs to it; and as he grew in years, there was no

luring him away from the water-side, and no keeping him out of the

boat-builder’s yard. In course of time his mother caught him actually

working there, to her infinite annoyance and surprise, as a volunteer.

He acknowledged that his whole future ambition was to have a yard of his

own, and that his one present object was to learn to build a boat for

himself. Wisely foreseeing that such a pursuit as this for his leisure

hours was exactly what was wanted to reconcile the lad to a position of

isolation from companions of his own rank and age, Mr. Brock prevailed

on Mrs. Armadale, with no small difficulty, to let her son have his

way. At the period of that second event in the clergyman’s life with

his pupil which is now to be related, young Armadale had practiced long

enough in the builder’s yard to have reached the summit of his wishes,

by laying with his own hands the keel of his own boat.

Late on a certain summer day, not long after Allan had completed his

sixteenth year, Mr. Brock left his pupil hard at work in the yard,

and went to spend the evening with Mrs. Armadale, taking the _Times_

newspaper with him in his hand.

The years that had passed since they had first met had long since

regulated the lives of the clergyman and his neighbor. The first

advances which Mr. Brock’s growing admiration for the widow had led him

to make in the early days of their intercourse had been met on her

side by an appeal to his forbearance which had closed his lips for the

future. She had satisfied him, at once and forever, that the one place

in her heart which he could hope to occupy was the place of a friend.

He loved her well enough to take what she would give him: friends they

became, and friends they remained from that time forth. No jealous

dread of another man’s succeeding where he had failed imbittered the

clergyman’s placid relations with the woman whom he loved. Of the few

resident gentlemen in the neighborhood, none were ever admitted by Mrs.

Armadale to more than the merest acquaintance with her. Contentedly

self-buried in her country retreat, she was proof against every social

attraction that would have tempted other women in her position and

at her age. Mr. Brock and his newspaper, appearing with monotonous

regularity at her tea-table three times a week, told her all she knew

or cared to know of the great outer world which circled round the narrow

and changeless limits of her daily life.

On the evening in question Mr. Brock took the arm-chair in which he

always sat, accepted the one cup of tea which he always drank, and

opened the newspaper which he always read aloud to Mrs. Armadale, who

invariably listened to him reclining on the same sofa, with the same

sort of needle-work everlastingly in her hand.

“Bless my soul!” cried the rector, with his voice in a new octave, and

his eyes fixed in astonishment on the first page of the newspaper.

No such introduction to the evening readings as this had ever happened

before in all Mrs. Armadale’s experience as a listener. She looked

up from the sofa in a flutter of curiosity, and besought her reverend

friend to favor her with an explanation.

“I can hardly believe my own eyes,” said Mr. Brock. “Here is an

advertisement, Mrs. Armadale, addressed to your son.”

Without further preface, he read the advertisement as follows:

IF this should meet the eye of ALLAN ARMADALE, he is desired to

communicate, either personally or by letter, with Messrs. Hammick and

Ridge (Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London), on business of importance which

seriously concerns him. Any one capable of informing Messrs. H. and R.

where the person herein advertised can be found would confer a favor

by doing the same. To prevent mistakes, it is further notified that

the missing Allan Armadale is a youth aged fifteen years, and that this

advertisement is inserted at the instance of his family and friends.

“Another family, and other friends,” said Mrs. Armadale. “The person

whose name appears in that advertisement is not my son.”

The tone in which she spoke surprised Mr. Brock. The change in her face,

when he looked up, shocked him. Her delicate complexion had faded away

to a dull white; her eyes were averted from her visitor with a strange

mixture of confusion and alarm; she looked an older woman than she was,

by ten good years at least.

“The name is so very uncommon,” said Mr. Brock, imagining he had

offended her, and trying to excuse himself. “It really seemed impossible

there could be two persons--”

“There _are_ two,” interposed Mrs. Armadale. “Allan, as you know, is

sixteen years old. If you look back at the advertisement, you will find

the missing person described as being only fifteen. Although he bears

the same surname and the same Christian name, he is, I thank God, in no

way whatever related to my son. As long as I live, it will be the object

of my hopes and prayers that Allan may never see him, may never even

hear of him. My kind friend, I see I surprise you: will you bear with

me if I leave these strange circumstances unexplained? There is past

misfortune and misery in my early life too painful for me to speak of,

even to _you_. Will you help me to bear the remembrance of it, by never

referring to this again? Will you do even more--will you promise not to

speak of it to Allan, and not to let that newspaper fall in his way?”

Mr. Brock gave the pledge required of him, and considerately left her to

herself.

The rector had been too long and too truly attached to Mrs. Armadale to

be capable of regarding her with any unworthy distrust. But it would be

idle to deny that he felt disappointed by her want of confidence in him,

and that he looked inquisitively at the advertisement more than once on

his way back to his own house.

It was clear enough, now, that Mrs. Armadale’s motives for burying her

son as well as herself in the seclusion of a remote country village was

not so much to keep him under her own eye as to keep him from discovery

by his namesake. Why did she dread the idea of their ever meeting? Was

it a dread for herself, or a dread for her son? Mr. Brock’s loyal belief

in his friend rejected any solution of the difficulty which pointed at

some past misconduct of Mrs. Armadale’s. That night he destroyed the

advertisement with his own hand; that night he resolved that the subject

should never be suffered to enter his mind again. There was another

Allan Armadale about the world, a stranger to his pupil’s blood, and

a vagabond advertised in the public newspapers. So much accident had

revealed to him. More, for Mrs. Armadale’s sake, he had no wish to

discover--and more he would never seek to know.

This was the second in the series of events which dated from the

rector’s connection with Mrs. Armadale and her son. Mr. Brock’s memory,

traveling on nearer and nearer to present circumstances, reached the

third stage of its journey through the by-gone time, and stopped at the

year eighteen hundred and fifty, next.

The five years that had passed had made little if any change in Allan’s

character. He had simply developed (to use his tutor’s own expression)

from a boy of sixteen to a boy of twenty-one. He was just as easy and

open in his disposition as ever; just as quaintly and inveterately

good-humored; just as heedless in following his own impulses, lead him

where they might. His bias toward the sea had strengthened with his

advance to the years of manhood. From building a boat, he had now got

on--with two journeymen at work under him--to building a decked vessel

of five-and-thirty tons. Mr. Brock had conscientiously tried to divert

him to higher aspirations; had taken him to Oxford, to see what college

life was like; had taken him to London, to expand his mind by the

spectacle of the great metropolis. The change had diverted Allan, but

had not altered him in the least. He was as impenetrably superior to

all worldly ambition as Diogenes himself. “Which is best,” asked this

unconscious philosopher, “to find out the way to be happy for yourself,

or to let other people try if they can find it out for you?” From that

moment Mr. Brock permitted his pupil’s character to grow at its own rate

of development, and Allan went on uninterruptedly with the work of his

yacht.

Time, which had wrought so little change in the son, had not passed

harmless over the mother.

Mrs. Armadale’s health was breaking fast. As her strength failed, her

temper altered for the worse: she grew more and more fretful, more and

more subject to morbid fears and fancies, more and more reluctant to

leave her own room. Since the appearance of the advertisement five years

since, nothing had happened to force her memory back to the painful

associations connected with her early life. No word more on the

forbidden topic had passed between the rector and herself; no suspicion

had ever been raised in Allan’s mind of the existence of his namesake;

and yet, without the shadow of a reason for any special anxiety, Mrs.

Armadale had become, of late years, obstinately and fretfully uneasy

on the subject of her son. More than once Mr. Brock dreaded a serious

disagreement between them; but Allan’s natural sweetness of temper,

fortified by his love for his mother, carried him triumphantly through

all trials. Not a hard word or a harsh look ever escaped him in her

presence; he was unchangeably loving and forbearing with her to the very

last.

Such were the positions of the son, the mother, and the friend, when

the next notable event happened in the lives of the three. On a dreary

afternoon, early in the month of November, Mr. Brock was disturbed

over the composition of his sermon by a visit from the landlord of the

village inn.

After making his introductory apologies, the landlord stated the urgent

business on which he had come to the rectory clearly enough.

A few hours since a young man had been brought to the inn by some farm

laborers in the neighborhood, who had found him wandering about one of

their master’s fields in a disordered state of mind, which looked to

their eyes like downright madness. The landlord had given the poor

creature shelter while he sent for medical help; and the doctor, on

seeing him, had pronounced that he was suffering from fever on the

brain, and that his removal to the nearest town at which a hospital or

a work-house infirmary could be found to receive him would in all

probability be fatal to his chances of recovery. After hearing this

expression of opinion, and after observing for himself that the

stranger’s only luggage consisted of a small carpet-bag which had been

found in the field near him, the landlord had set off on the spot to

consult the rector, and to ask, in this serious emergency, what course

he was to take next.

Mr. Brock was the magistrate as well as the clergyman of the district,

and the course to be taken, in the first instance, was to his mind clear

enough. He put on his hat, and accompanied the landlord back to the inn.

At the inn door they were joined by Allan, who had heard the news

through another channel, and who was waiting Mr. Brock’s arrival, to

follow in the magistrate’s train, and to see what the stranger was like.

The village surgeon joined them at the same moment, and the four went

into the inn together.

They found the landlord’s son on one side, and the hostler on the other,

holding the man down in his chair. Young, slim, and undersized, he was

strong enough at that moment to make it a matter of difficulty for the

two to master him. His tawny complexion, his large, bright brown eyes,

and his black beard gave him something of a foreign look. His dress was

a little worn, but his linen was clean. His dusky hands were wiry and

nervous, and were lividly discolored in more places than one by the

scars of old wounds. The toes of one of his feet, off which he had

kicked the shoe, grasped at the chair rail through his stocking, with

the sensitive muscular action which is only seen in those who have been

accustomed to go barefoot. In the frenzy that now possessed him, it was

impossible to notice, to any useful purpose, more than this. After

a whispered consultation with Mr. Brock, the surgeon personally

superintended the patient’s removal to a quiet bedroom at the back of

the house. Shortly afterward his clothes and his carpet-bag were sent

downstairs, and were searched, on the chance of finding a clew by which

to communicate with his friends, in the magistrate’s presence.

The carpet-bag contained nothing but a change of clothing, and two

books--the Plays of Sophocles, in the original Greek, and the “Faust” of

Goethe, in the original German. Both volumes were much worn by reading,

and on the fly-leaf of each were inscribed the initials O. M. So much

the bag revealed, and no more.

The clothes which the man wore when he was discovered in the field were

tried next. A purse (containing a sovereign and a few shillings), a

pipe, a tobacco pouch, a handkerchief, and a little drinking-cup of horn

were produced in succession. The next object, and the last, was found

crumpled up carelessly in the breast-pocket of the coat. It was a

written testimonial to character, dated and signed, but without any

address.

So far as this document could tell it, the stranger’s story was a sad

one indeed. He had apparently been employed for a short time as usher at

a school, and had been turned adrift in the world, at the outset of his

illness, from the fear that the fever might be infectious, and that

the prosperity of the establishment might suffer accordingly. Not the

slightest imputation of any misbehavior in his employment rested on him.

On the contrary, the schoolmaster had great pleasure in testifying to

his capacity and his character, and in expressing a fervent hope that

he might (under Providence) succeed in recovering his health in somebody

else’s house. The written testimonial which afforded this glimpse at the

man’s story served one purpose more: it connected him with the initials

on the books, and identified him to the magistrate and the landlord

under the strangely uncouth name of Ozias Midwinter.

Mr. Brock laid aside the testimonial, suspecting that the schoolmaster

had purposely abstained from writing his address on it, with the view

of escaping all responsibility in the event of his usher’s death. In any

case, it was manifestly useless, under existing circumstances, to think

of tracing the poor wretch’s friends, if friends he had. To the inn he

had been brought, and, as a matter of common humanity, at the inn he

must remain for the present. The difficulty about expenses, if it came

to the worst, might possibly be met by charitable contributions from

the neighbors, or by a collection after a sermon at church. Assuring the

landlord that he would consider this part of the question and would let

him know the result, Mr. Brock quitted the inn, without noticing for the

moment that he had left Allan there behind him.

Before he had got fifty yards from the house his pupil overtook him.

Allan had been most uncharacteristically silent and serious all through

the search at the inn; but he had now recovered his usual high spirits.

A stranger would have set him down as wanting in common feeling.

“This is a sad business,” said the rector. “I really don’t know what to

do for the best about that unfortunate man.”

“You may make your mind quite easy, sir,” said young Armadale, in his

off-hand way. “I settled it all with the landlord a minute ago.”

“You!” exclaimed Mr. Brock, in the utmost astonishment.

“I have merely given a few simple directions,” pursued Allan. “Our

friend the usher is to have everything he requires, and is to be treated

like a prince; and when the doctor and the landlord want their money

they are to come to me.”

“My dear Allan,” Mr. Brock gently remonstrated, “when will you learn

to think before you act on those generous impulses of yours? You

are spending more money already on your yacht-building than you can

afford--”

“Only think! we laid the first planks of the deck the day before

yesterday,” said Allan, flying off to the new subject in his usual

bird-witted way. “There’s just enough of it done to walk on, if you

don’t feel giddy. I’ll help you up the ladder, Mr. Brock, if you’ll only

come and try.”

“Listen to me,” persisted the rector. “I’m not talking about the

yacht now; that is to say, I am only referring to the yacht as an

illustration--”

“And a very pretty illustration, too,” remarked the incorrigible Allan.

“Find me a smarter little vessel of her size in all England, and

I’ll give up yacht-building to-morrow. Whereabouts were we in our

conversation, sir? I’m rather afraid we have lost ourselves somehow.”

“I am rather afraid one of us is in the habit of losing himself every

time he opens his lips,” retorted Mr. Brock. “Come, come, Allan, this is

serious. You have been rendering yourself liable for expenses which you

may not be able to pay. Mind, I am far from blaming you for your kind

feeling toward this poor friendless man--”

“Don’t be low-spirited about him, sir. He’ll get over it--he’ll be all

right again in a week or so. A capital fellow, I have not the least

doubt!” continued Allan, whose habit it was to believe in everybody and

to despair of nothing. “Suppose you ask him to dinner when he gets well,

Mr. Brock? I should like to find out (when we are all three snug

and friendly together over our wine, you know) how he came by that

extraordinary name of his. Ozias Midwinter! Upon my life, his father

ought to be ashamed of himself.”

“Will you answer me one question before I go in?” said the rector,

stopping in despair at his own gate. “This man’s bill for lodging and

medical attendance may mount to twenty or thirty pounds before he gets

well again, if he ever does get well. How are you to pay for it?”

“What’s that the Chancellor of the Exchequer says when he finds himself

in a mess with his accounts, and doesn’t see his way out again?” asked

Allan. “He always tells his honorable friend he is quite willing to

leave a something or other--”

“A margin?” suggested Mr. Brock.

“That’s it,” said Allan. “I’m like the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I’m

quite willing to leave a margin. The yacht (bless her heart!) doesn’t

eat up everything. If I’m short by a pound or two, don’t be afraid,

sir. There’s no pride about me; I’ll go round with the hat, and get

the balance in the neighborhood. Deuce take the pounds, shillings,

and pence! I wish they could all three get rid of themselves, like the

Bedouin brothers at the show. Don’t you remember the Bedouin brothers,

Mr. Brock? ‘Ali will take a lighted torch, and jump down the throat

of his brother Muli; Muli will take a lighted torch, and jump down the

throat of his brother Hassan; and Hassan, taking a third lighted torch,

will conclude the performances by jumping down his own throat, and

leaving the spectators in total darkness.’ Wonderfully good, that--what

I call real wit, with a fine strong flavor about it. Wait a minute!

Where are we? We have lost ourselves again. Oh, I remember--money. What

I can’t beat into my thick head,” concluded Allan, quite unconscious

that he was preaching socialist doctrines to a clergyman; “is the

meaning of the fuss that’s made about giving money away. Why can’t the

people who have got money to spare give it to the people who haven’t got

money to spare, and make things pleasant and comfortable all the world

over in that way? You’re always telling me to cultivate ideas, Mr. Brock

There’s an idea, and, upon my life, I don’t think it’s a bad one.”

Mr. Brock gave his pupil a good-humored poke with the end of his stick.

“Go back to your yacht,” he said. “All the little discretion you have

got in that flighty head of yours is left on board in your tool-chest.

How that lad will end,” pursued the rector, when he was left by himself,

“is more than any human being can say. I almost wish I had never taken

the responsibility of him on my shoulders.”

Three weeks passed before the stranger with the uncouth name was

pronounced to be at last on the way to recovery.

During this period Allan had made regular inquiries at the inn, and, as

soon as the sick man was allowed to see visitors, Allan was the first

who appeared at his bedside. So far Mr. Brock’s pupil had shown no more

than a natural interest in one of the few romantic circumstances

which had varied the monotony of the village life: he had committed

no imprudence, and he had exposed himself to no blame. But as the

days passed, young Armadale’s visits to the inn began to lengthen

considerably, and the surgeon (a cautious elderly man) gave the rector a

private hint to bestir himself. Mr. Brock acted on the hint immediately,

and discovered that Allan had followed his usual impulses in his usual

headlong way. He had taken a violent fancy to the castaway usher and had

invited Ozias Midwinter to reside permanently in the neighborhood in the

new and interesting character of his bosom friend.

Before Mr. Brock could make up his mind how to act in this emergency, he

received a note from Allan’s mother, begging him to use his privilege as

an old friend, and to pay her a visit in her room.

He found Mrs. Armadale suffering under violent nervous agitation, caused

entirely by a recent interview with her son. Allan had been sitting with

her all the morning, and had talked of nothing but his new friend. The

man with the horrible name (as poor Mrs. Armadale described him) had

questioned Allan, in a singularly inquisitive manner, on the subject of

himself and his family, but had kept his own personal history entirely

in the dark. At some former period of his life he had been accustomed to

the sea and to sailing. Allan had, unfortunately, found this out, and

a bond of union between them was formed on the spot. With a merciless

distrust of the stranger--simply _because_ he was a stranger--which

appeared rather unreasonable to Mr. Brock, Mrs. Armadale besought the

rector to go to the inn without a moment’s loss of time, and never to

rest until he had made the man give a proper account of himself. “Find

out everything about his father and mother!” she said, in her vehement

female way. “Make sure before you leave him that he is not a vagabond

roaming the country under an assumed name.”

“My dear lady,” remonstrated the rector, obediently taking his hat,

“whatever else we may doubt, I really think we may feel sure about the

man’s name! It is so remarkably ugly that it must be genuine. No sane

human being would _assume_ such a name as Ozias Midwinter.”

“You may be quite right, and I may be quite wrong; but pray go and see

him,” persisted Mrs. Armadale. “Go, and don’t spare him, Mr. Brock.

How do we know that this illness of his may not have been put on for a

purpose?”

It was useless to reason with her. The whole College of Physicians might

have certified to the man’s illness, and, in her present frame of mind,

Mrs. Armadale would have disbelieved the College, one and all, from

the president downward. Mr. Brock took the wise way out of the

difficulty--he said no more, and he set off for the inn immediately.

Ozias Midwinter, recovering from brain-fever, was a startling object to

contemplate on a first view of him. His shaven head, tied up in an old

yellow silk handkerchief; his tawny, haggard cheeks; his bright brown

eyes, preternaturally large and wild; his rough black beard; his long,

supple, sinewy fingers, wasted by suffering till they looked like

claws--all tended to discompose the rector at the outset of the

interview. When the first feeling of surprise had worn off, the

impression that followed it was not an agreeable one. Mr. Brock could

not conceal from himself that the stranger’s manner was against him.

The general opinion has settled that, if a man is honest, he is bound to

assert it by looking straight at his fellow-creatures when he speaks to

them. If this man was honest, his eyes showed a singular perversity in

looking away and denying it. Possibly they were affected in some degree

by a nervous restlessness in his organization, which appeared to pervade

every fiber in his lean, lithe body. The rector’s healthy Anglo-Saxon

flesh crept responsively at every casual movement of the usher’s supple

brown fingers, and every passing distortion of the usher’s haggard

yellow face. “God forgive me!” thought Mr. Brock, with his mind running

on Allan and Allan’s mother, “I wish I could see my way to turning Ozias

Midwinter adrift in the world again!”

The conversation which ensued between the two was a very guarded one.

Mr. Brock felt his way gently, and found himself, try where he might,

always kept politely, more or less, in the dark.

From first to last, the man’s real character shrank back with a savage

shyness from the rector’s touch. He started by an assertion which it

was impossible to look at him and believe--he declared that he was only

twenty years of age. All he could be persuaded to say on the subject of

the school was that the bare recollection of it was horrible to him.

He had only filled the usher’s situation for ten days when the first

appearance of his illness caused his dismissal. How he had reached

the field in which he had been found was more than he could say. He

remembered traveling a long distance by railway, with a purpose (if he

had a purpose) which it was now impossible to recall, and then wandering

coastward, on foot, all through the day, or all through the night--he

was not sure which. The sea kept running in his mind when his mind began

to give way. He had been employed on the sea as a lad. He had left it,

and had filled a situation at a bookseller’s in a country town. He had

left the bookseller’s, and had tried the school. Now the school had

turned him out, he must try something else. It mattered little what he

tried--failure (for which nobody was ever to blame but himself) was

sure to be the end of it, sooner or later. Friends to assist him, he

had none to apply to; and as for relations, he wished to be excused from

speaking of them. For all he knew they might be dead, and for all _they_

knew _he_ might be dead. That was a melancholy acknowledgment to make at

his time of life, there was no denying it. It might tell against him in

the opinions of others; and it did tell against him, no doubt, in the

opinion of the gentleman who was talking to him at that moment.

These strange answers were given in a tone and manner far removed from

bitterness on the one side, or from indifference on the other. Ozias

Midwinter at twenty spoke of his life as Ozias Midwinter at seventy

might have spoken with a long weariness of years on him which he had

learned to bear patiently.

Two circumstances pleaded strongly against the distrust with which, in

sheer perplexity of mind, Mr. Brock blindly regarded him. He had written

to a savings-bank in a distant part of England, had drawn his money, and

had paid the doctor and the landlord. A man of vulgar mind, after acting

in this manner, would have treated his obligations lightly when he

had settled his bills. Ozias Midwinter spoke of his obligations--and

especially of his obligation to Allan--with a fervor of thankfulness

which it was not surprising only, but absolutely painful to witness. He

showed a horrible sincerity of astonishment at having been treated

with common Christian kindness in a Christian land. He spoke of Allan’s

having become answerable for all the expenses of sheltering, nursing,

and curing him, with a savage rapture of gratitude and surprise which

burst out of him like a flash of lightning. “So help me God!” cried the

castaway usher, “I never met with the like of him: I never heard of the

like of him before!” In the next instant, the one glimpse of light which

the man had let in on his own passionate nature was quenched again

in darkness. His wandering eyes, returning to their old trick, looked

uneasily away from Mr. Brock, and his voice dropped back once more into

its unnatural steadiness and quietness of tone. “I beg your pardon,

sir,” he said. “I have been used to be hunted, and cheated, and starved.

Everything else comes strange to me.” Half attracted by the man, half

repelled by him, Mr. Brock, on rising to take leave, impulsively offered

his hand, and then, with a sudden misgiving, confusedly drew it back

again. “You meant that kindly, sir,” said Ozias Midwinter, with his own

hands crossed resolutely behind him. “I don’t complain of your thinking

better of it. A man who can’t give a proper account of himself is not a

man for a gentleman in your position to take by the hand.”

Mr. Brock left the inn thoroughly puzzled. Before returning to Mrs.

Armadale he sent for her son. The chances were that the guard had been

off the stranger’s tongue when he spoke to Allan, and with Allan’s

frankness there was no fear of his concealing anything that had passed

between them from the rector’s knowledge.

Here again Mr. Brock’s diplomacy achieved no useful results.

Once started on the subject of Ozias Midwinter, Allan rattled on about

his new friend in his usual easy, light-hearted way. But he had really

nothing of importance to tell, for nothing of importance had been

revealed to him. They had talked about boat-building and sailing by the

hour together, and Allan had got some valuable hints. They had discussed

(with diagrams to assist them, and with more valuable hints for Allan)

the serious impending question of the launch of the yacht. On other

occasions they had diverged to other subjects--to more of them than

Allan could remember, on the spur of the moment. Had Midwinter said

nothing about his relations in the flow of all this friendly talk?

Nothing, except that they had not behaved well to him--hang his

relations! Was he at all sensitive on the subject of his own odd name?

Not the least in the world; he had set the example, like a sensible

fellow, of laughing at it himself.

Mr. Brock still persisted. He inquired next what Allan had seen in the

stranger to take such a fancy to? Allan had seen in him--what he didn’t

see in people in general. He wasn’t like all the other fellows in the

neighborhood. All the other fellows were cut out on the same pattern.

Every man of them was equally healthy, muscular, loud, hard-hearted,

clean-skinned, and rough; every man of them drank the same draughts of

beer, smoked the same short pipes all day long, rode the best horse,

shot over the best dog, and put the best bottle of wine in England on

his table at night; every man of them sponged himself every morning

in the same sort of tub of cold water and bragged about it in frosty

weather in the same sort of way; every man of them thought getting

into debt a capital joke and betting on horse-races one of the most

meritorious actions that a human being can perform. They were, no doubt,

excellent fellows in their way; but the worst of them was, they were

all exactly alike. It was a perfect godsend to meet with a man like

Midwinter--a man who was not cut out on the regular local pattern, and

whose way in the world had the one great merit (in those parts) of being

a way of his own.

Leaving all remonstrances for a fitter opportunity, the rector went back

to Mrs. Armadale. He could not disguise from himself that Allan’s mother

was the person really answerable for Allan’s present indiscretion. If

the lad had seen a little less of the small gentry in the neighborhood,

and a little more of the great outside world at home and abroad, the

pleasure of cultivating Ozias Midwinter’s society might have had fewer

attractions for him.

Conscious of the unsatisfactory result of his visit to the inn, Mr.

Brock felt some anxiety about the reception of his report when he found

himself once more in Mrs. Armadale’s presence. His forebodings were soon

realized. Try as he might to make the best of it, Mrs. Armadale seized

on the one suspicious fact of the usher’s silence about himself as

justifying the strongest measures that could be taken to separate him

from her son. If the rector refused to interfere, she declared her

intention of writing to Ozias Midwinter with her own hand. Remonstrance

irritated her to such a pitch that she astounded Mr. Brock by reverting

to the forbidden subject of five years since, and referring him to the

conversation which had passed between them when the advertisement had

been discovered in the newspaper. She passionately declared that the

vagabond Armadale of that advertisement, and the vagabond Midwinter at

the village inn, might, for all she know to the contrary, be one and the

same. Foreboding a serious disagreement between the mother and son if

the mother interfered, Mr. Brock undertook to see Midwinter again, and

to tell him plainly that he must give a proper account of himself, or

that his intimacy with Allan must cease. The two concessions which he

exacted from Mrs. Armadale in return were that she should wait patiently

until the doctor reported the man fit to travel, and that she should be

careful in the interval not to mention the matter in any way to her son.

In a week’s time Midwinter was able to drive out (with Allan for his

coachman) in the pony chaise belonging to the inn, and in ten days the

doctor privately reported him as fit to travel. Toward the close of

that tenth day, Mr. Brock met Allan and his new friend enjoying the last

gleams of wintry sunshine in one of the inland lanes. He waited until

the two had separated, and then followed the usher on his way back to

the inn.

The rector’s resolution to speak pitilessly to the purpose was in some

danger of failing him as he drew nearer and nearer to the friendless

man, and saw how feebly he still walked, how loosely his worn coat

hung about him, and how heavily he leaned on his cheap, clumsy stick.

Humanely reluctant to say the decisive words too precipitately, Mr.

Brock tried him first with a little compliment on the range of his

reading, as shown by the volume of Sophocles and the volume of Goethe

which had been found in his bag, and asked how long he had been

acquainted with German and Greek. The quick ear of Midwinter detected

something wrong in the tone of Mr. Brock’s voice. He turned in the

darkening twilight, and looked suddenly and suspiciously in the rector’s

face.

“You have something to say to me,” he answered; “and it is not what you

are saying now.”

There was no help for it but to accept the challenge. Very delicately,

with many preparatory words, to which the other listened in unbroken

silence, Mr. Brock came little by little nearer and nearer to the point.

Long before he had really reached it--long before a man of no more than

ordinary sensibility would have felt what was coming--Ozias Midwinter

stood still in the lane, and told the rector that he need say no more.

“I understand you, sir,” said the usher. “Mr. Armadale has an

ascertained position in the world; Mr. Armadale has nothing to conceal,

and nothing to be ashamed of. I agree with you that I am not a fit

companion for him. The best return I can make for his kindness is

to presume on it no longer. You may depend on my leaving this place

to-morrow morning.”

He spoke no word more; he would hear no word more. With a self-control

which, at his years and with his temperament, was nothing less than

marvelous, he civilly took off his hat, bowed, and returned to the inn

by himself.

Mr. Brock slept badly that night. The issue of the interview in the lane

had made the problem of Ozias Midwinter a harder problem to solve than

ever.

Early the next morning a letter was brought to the rector from the inn,

and the messenger announced that the strange gentleman had taken his

departure. The letter inclosed an open note addressed to Allan, and

requested Allan’s tutor (after first reading it himself) to forward it

or not at his own sole discretion. The note was a startlingly short one;

it began and ended in a dozen words: “Don’t blame Mr. Brock; Mr. Brock

is right. Thank you, and good-by.--O. M.”

The rector forwarded the note to its proper destination, as a matter of

course, and sent a few lines to Mrs. Armadale at the same time to quiet

her anxiety by the news of the usher’s departure. This done, he waited

the visit from his pupil, which would probably follow the delivery of

the note, in no very tranquil frame of mind. There might or might not be

some deep motive at the bottom of Midwinter’s conduct; but thus far it

was impossible to deny that he had behaved in such a manner as to rebuke

the rector’s distrust, and to justify Allan’s good opinion of him.

The morning wore on, and young Armadale never appeared. After looking

for him vainly in the yard where the yacht was building, Mr. Brock went

to Mrs. Armadale’s house, and there heard news from the servant which

turned his steps in the direction of the inn. The landlord at once

acknowledged the truth: young Mr. Armadale had come there with an open

letter in his hand, and had insisted on being informed of the road which

his friend had taken. For the first time in the landlord’s experience of

him, the young gentleman was out of temper; and the girl who waited on

the customers had stupidly mentioned a circumstance which had added

fuel to the fire. She had acknowledged having heard Mr. Midwinter lock

himself into his room overnight, and burst into a violent fit of crying.

That trifling particular had set Mr. Armadale’s face all of a flame; he

had shouted and sworn; he had rushed into the stables; and forced the

hostler to saddle him a horse, and had set off full gallop on the road

that Ozias Midwinter had taken before him.

After cautioning the landlord to keep Allan’s conduct a secret if any

of Mrs. Armadale’s servants came that morning to the inn, Mr. Brock went

home again, and waited anxiously to see what the day would bring forth.

To his infinite relief his pupil appeared at the rectory late in the

afternoon.

Allan looked and spoke with a dogged determination which was quite new

in his old friend’s experience of him. Without waiting to be questioned,

he told his story in his usual straightforward way. He had overtaken

Midwinter on the road; and--after trying vainly first to induce him to

return, then to find out where he was going to--had threatened to

keep company with him for the rest of the day, and had so extorted the

confession that he was going to try his luck in London. Having gained

this point, Allan had asked next for his friend’s address in London, had

been entreated by the other not to press his request, had pressed it,

nevertheless, with all his might, and had got the address at last by

making an appeal to Midwinter’s gratitude, for which (feeling heartily

ashamed of himself) he had afterward asked Midwinter’s pardon. “I like

the poor fellow, and I won’t give him up,” concluded Allan, bringing his

clinched fist down with a thump on the rectory table. “Don’t be afraid

of my vexing my mother; I’ll leave you to speak to her, Mr. Brock, at

your own time and in your own way; and I’ll just say this much more

by way of bringing the thing to an end. Here is the address safe in my

pocket-book, and here am I, standing firm for once on a resolution of my

own. I’ll give you and my mother time to reconsider this; and, when the

time is up, if my friend Midwinter doesn’t come to _me_, I’ll go to my

friend Midwinter.”

So the matter rested for the present; and such was the result of turning

the castaway usher adrift in the world again.

-------------

A month passed, and brought in the new year--‘51. Overleaping that short

lapse of time, Mr. Brock paused, with a heavy heart, at the next

event; to his mind the one mournful, the one memorable event of the

series--Mrs. Armadale’s death.

The first warning of the affliction that was near at hand had followed

close on the usher’s departure in December, and had arisen out of a

circumstance which dwelt painfully on the rector’s memory from that time

forth.

But three days after Midwinter had left for London, Mr. Brock was

accosted in the village by a neatly dressed woman, wearing a gown and

bonnet of black silk and a red Paisley shawl, who was a total stranger

to him, and who inquired the way to Mrs. Armadale’s house. She put the

question without raising the thick black veil that hung over her face.

Mr. Brock, in giving her the necessary directions, observed that she

was a remarkably elegant and graceful woman, and looked after her as she

bowed and left him, wondering who Mrs. Armadale’s visitor could possibly

be.

A quarter of an hour later the lady, still veiled as before, passed Mr.

Brock again close to the inn. She entered the house, and spoke to the

landlady. Seeing the landlord shortly afterward hurrying round to the

stables, Mr. Brock asked him if the lady was going away. Yes; she had

come from the railway in the omnibus, but she was going back again more

creditably in a carriage of her own hiring, supplied by the inn.

The rector proceeded on his walk, rather surprised to find his thoughts

running inquisitively on a woman who was a stranger to him. When he

got home again, he found the village surgeon waiting his return with an

urgent message from Allan’s mother. About an hour since, the surgeon

had been sent for in great haste to see Mrs. Armadale. He had found her

suffering from an alarming nervous attack, brought on (as the servants

suspected) by an unexpected, and, possibly, an unwelcome visitor, who

had called that morning. The surgeon had done all that was needful,

and had no apprehension of any dangerous results. Finding his patient

eagerly desirous, on recovering herself, to see Mr. Brock immediately,

he had thought it important to humor her, and had readily undertaken to

call at the rectory with a message to that effect.

Looking at Mrs. Armadale with a far deeper interest in her than the

surgeon’s interest, Mr. Brock saw enough in her face, when it turned

toward him on his entering the room, to justify instant and serious

alarm. She allowed him no opportunity of soothing her; she heeded none

of his inquiries. Answers to certain questions of her own were what

she wanted, and what she was determined to have: Had Mr. Brock seen the

woman who had presumed to visit her that morning? Yes. Had Allan seen

her? No; Allan had been at work since breakfast, and was at work still,

in his yard by the water-side.

This latter reply appeared to quiet Mrs. Armadale for the moment;

she put her next question--the most extraordinary question of the

three--more composedly: Did the rector think Allan would object to

leaving his vessel for the present, and to accompanying his mother on

a journey to look out for a new house in some other part of England? In

the greatest amazement Mr. Brock asked what reason there could possibly

be for leaving her present residence? Mrs. Armadale’s reason, when she

gave it, only added to his surprise. The woman’s first visit might be

followed by a second; and rather than see her again, rather than run

the risk of Allan’s seeing her and speaking to her, Mrs. Armadale would

leave England if necessary, and end her days in a foreign land. Taking

counsel of his experience as a magistrate, Mr. Brock inquired if the

woman had come to ask for money. Yes; respectably as she was dressed,

she had described herself as being “in distress”; had asked for money,

and had got it. But the money was of no importance; the one thing

needful was to get away before the woman came again. More and more

surprised, Mr. Brock ventured on another question: Was it long since

Mrs. Armadale and her visitor had last met? Yes; longer than all Allan’s

lifetime--as long ago as the year before Allan was born.

At that reply, the rector shifted his ground, and took counsel next of

his experience as a friend.

“Is this person,” he asked, “connected in any way with the painful

remembrances of your early life?”

“Yes; with the painful remembrance of the time when I was married,” said

Mrs. Armadale. “She was associated, as a mere child, with a circumstance

which I must think of with shame and sorrow to my dying day.”

Mr. Brock noticed the altered tone in which his old friend spoke, and

the unwillingness with which she gave her answer.

“Can you tell me more about her without referring to yourself?” he went

on. “I am sure I can protect you, if you will only help me a little. Her

name, for instance--you can tell me her name?”

Mrs. Armadale shook her head, “The name I knew her by,” she said, “would

be of no use to you. She has been married since then; she told me so

herself.”

“And without telling you her married name?”

“She refused to tell it.”

“Do you know anything of her friends?”

“Only of her friends when she was a child. They called themselves her

uncle and aunt. They were low people, and they deserted her at the

school on my father’s estate. We never heard any more of them.”

“Did she remain under your father’s care?”

“She remained under my care; that is to say, she traveled with us. We

were leaving England, just as that time, for Madeira. I had my father’s

leave to take her with me, and to train the wretch to be my maid--”

At those words Mrs. Armadale stopped confusedly. Mr. Brock tried gently

to lead her on. It was useless; she started up in violent agitation, and

walked excitedly backward and forward in the room.

“Don’t ask me any more!” she cried out, in loud, angry tones. “I parted

with her when she was a girl of twelve years old. I never saw her again,

I never heard of her again, from that time to this. I don’t know how

she has discovered me, after all the years that have passed; I only know

that she _has_ discovered me. She will find her way to Allan next; she

will poison my son’s mind against me. Help me to get away from her! help

me to take Allan away before she comes back!”

The rector asked no more questions; it would have been cruel to press

her further. The first necessity was to compose her by promising

compliance with all that she desired. The second was to induce her to

see another medical man. Mr. Brock contrived to reach his end harmlessly

in this latter case by reminding her that she wanted strength to travel,

and that her own medical attendant might restore her all the more

speedily to herself if he were assisted by the best professional advice.

Having overcome her habitual reluctance to seeing strangers by this

means, the rector at once went to Allan; and, delicately concealing what

Mrs. Armadale had said at the interview, broke the news to him that his

mother was seriously ill. Allan would hear of no messengers being sent

for assistance: he drove off on the spot to the railway, and telegraphed

himself to Bristol for medical help.

On the next morning the help came, and Mr. Brock’s worst fears were

confirmed. The village surgeon had fatally misunderstood the case from

the first, and the time was past now at which his errors of treatment

might have been set right. The shock of the previous morning had

completed the mischief. Mrs. Armadale’s days were numbered.

The son who dearly loved her, the old friend to whom her life was

precious, hoped vainly to the last. In a month from the physician’s

visit all hope was over; and Allan shed the first bitter tears of his

life at his mother’s grave.

She had died more peacefully than Mr. Brock had dared to hope, leaving

all her little fortune to her son, and committing him solemnly to the

care of her one friend on earth. The rector had entreated her to let him

write and try to reconcile her brothers with her before it was too

late. She had only answered sadly that it was too late already. But one

reference escaped her in her last illness to those early sorrows which

had weighed heavily on all her after-life, and which had passed thrice

already, like shadows of evil, between the rector and herself. Even on

her deathbed she had shrunk from letting the light fall clearly on the

story of the past. She had looked at Allan kneeling by the bedside,

and had whispered to Mr. Brock: “_Never let his Namesake come near him!

Never let that Woman find him out_!” No word more fell from her that

touched on the misfortunes which had tried her in the past, or on the

dangers which she dreaded in the future. The secret which she had kept

from her son and from her friend was a secret which she carried with her

to the grave.

When the last offices of affection and respect had been performed, Mr.

Brock felt it his duty, as executor to the deceased lady, to write to

her brothers, and to give them information of her death. Believing that

he had to deal with two men who would probably misinterpret his motives

if he left Allan’s position unexplained, he was careful to remind them

that Mrs. Armadale’s son was well provided for, and that the object of

his letter was simply to communicate the news of their sister’s decease.

The two letters were dispatched toward the middle of January, and by

return of post the answers were received. The first which the rector

opened was written not by the elder brother, but by the elder brother’s

only son. The young man had succeeded to the estates in Norfolk on his

father’s death, some little time since. He wrote in a frank and friendly

spirit, assuring Mr. Brock that, however strongly his father might have

been prejudiced against Mrs. Armadale, the hostile feeling had never

extended to her son. For himself, he had only to add that he would be

sincerely happy to welcome his cousin to Thorpe Ambrose whenever his

cousin came that way.

The second letter was a far less agreeable reply to receive than the

first. The younger brother was still alive, and still resolute neither

to forget nor forgive. He informed Mr. Brock that his deceased sister’s

choice of a husband, and her conduct to her father at the time of her

marriage, had made any relations of affection or esteem impossible, on

his side, from that time forth. Holding the opinions he did, it would

be equally painful to his nephew and himself if any personal intercourse

took place between them. He had adverted, as generally as possible, to

the nature of the differences which had kept him apart from his

late sister, in order to satisfy Mr. Brock’s mind that a personal

acquaintance with young Mr. Armadale was, as a matter of delicacy, quite

out of the question and, having done this, he would beg leave to close

the correspondence.

Mr. Brock wisely destroyed the second letter on the spot, and, after

showing Allan his cousin’s invitation, suggested that he should go to

Thorpe Ambrose as soon as he felt fit to present himself to strangers.

Allan listened to the advice patiently enough; but he declined to profit

by it. “I will shake hands with my cousin willingly if I ever meet him,”

he said; “but I will visit no family, and be a guest in no house, in

which my mother has been badly treated.” Mr. Brock remonstrated gently,

and tried to put matters in their proper light. Even at that time--even

while he was still ignorant of events which were then impending--Allan’s

strangely isolated position in the world was a subject of serious

anxiety to his old friend and tutor. The proposed visit to Thorpe

Ambrose opened the very prospect of his making friends and connections

suited to him in rank and age which Mr. Brock most desired to see; but

Allan was not to be persuaded; he was obstinate and unreasonable; and

the rector had no alternative but to drop the subject.

One on another the weeks passed monotonously, and Allan showed but

little of the elasticity of his age and character in bearing the

affliction that had made him motherless. He finished and launched his

yacht; but his own journeymen remarked that the work seemed to have lost

its interest for him. It was not natural to the young man to brood

over his solitude and his grief as he was brooding now. As the spring

advanced, Mr. Brock began to feel uneasy about the future, if Allan was

not roused at once by change of scene. After much pondering, the

rector decided on trying a trip to Paris, and on extending the journey

southward if his companion showed an interest in Continental traveling.

Allan’s reception of the proposal made atonement for his obstinacy in

refusing to cultivate his cousin’s acquaintance; he was willing to go

with Mr. Brock wherever Mr. Brock pleased. The rector took him at his

word, and in the middle of March the two strangely assorted companions

left for London on their way to Paris.

Arrived in London, Mr. Brock found himself unexpectedly face to face

with a new anxiety. The unwelcome subject of Ozias Midwinter, which

had been buried in peace since the beginning of December, rose to the

surface again, and confronted the rector at the very outset of his

travels, more unmanageably than ever.

Mr. Brock’s position in dealing with this difficult matter had been

hard enough to maintain when he had first meddled with it. He now found

himself with no vantage-ground left to stand on. Events had so ordered

it that the difference of opinion between Allan and his mother on the

subject of the usher was entirely disassociated with the agitation

which had hastened Mrs. Armadale’s death. Allan’s resolution to say no

irritating words, and Mr. Brock’s reluctance to touch on a disagreeable

topic, had kept them both silent about Midwinter in Mrs. Armadale’s

presence during the three days which had intervened between that

person’s departure and the appearance of the strange woman in the

village. In the period of suspense and suffering that had followed no

recurrence to the subject of the usher had been possible, and none had

taken place. Free from all mental disquietude on this score, Allan

had stoutly preserved his perverse interest in his new friend. He had

written to tell Midwinter of his affliction, and he now proposed (unless

the rector formally objected to it) paying a visit to his friend before

he started for Paris the next morning.

What was Mr. Brock to do? There was no denying that Midwinter’s conduct

had pleaded unanswerably against poor Mrs. Armadale’s unfounded distrust

of him. If the rector, with no convincing reason to allege against it,

and with no right to interfere but the right which Allan’s courtesy gave

him, declined to sanction the proposed visit, then farewell to all

the old sociability and confidence between tutor and pupil on the

contemplated tour. Environed by difficulties, which might have been

possibly worsted by a less just and a less kind-hearted man, Mr. Brock

said a cautious word or two at parting, and (with more confidence

in Midwinter’s discretion and self-denial than he quite liked to

acknowledge, even to himself) left Allan free to take his own way.

After whiling away an hour, during the interval of his pupil’s absence,

by a walk in the streets, the rector returned to his hotel, and, finding

the newspaper disengaged in the coffee-room, sat down absently to look

over it. His eye, resting idly on the title-page, was startled into

instant attention by the very first advertisement that it chanced

to light on at the head of the column. There was Allan’s mysterious

namesake again, figuring in capital letters, and associated this time

(in the character of a dead man) with the offer of a pecuniary reward.

Thus it ran:

SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD.--To parish clerks, sextons, and others. Twenty

Pounds reward will be paid to any person who can produce evidence of

the death of ALLAN ARMADALE, only son of the late Allan Armadale, of

Barbadoes, and born in Trinidad in the year 1830. Further particulars on

application to Messrs. Hammick and Ridge, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London.

Even Mr. Brock’s essentially unimaginative mind began to stagger

superstitiously in the dark as he laid the newspaper down again. Little

by little a vague suspicion took possession of him that the whole series

of events which had followed the first appearance of Allan’s namesake

in the newspaper six years since was held together by some mysterious

connection, and was tending steadily to some unimaginable end. Without

knowing why, he began to feel uneasy at Allan’s absence. Without knowing

why, he became impatient to get his pupil away from England before

anything else happened between night and morning.

In an hour more the rector was relieved of all immediate anxiety by

Allan’s return to the hotel. The young man was vexed and out of spirits.

He had discovered Midwinter’s lodgings, but he had failed to find

Midwinter himself. The only account his landlady could give of him was

that he had gone out at his customary time to get his dinner at the

nearest eating-house, and that he had not returned, in accordance with

his usual regular habits, at his usual regular hour. Allan had therefore

gone to inquire at the eating-house, and had found, on describing him,

that Midwinter was well known there. It was his custom, on other days,

to take a frugal dinner, and to sit half an hour afterward reading the

newspaper. On this occasion, after dining, he had taken up the paper

as usual, had suddenly thrown it aside again, and had gone, nobody knew

where, in a violent hurry. No further information being attainable,

Allan had left a note at the lodgings, giving his address at the hotel,

and begging Midwinter to come and say good-by before his departure for

Paris.

The evening passed, and Allan’s invisible friend never appeared. The

morning came, bringing no obstacles with it, and Mr. Brock and his pupil

left London. So far Fortune had declared herself at last on the rector’s

side. Ozias Midwinter, after intrusively rising to the surface, had

conveniently dropped out of sight again. What was to happen next?

-------------

Advancing once more, by three weeks only, from past to present, Mr.

Brock’s memory took up the next event on the seventh of April. To all

appearance, the chain was now broken at last. The new event had no

recognizable connection (either to his mind or to Allan’s) with any

of the persons who had appeared, or any of the circumstances that had

happened, in the by-gone time.

The travelers had as yet got no further than Paris. Allan’s spirits had

risen with the change; and he had been made all the readier to enjoy the

novelty of the scene around him by receiving a letter from Midwinter,

containing news which Mr. Brock himself acknowledged promised fairly for

the future. The ex-usher had been away on business when Allan had called

at his lodgings, having been led by an accidental circumstance to open

communications with his relatives on that day. The result had taken him

entirely by surprise: it had unexpectedly secured to him a little income

of his own for the rest of his life. His future plans, now that this

piece of good fortune had fallen to his share, were still unsettled.

But if Allan wished to hear what he ultimately decided on, his agent in

London (whose direction he inclosed) would receive communications

for him, and would furnish Mr. Armadale at all future times with his

address.

On receipt of this letter, Allan had seized the pen in his usual

headlong way, and had insisted on Midwinter’s immediately joining Mr.

Brock and himself on their travels. The last days of March passed, and

no answer to the proposal was received. The first days of April came,

and on the seventh of the month there was a letter for Allan at last on

the breakfast-table. He snatched it up, looked at the address, and threw

the letter down again impatiently. The handwriting was not Midwinter’s.

Allan finished his breakfast before he cared to read what his

correspondent had to say to him.

The meal over, young Armadale lazily opened the letter. He began it with

an expression of supreme indifference. He finished it with a sudden leap

out of his chair, and a loud shout of astonishment. Wondering, as he

well might, at this extraordinary outbreak, Mr. Brock took up the letter

which Allan had tossed across the table to him. Before he had come to

the end of it, his hands dropped helplessly on his knees, and the blank

bewilderment of his pupil’s expression was accurately reflected on his

own face.

If ever two men had good cause for being thrown completely off their

balance, Allan and the rector were those two. The letter which had

struck them both with the same shock of astonishment did, beyond all

question, contain an announcement which, on a first discovery of it, was

simply incredible. The news was from Norfolk, and was to this effect. In

little more than one week’s time death had mown down no less than three

lives in the family at Thorpe Ambrose, and Allan Armadale was at that

moment heir to an estate of eight thousand a year!

A second perusal of the letter enabled the rector and his companion to

master the details which had escaped them on a first reading.

The writer was the family lawyer at Thorpe Ambrose. After announcing to

Allan the deaths of his cousin Arthur at the age of twenty-five, of his

uncle Henry at the age of forty-eight, and of his cousin John at the

age of twenty-one, the lawyer proceeded to give a brief abstract of the

terms of the elder Mr. Blanchard’s will. The claims of male issue were,

as is not unusual in such cases, preferred to the claims of female

issue. Failing Arthur and his issue male, the estate was left to Henry

and his issue male. Failing them, it went to the issue male of Henry’s

sister; and, in default of such issue, to the next heir male. As events

had happened, the two young men, Arthur and John, had died unmarried,

and Henry Blanchard had died, leaving no surviving child but a daughter.

Under these circumstances, Allan was the next heir male pointed at by

the will, and was now legally successor to the Thorpe Ambrose estate.

Having made this extraordinary announcement, the lawyer requested to be

favored with Mr. Armadale’s instructions, and added, in conclusion, that

he would be happy to furnish any further particulars that were desired.

It was useless to waste time in wondering at an event which neither

Allan nor his mother had ever thought of as even remotely possible. The

only thing to be done was to go back to England at once. The next day

found the travelers installed once more in their London hotel, and the

day after the affair was placed in the proper professional hands. The

inevitable corresponding and consulting ensued, and one by one the

all-important particulars flowed in, until the measure of information

was pronounced to be full.

This was the strange story of the three deaths:

At the time when Mr. Brock had written to Mrs. Armadale’s relatives to

announce the news of her decease (that is to say, in the middle of

the month of January), the family at Thorpe Ambrose numbered five

persons--Arthur Blanchard (in possession of the estate), living in the

great house with his mother; and Henry Blanchard, the uncle, living in

the neighborhood, a widower with two children, a son and a daughter. To

cement the family connection still more closely, Arthur Blanchard was

engaged to be married to his cousin. The wedding was to be celebrated

with great local rejoicings in the coming summer, when the young lady

had completed her twentieth year.

The month of February had brought changes with it in the family

position. Observing signs of delicacy in the health of his son, Mr.

Henry Blanchard left Norfolk, taking the young man with him, under

medical advice, to try the climate of Italy. Early in the ensuing month

of March, Arthur Blanchard also left Thorpe Ambrose, for a few days

only, on business which required his presence in London. The business

took him into the City. Annoyed by the endless impediments in the

streets, he returned westward by one of the river steamers, and, so

returning, met his death.

As the steamer left the wharf, he noticed a woman near him who had shown

a singular hesitation in embarking, and who had been the last of the

passengers to take her place in the vessel. She was neatly dressed in

black silk, with a red Paisley shawl over her shoulders, and she kept

her face hidden behind a thick veil. Arthur Blanchard was struck by the

rare grace and elegance of her figure, and he felt a young man’s passing

curiosity to see her face. She neither lifted her veil nor turned her

head his way. After taking a few steps hesitatingly backward and forward

on the deck, she walked away on a sudden to the stern of the vessel. In

a minute more there was a cry of alarm from the man at the helm, and

the engines were stopped immediately. The woman had thrown herself

overboard.

The passengers all rushed to the side of the vessel to look. Arthur

Blanchard alone, without an instant’s hesitation, jumped into the river.

He was an excellent swimmer, and he reached the woman as she rose again

to the surface, after sinking for the first time. Help was at hand, and

they were both brought safely ashore. The woman was taken to the nearest

police station, and was soon restored to her senses, her preserver

giving his name and address, as usual in such cases, to the inspector on

duty, who wisely recommended him to get into a warm bath, and to send to

his lodgings for dry clothes. Arthur Blanchard, who had never known an

hour’s illness since he was a child, laughed at the caution, and went

back in a cab. The next day he was too ill to attend the examination

before the magistrate. A fortnight afterward he was a dead man.

The news of the calamity reached Henry Blanchard and his son at Milan,

and within an hour of the time when they received it they were on their

way back to England. The snow on the Alps had loosened earlier than

usual that year, and the passes were notoriously dangerous. The father

and son, traveling in their own carriage, were met on the mountain by

the mail returning, after sending the letters on by hand. Warnings which

would have produced their effect under any ordinary circumstances were

now vainly addressed to the two Englishmen. Their impatience to be

at home again, after the catastrophe which had befallen their family,

brooked no delay. Bribes lavishly offered to the postilions, tempted

them to go on. The carriage pursued its way, and was lost to view in the

mist. When it was seen again, it was disinterred from the bottom of a

precipice--the men, the horses, and the vehicle all crushed together

under the wreck and ruin of an avalanche.

So the three lives were mown down by death. So, in a clear sequence of

events, a woman’s suicide-leap into a river had opened to Allan Armadale

the succession to the Thorpe Ambrose estates.

Who was the woman? The man who saved her life never knew. The magistrate

who remanded her, the chaplain who exhorted her, the reporter who

exhibited her in print, never knew. It was recorded of her with surprise

that, though most respectably dressed, she had nevertheless described

herself as being “in distress.” She had expressed the deepest

contrition, but had persisted in giving a name which was on the face of

it a false one; in telling a commonplace story, which was manifestly

an invention; and in refusing to the last to furnish any clew to her

friends. A lady connected with a charitable institution (“interested by

her extreme elegance and beauty”) had volunteered to take charge of her,

and to bring her into a better frame of mind. The first day’s experience

of the penitent had been far from cheering, and the second day’s

experience had been conclusive. She had left the institution by stealth;

and--though the visiting clergyman, taking a special interest in the

case, had caused special efforts to be made--all search after her, from

that time forth, had proved fruitless.

While this useless investigation (undertaken at Allan’s express desire)

was in progress, the lawyers had settled the preliminary formalities

connected with the succession to the property. All that remained was

for the new master of Thorpe Ambrose to decide when he would personally

establish himself on the estate of which he was now the legal possessor.

Left necessarily to his own guidance in this matter, Allan settled

it for himself in his usual hot-headed, generous way. He positively

declined to take possession until Mrs. Blanchard and her niece (who had

been permitted thus far, as a matter of courtesy, to remain in their old

home) had recovered from the calamity that had befallen them, and were

fit to decide for themselves what their future proceedings should be.

A private correspondence followed this resolution, comprehending, on

Allan’s side, unlimited offers of everything he had to give (in a house

which he had not yet seen), and, on the ladies’ side, a discreetly

reluctant readiness to profit by the young gentleman’s generosity in the

matter of time. To the astonishment of his legal advisers, Allan entered

their office one morning, accompanied by Mr. Brock, and announced, with

perfect composure, that the ladies had been good enough to take his own

arrangements off his hands, and that, in deference to their convenience,

he meant to defer establishing himself at Thorpe Ambrose till that

day two months. The lawyers stared at Allan, and Allan, returning the

compliment, stared at the lawyers.

“What on earth are you wondering at, gentlemen?” he inquired, with a

boyish bewilderment in his good-humored blue eyes. “Why shouldn’t I

give the ladies their two months, if the ladies want them? Let the poor

things take their own time, and welcome. My rights? and my position? Oh,

pooh! pooh! I’m in no hurry to be squire of the parish; it’s not in my

way. What do I mean to do for the two months? What I should have done

anyhow, whether the ladies had stayed or not; I mean to go cruising

at sea. That’s what _I_ like! I’ve got a new yacht at home in

Somersetshire--a yacht of my own building. And I’ll tell you what, sir,”

continued Allan, seizing the head partner by the arm in the fervor of

his friendly intentions, “you look sadly in want of a holiday in the

fresh air, and you shall come along with me on the trial trip of my new

vessel. And your partners, too, if they like. And the head clerk, who

is the best fellow I ever met with in my life. Plenty of room--we’ll all

shake down together on the floor, and we’ll give Mr. Brock a rug on the

cabin table. Thorpe Ambrose be hanged! Do you mean to say, if you had

built a vessel yourself (as I have), you would go to any estate in the

three kingdoms, while your own little beauty was sitting like a duck on

the water at home, and waiting for you to try her? You legal gentlemen

are great hands at argument. What do you think of that argument? I think

it’s unanswerable--and I’m off to Somersetshire to-morrow.”

With those words, the new possessor of eight thousand a year dashed into

the head clerk’s office, and invited that functionary to a cruise on the

high seas, with a smack on the shoulder which was heard distinctly by

his masters in the next room. The firm looked in interrogative wonder at

Mr. Brock. A client who could see a position among the landed gentry of

England waiting for him, without being in a hurry to occupy it at the

earliest possible opportunity, was a client of whom they possessed no

previous experience.

“He must have been very oddly brought up,” said the lawyers to the

rector.

“Very oddly,” said the rector to the lawyers.

A last leap over one month more brought Mr. Brock to the present

time--to the bedroom at Castletown, in which he was sitting thinking,

and to the anxiety which was obstinately intruding itself between

him and his night’s rest. That anxiety was no unfamiliar enemy to the

rector’s peace of mind. It had first found him out in Somersetshire six

months since, and it had now followed him to the Isle of Man under the

inveterately obtrusive form of Ozias Midwinter.

The change in Allan’s future prospects had worked no corresponding

alteration in his perverse fancy for the castaway at the village inn.

In the midst of the consultations with the lawyers he had found time

to visit Midwinter, and on the journey back with the rector there was

Allan’s friend in the carriage, returning with them to Somersetshire by

Allan’s own invitation.

The ex-usher’s hair had grown again on his shaven skull, and his dress

showed the renovating influence of an accession of pecuniary means, but

in all other respects the man was unchanged. He met Mr. Brock’s distrust

with the old uncomplaining resignation to it; he maintained the same

suspicious silence on the subject of his relatives and his early life;

he spoke of Allan’s kindness to him with the same undisciplined fervor

of gratitude and surprise. “I have done what I could, sir,” he said to

Mr. Brock, while Allan was asleep in the railway carriage. “I have kept

out of Mr. Armadale’s way, and I have not even answered his last letter

to me. More than that is more than I can do. I don’t ask you to consider

my own feeling toward the only human creature who has never suspected

and never ill-treated me. I can resist my own feeling, but I can’t

resist the young gentleman himself. There’s not another like him in the

world. If we are to be parted again, it must be his doing or yours--not

mine. The dog’s master has whistled,” said this strange man, with a

momentary outburst of the hidden passion in him, and a sudden springing

of angry tears in his wild brown eyes, “and it is hard, sir, to blame

the dog when the dog comes.”

Once more Mr. Brock’s humanity got the better of Mr. Brock’s caution. He

determined to wait, and see what the coming days of social intercourse

might bring forth.

The days passed; the yacht was rigged and fitted for sea; a cruise

was arranged to the Welsh coast--and Midwinter the Secret was the same

Midwinter still. Confinement on board a little vessel of five-and-thirty

tons offered no great attraction to a man of Mr. Brock’s time of life.

But he sailed on the trial trip of the yacht nevertheless, rather than

trust Allan alone with his new friend.

Would the close companionship of the three on their cruise tempt the

man into talking of his own affairs? No; he was ready enough on other

subjects, especially if Allan led the way to them. But not a word

escaped him about himself. Mr. Brock tried him with questions about

his recent inheritance, and was answered as he had been answered

once already at the Somersetshire inn. It was a curious coincidence,

Midwinter admitted, that Mr. Armadale’s prospects and his own prospects

should both have unexpectedly changed for the better about the same

time. But there the resemblance ended. It was no large fortune that

had fallen into his lap, though it was enough for his wants. It had not

reconciled him with his relations, for the money had not come to him as

a matter of kindness, but as a matter of right. As for the circumstance

which had led to his communicating with his family, it was not worth

mentioning, seeing that the temporary renewal of intercourse which had

followed had produced no friendly results. Nothing had come of it but

the money--and, with the money, an anxiety which troubled him sometimes,

when he woke in the small hours of the morning.

At those last words he became suddenly silent, as if for once his

well-guarded tongue had betrayed him.

Mr. Brock seized the opportunity, and bluntly asked him what the nature

of the anxiety might be. Did it relate to money? No; it related to a

Letter which had been waiting for him for many years. Had he received

the letter? Not yet; it had been left under charge of one of the

partners in the firm which had managed the business of his inheritance

for him; the partner had been absent from England; and the letter,

locked up among his own private papers, could not be got at till he

returned. He was expected back toward the latter part of that present

May, and, if Midwinter could be sure where the cruise would take them to

at the close of the month, he thought he would write and have the letter

forwarded. Had he any family reasons to be anxious about it? None that

he knew of; he was curious to see what had been waiting for him for many

years, and that was all. So he answered the rector’s questions, with

his tawny face turned away over the low bulwark of the yacht, and his

fishing-line dragging in his supple brown hands.

Favored by wind and weather, the little vessel had done wonders on her

trial trip. Before the period fixed for the duration of the cruise had

half expired, the yacht was as high up on the Welsh coast as Holyhead;

and Allan, eager for adventure in unknown regions, had declared boldly

for an extension of the voyage northward to the Isle of Man. Having

ascertained from reliable authority that the weather really promised

well for a cruise in that quarter, and that, in the event of any

unforeseen necessity for return, the railway was accessible by the

steamer from Douglas to Liverpool, Mr. Brock agreed to his pupil’s

proposal. By that night’s post he wrote to Allan’s lawyers and to his

own rectory, indicating Douglas in the Isle of Man as the next

address to which letters might be forwarded. At the post-office he met

Midwinter, who had just dropped a letter into the box. Remembering what

he had said on board the yacht, Mr. Brock concluded that they had both

taken the same precaution, and had ordered their correspondence to be

forwarded to the same place.

Late the next day they set sail for the Isle of Man.

For a few hours all went well; but sunset brought with it the signs of

a coming change. With the darkness the wind rose to a gale, and the

question whether Allan and his journeymen had or had not built a stout

sea-boat was seriously tested for the first time. All that night, after

trying vainly to bear up for Holyhead, the little vessel kept the sea,

and stood her trial bravely. The next morning the Isle of Man was in

view, and the yacht was safe at Castletown. A survey by daylight of hull

and rigging showed that all the damage done might be set right again

in a week’s time. The cruising party had accordingly remained at

Castletown, Allan being occupied in superintending the repairs, Mr.

Brock in exploring the neighborhood, and Midwinter in making daily

pilgrimages on foot to Douglas and back to inquire for letters.

The first of the cruising party who received a letter was Allan. “More

worries from those everlasting lawyers,” was all he said, when he had

read the letter, and had crumpled it up in his pocket. The rector’s turn

came next, before the week’s sojourn at Castletown had expired. On the

fifth day he found a letter from Somersetshire waiting for him at the

hotel. It had been brought there by Midwinter, and it contained news

which entirely overthrew all Mr. Brock’s holiday plans. The clergyman

who had undertaken to do duty for him in his absence had been

unexpectedly summoned home again; and Mr. Brock had no choice (the day

of the week being Friday) but to cross the next morning from Douglass

to Liverpool, and get back by railway on Saturday night in time for

Sunday’s service.

Having read his letter, and resigned himself to his altered

circumstances as patiently as he might, the rector passed next to a

question that pressed for serious consideration in its turn. Burdened

with his heavy responsibility toward Allan, and conscious of his own

undiminished distrust of Allan’s new friend, how was he to act, in the

emergency that now beset him, toward the two young men who had been his

companions on the cruise?

Mr. Brock had first asked himself that awkward question on the Friday

afternoon, and he was still trying vainly to answer it, alone in his own

room, at one o’clock on the Saturday morning. It was then only the end

of May, and the residence of the ladies at Thorpe Ambrose (unless they

chose to shorten it of their own accord) would not expire till the

middle of June. Even if the repairs of the yacht had been completed

(which was not the case), there was no possible pretense for hurrying

Allan back to Somersetshire. But one other alternative remained--to

leave him where he was. In other words, to leave him, at the

turning-point of his life, under the sole influence of a man whom he had

first met with as a castaway at a village inn, and who was still, to all

practical purposes, a total stranger to him.

In despair of obtaining any better means of enlightenment to guide

his decision, Mr. Brock reverted to the impression which Midwinter had

produced on his own mind in the familiarity of the cruise.

Young as he was, the ex-usher had evidently lived a varied life. He

could speak of books like a man who had really enjoyed them; he could

take his turn at the helm like a sailor who knew his duty; he could

cook, and climb the rigging, and lay the cloth for dinner, with an odd

delight in the exhibition of his own dexterity. The display of these,

and other qualities like them, as his spirits rose with the cruise, had

revealed the secret of his attraction for Allan plainly enough. But had

all disclosures rested there? Had the man let no chance light in on his

character in the rector’s presence? Very little; and that little did

not set him forth in a morally alluring aspect. His way in the world had

lain evidently in doubtful places; familiarity with the small villainies

of vagabonds peeped out of him now and then; and, more significant

still, he habitually slept the light, suspicious sleep of a man who has

been accustomed to close his eyes in doubt of the company under the same

roof with him. Down to the very latest moment of the rector’s experience

of him--down to that present Friday night--his conduct had been

persistently secret and unaccountable to the very last. After bringing

Mr. Brock’s letter to the hotel, he had mysterious disappeared from

the house without leaving any message for his companions, and without

letting anybody see whether he had or had not received a letter himself.

At nightfall he had come back stealthily in the darkness, had been

caught on the stairs by Allan, eager to tell him of the change in the

rector’s plans, had listened to the news without a word of remark! and

had ended by sulkily locking himself into his own room. What was

there in his favor to set against such revelations of his character

as these--against his wandering eyes, his obstinate reserve with the

rector, his ominous silence on the subject of family and friends? Little

or nothing: the sum of all his merits began and ended with his gratitude

to Allan.

Mr. Brock left his seat on the side of the bed, trimmed his candle, and,

still lost in his own thoughts, looked out absently at the night. The

change of place brought no new ideas with it. His retrospect over

his own past life had amply satisfied him that his present sense of

responsibility rested on no merely fanciful grounds, and, having brought

him to that point, had left him there, standing at the window, and

seeing nothing but the total darkness in his own mind faithfully

reflected by the total darkness of the night.

“If I only had a friend to apply to!” thought the rector. “If I could

only find some one to help me in this miserable place!”

At the moment when the aspiration crossed his mind, it was suddenly

answered by a low knock at the door, and a voice said softly in the

passage outside, “Let me come in.”

After an instant’s pause to steady his nerves, Mr. Brock opened the

door, and found himself, at one o’clock in the morning, standing face to

face on the threshold of his own bedroom with Ozias Midwinter.

“Are you ill?” asked the rector, as soon as his astonishment would allow

him to speak.

“I have come here to make a clean breast of it!” was the strange answer.

“Will you let me in?”

With those words he walked into the room, his eyes on the ground, his

lips ashy pale, and his hand holding something hidden behind him.

“I saw the light under your door,” he went on, without looking up, and

without moving his hand, “and I know the trouble on your mind which is

keeping you from your rest. You are going away to-morrow morning, and

you don’t like leaving Mr. Armadale alone with a stranger like me.”

Startled as he was, Mr. Brock saw the serious necessity of being plain

with a man who had come at that time, and had said those words to him.

“You have guessed right,” he answered. “I stand in the place of a father

to Allan Armadale, and I am naturally unwilling to leave him, at his

age, with a man whom I don’t know.”

Ozias Midwinter took a step forward to the table. His wandering eyes

rested on the rector’s New Testament, which was one of the objects lying

on it.

“You have read that Book, in the years of a long life, to many

congregations,” he said. “Has it taught you mercy to your miserable

fellow-creatures?”

Without waiting to be answered, he looked Mr. Brock in the face for the

first time, and brought his hidden hand slowly into view.

“Read that,” he said; “and, for Christ’s sake, pity me when you know who

I am.”

He laid a letter of many pages on the table. It was the letter that Mr.

Neal had posted at Wildbad nineteen years since.

II. THE MAN REVEALED.

THE first cool breathings of the coming dawn fluttered through the open

window as Mr. Brock read the closing lines of the Confession. He put it

from him in silence, without looking up. The first shock of discovery

had struck his mind, and had passed away again. At his age, and with

his habits of thought, his grasp was not strong enough to hold the whole

revelation that had fallen on him. All his heart, when he closed the

manuscript, was with the memory of the woman who had been the beloved

friend of his later and happier life; all his thoughts were busy with

the miserable secret of her treason to her own father which the letter

had disclosed.

He was startled out of the narrow limits of his own little grief by the

vibration of the table at which he sat, under a hand that was laid on it

heavily. The instinct of reluctance was strong in him; but he conquered

it, and looked up. There, silently confronting him in the mixed light of

the yellow candle flame and the faint gray dawn, stood the castaway of

the village inn--the inheritor of the fatal Armadale name.

Mr. Brock shuddered as the terror of the present time and the darker

terror yet of the future that might be coming rushed back on him at the

sight of the man’s face. The man saw it, and spoke first.

“Is my father’s crime looking at you out of my eyes?” he asked. “Has the

ghost of the drowned man followed me into the room?”

The suffering and the passion that he was forcing back shook the hand

that he still kept on the table, and stifled the voice in which he spoke

until it sank to a whisper.

“I have no wish to treat you otherwise than justly and kindly,” answered

Mr. Brock. “Do me justice on my side, and believe that I am incapable of

cruelly holding you responsible for your father’s crime.”

The reply seemed to compose him. He bowed his head in silence, and took

up the confession from the table.

“Have you read this through?” he asked, quietly.

“Every word of it, from first to last.”

“Have I dealt openly with you so far. Has Ozias Midwinter--”

“Do you still call yourself by that name,” interrupted Mr. Brock, “now

your true name is known to me?”

“Since I have read my father’s confession,” was the answer, “I like my

ugly alias better than ever. Allow me to repeat the question which I was

about to put to you a minute since: Has Ozias Midwinter done his best

thus far to enlighten Mr. Brock?”

The rector evaded a direct reply. “Few men in your position,” he said,

“would have had the courage to show me that letter.”

“Don’t be too sure, sir, of the vagabond you picked up at the inn till

you know a little more of him than you know now. You have got the secret

of my birth, but you are not in possession yet of the story of my life.

You ought to know it, and you shall know it, before you leave me alone

with Mr. Armadale. Will you wait, and rest a little while, or shall I

tell it you now?”

“Now,” said Mr. Brock, still as far away as ever from knowing the real

character of the man before him.

Everything Ozias Midwinter said, everything Ozias Midwinter did, was

against him. He had spoken with a sardonic indifference, almost with an

insolence of tone, which would have repelled the sympathies of any man

who heard him. And now, instead of placing himself at the table, and

addressing his story directly to the rector, he withdrew silently and

ungraciously to the window-seat. There he sat, his face averted, his

hands mechanically turning the leaves of his father’s letter till

he came to the last. With his eyes fixed on the closing lines of the

manuscript, and with a strange mixture of recklessness and sadness in

his voice, he began his promised narrative in these words:

“The first thing you know of me,” he said, “is what my father’s

confession has told you already. He mentions here that I was a child,

asleep on his breast, when he spoke his last words in this world, and

when a stranger’s hand wrote them down for him at his deathbed.

That stranger’s name, as you may have noticed, is signed on the

cover--‘Alexander Neal, Writer to the Signet, Edinburgh.’ The first

recollection I have is of Alexander Neal beating me with a horsewhip (I

dare say I deserved it), in the character of my stepfather.”

“Have you no recollection of your mother at the same time?” asked Mr.

Brock.

“Yes; I remember her having shabby old clothes made up to fit me,

and having fine new frocks bought for her two children by her second

husband. I remember the servants laughing at me in my old things, and

the horsewhip finding its way to my shoulders again for losing my temper

and tearing my shabby clothes. My next recollection gets on to a year or

two later. I remember myself locked up in a lumber-room, with a bit of

bread and a mug of water, wondering what it was that made my mother and

my stepfather seem to hate the very sight of me. I never settled that

question till yesterday, and then I solved the mystery, when my father’s

letter was put into my hands. My mother knew what had really happened

on board the French timber-ship, and my stepfather knew what had really

happened, and they were both well aware that the shameful secret which

they would fain have kept from every living creature was a secret

which would be one day revealed to _me_. There was no help for

it--the confession was in the executor’s hands, and there was I, an

ill-conditioned brat, with my mother’s negro blood in my face, and my

murdering father’s passions in my heart, inheritor of their secret in

spite of them! I don’t wonder at the horsewhip now, or the shabby old

clothes, or the bread and water in the lumber-room. Natural penalties

all of them, sir, which the child was beginning to pay already for the

father’s sin.”

Mr. Brock looked at the swarthy, secret face, still obstinately turned

away from him. “Is this the stark insensibility of a vagabond,” he asked

himself, “or the despair, in disguise, of a miserable man?”

“School is my next recollection,” the other went on--“a cheap place in a

lost corner of Scotland. I was left there, with a bad character to

help me at starting. I spare you the story of the master’s cane in the

schoolroom, and the boys’ kicks in the playground. I dare say there was

ingrained ingratitude in my nature; at any rate, I ran away. The first

person who met me asked my name. I was too young and too foolish to know

the importance of concealing it, and, as a matter of course, I was taken

back to school the same evening. The result taught me a lesson which I

have not forgotten since. In a day or two more, like the vagabond I

was, I ran away for the second time. The school watch-dog had had his

instructions, I suppose: he stopped me before I got outside the gate.

Here is his mark, among the rest, on the back of my hand. His master’s

marks I can’t show you; they are all on my back. Can you believe in my

perversity? There was a devil in me that no dog could worry out. I

ran away again as soon as I left my bed, and this time I got off. At

nightfall I found myself (with a pocketful of the school oatmeal) lost

on a moor. I lay down on the fine soft heather, under the lee of a

great gray rock. Do you think I felt lonely? Not I! I was away from the

master’s cane, away from my schoolfellows’ kicks, away from my mother,

away from my stepfather; and I lay down that night under my good friend

the rock, the happiest boy in all Scotland!”

Through the wretched childhood which that one significant circumstance

disclosed, Mr. Brock began to see dimly how little was really strange,

how little really unaccountable, in the character of the man who was now

speaking to him.

“I slept soundly,” Midwinter continued, “under my friend the rock. When

I woke in the morning, I found a sturdy old man with a fiddle sitting

on one side of me, and two performing dogs on the other. Experience

had made me too sharp to tell the truth when the man put his first

questions. He didn’t press them; he gave me a good breakfast out of his

knapsack, and he let me romp with the dogs. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ he

said, when he had got my confidence in this manner, ‘you want three

things, my man: you want a new father, a new family, and a new name.

I’ll be your father. I’ll let you have the dogs for your brothers; and,

if you’ll promise to be very careful of it, I’ll give you my own

name into the bargain. Ozias Midwinter, Junior, you have had a good

breakfast; if you want a good dinner, come along with me!’ He got up,

the dogs trotted after him, and I trotted after the dogs. Who was my new

father? you will ask. A half-breed gypsy, sir; a drunkard, a ruffian,

and a thief--and the best friend I ever had! Isn’t a man your friend who

gives you your food, your shelter, and your education? Ozias Midwinter

taught me to dance the Highland fling, to throw somersaults, to walk

on stilts, and to sing songs to his fiddle. Sometimes we roamed the

country, and performed at fairs. Sometimes we tried the large towns, and

enlivened bad company over its cups. I was a nice, lively little boy of

eleven years old, and bad company, the women especially, took a fancy to

me and my nimble feet. I was vagabond enough to like the life. The dogs

and I lived together, ate, and drank, and slept together. I can’t think

of those poor little four-footed brothers of mine, even now, without a

choking in the throat. Many is the beating we three took together; many

is the hard day’s dancing we did together; many is the night we have

slept together, and whimpered together, on the cold hill-side. I’m not

trying to distress you, sir; I’m only telling you the truth. The life

with all its hardships was a life that fitted me, and the half-breed

gypsy who gave me his name, ruffian as he was, was a ruffian I liked.”

“A man who beat you!” exclaimed Mr. Brock, in astonishment.

“Didn’t I tell you just now, sir, that I lived with the dogs? and did

you ever hear of a dog who liked his master the worse for beating him?

Hundreds of thousands of miserable men, women, and children would have

liked that man (as I liked him) if he had always given them what he

always gave me--plenty to eat. It was stolen food mostly, and my new

gypsy father was generous with it. He seldom laid the stick on us when

he was sober; but it diverted him to hear us yelp when he was drunk. He

died drunk, and enjoyed his favorite amusement with his last breath. One

day (when I had been two years in his service), after giving us a good

dinner out on the moor, he sat down with his back against a stone, and

called us up to divert himself with his stick. He made the dogs yelp

first, and then he called to me. I didn’t go very willingly; he had been

drinking harder than usual, and the more he drank the better he liked

his after-dinner amusement. He was in high good-humor that day, and

he hit me so hard that he toppled over, in his drunken state, with the

force of his own blow. He fell with his face in a puddle, and lay there

without moving. I and the dogs stood at a distance, and looked at him:

we thought he was feigning, to get us near and have another stroke at

us. He feigned so long that we ventured up to him at last. It took me

some time to pull him over; he was a heavy man. When I did get him on

his back, he was dead. We made all the outcry we could; but the dogs

were little, and I was little, and the place was lonely; and no help

came to us. I took his fiddle and his stick; I said to my two brothers,

‘Come along, we must get our own living now;’ and we went away

heavy-hearted, and left him on the moor. Unnatural as it may seem

to you, I was sorry for him. I kept his ugly name through all my

after-wanderings, and I have enough of the old leaven left in me to like

the sound of it still. Midwinter or Armadale, never mind my name now, we

will talk of that afterward; you must know the worst of me first.”

“Why not the best of you?” said Mr. Brock, gently.

“Thank you, sir; but I am here to tell the truth. We will get on, if you

please, to the next chapter in my story. The dogs and I did badly, after

our master’s death; our luck was against us. I lost one of my little

brothers--the best performer of the two; he was stolen, and I never

recovered him. My fiddle and my stilts were taken from me next, by main

force, by a tramp who was stronger than I. These misfortunes drew Tommy

and me--I beg your pardon, sir, I mean the dog--closer together than

ever.

“I think we had some kind of dim foreboding on both sides that we had not

done with our misfortunes yet; anyhow, it was not very long before we

were parted forever. We were neither of us thieves (our master had been

satisfied with teaching us to dance); but we both committed an invasion

of the rights of property, for all that. Young creatures, even when

they are half starved, cannot resist taking a run sometimes on a fine

morning. Tommy and I could not resist taking a run into a gentleman’s

plantation; the gentleman preserved his game; and the gentleman’s keeper

knew his business. I heard a gun go off; you can guess the rest. God

preserve me from ever feeling such misery again as I felt when I lay

down by Tommy, and took him, dead and bloody, in my arms! The keeper

attempted to part us; I bit him, like the wild animal I was. He tried

the stick on me next; he might as well have tried it on one of the

trees. The noise reached the ears of two young ladies riding near the

place--daughters of the gentleman on whose property I was a trespasser.

They were too well brought up to lift their voices against the sacred

right of preserving game, but they were kind-hearted girls, and they

pitied me, and took me home with them. I remember the gentlemen of the

house (keen sportsmen all of them) roaring with laughter as I went by

the windows, crying, with my little dead dog in my arms. Don’t suppose

I complain of their laughter; it did me good service; it roused the

indignation of the two ladies. One of them took me into her own garden,

and showed me a place where I might bury my dog under the flowers, and

be sure that no other hands should ever disturb him again. The other

went to her father, and persuaded him to give the forlorn little

vagabond a chance in the house, under one of the upper servants. Yes!

you have been cruising in company with a man who was once a foot-boy.

I saw you look at me, when I amused Mr. Armadale by laying the cloth

on board the yacht. Now you know why I laid it so neatly, and forgot

nothing. It has been my good fortune to see something of society; I have

helped to fill its stomach and black its boots. My experience of the

servants’ hall was not a long one. Before I had worn out my first suit

of livery, there was a scandal in the house. It was the old story; there

is no need to tell it over again for the thousandth time. Loose money

left on a table, and not found there again; all the servants with

characters to appeal to except the foot-boy, who had been rashly taken

on trial. Well! well! I was lucky in that house to the last; I was not

prosecuted for taking what I had not only never touched, but never even

seen: I was only turned out. One morning I went in my old clothes to the

grave where I had buried Tommy. I gave the place a kiss; I said good-by

to my little dead dog; and there I was, out in the world again, at the

ripe age of thirteen years!”

“In that friendless state, and at that tender age,” said Mr. Brock, “did

no thought cross your mind of going home again?”

“I went home again, sir, that very night--I slept on the hill-side. What

other home had I? In a day or two’s time I drifted back to the large

towns and the bad company, the great open country was so lonely to me,

now I had lost the dogs! Two sailors picked me up next. I was a handy

lad, and I got a cabin-boy’s berth on board a coasting-vessel. A

cabin-boy’s berth means dirt to live in, offal to eat, a man’s work on

a boy’s shoulders, and the rope’s-end at regular intervals. The vessel

touched at a port in the Hebrides. I was as ungrateful as usual to my

best benefactors; I ran away again. Some women found me, half dead of

starvation, in the northern wilds of the Isle of Skye. It was near the

coast and I took a turn with the fishermen next. There was less of the

rope’s-end among my new masters; but plenty of exposure to wind and

weather, and hard work enough to have killed a boy who was not a

seasoned tramp like me. I fought through it till the winter came, and

then the fishermen turned me adrift again. I don’t blame them; food was

scarce, and mouths were many. With famine staring the whole community in

the face, why should they keep a boy who didn’t belong to them? A great

city was my only chance in the winter-time; so I went to Glasgow, and

all but stepped into the lion’s mouth as soon as I got there. I was

minding an empty cart on the Broomielaw, when I heard my stepfather’s

voice on the pavement side of the horse by which I was standing. He had

met some person whom he knew, and, to my terror and surprise, they

were talking about me. Hidden behind the horse, I heard enough of their

conversation to know that I had narrowly escaped discovery before I

went on board the coasting-vessel. I had met at that time with another

vagabond boy of my own age; we had quarreled and parted. The day after,

my stepfather’s inquiries were made in that very district, and it became

a question with him (a good personal description being unattainable in

either case) which of the two boys he should follow. One of them, he was

informed, was known as “Brown,” and the other as “Midwinter.” Brown was

just the common name which a cunning runaway boy would be most likely

to assume; Midwinter, just the remarkable name which he would be most

likely to avoid. The pursuit had accordingly followed Brown, and had

allowed me to escape. I leave you to imagine whether I was not doubly

and trebly determined to keep my gypsy master’s name after that. But

my resolution did not stop here. I made up my mind to leave the country

altogether. After a day or two’s lurking about the outward-bound vessels

in port, I found out which sailed first, and hid myself on board. Hunger

tried hard to force me out before the pilot had left; but hunger was not

new to me, and I kept my place. The pilot was out of the vessel when I

made my appearance on deck, and there was nothing for it but to keep me

or throw me overboard. The captain said (I have no doubt quite truly)

that he would have preferred throwing me overboard; but the majesty of

the law does sometimes stand the friend even of a vagabond like me. In

that way I came back to a sea-life. In that way I learned enough to

make me handy and useful (as I saw you noticed) on board Mr. Armadale’s

yacht. I sailed more than one voyage, in more than one vessel, to more

than one part of the world, and I might have followed the sea for life,

if I could only have kept my temper under every provocation that could

be laid on it. I had learned a great deal; but, not having learned that,

I made the last part of my last voyage home to the port of Bristol in

irons; and I saw the inside of a prison for the first time in my life,

on a charge of mutinous conduct to one of my officers. You have heard me

with extraordinary patience, sir, and I am glad to tell you, in return,

that we are not far now from the end of my story. You found some books,

if I remember right, when you searched my luggage at the Somersetshire

inn?”

Mr. Brock answered in the affirmative.

“Those books mark the next change in my life--and the last, before I

took the usher’s place at the school. My term of imprisonment was not

a long one. Perhaps my youth pleaded for me; perhaps the Bristol

magistrates took into consideration the time I had passed in irons on

board ship. Anyhow, I was just turned seventeen when I found myself out

on the world again. I had no friends to receive me; I had no place to go

to. A sailor’s life, after what had happened, was a life I recoiled from

in disgust. I stood in the crowd on the bridge at Bristol, wondering

what I should do with my freedom now I had got it back. Whether I had

altered in the prison, or whether I was feeling the change in character

that comes with coming manhood, I don’t know; but the old reckless

enjoyment of the old vagabond life seemed quite worn out of my nature.

An awful sense of loneliness kept me wandering about Bristol, in horror

of the quiet country, till after nightfall. I looked at the lights

kindling in the parlor windows, with a miserable envy of the happy

people inside. A word of advice would have been worth something to me

at that time. Well! I got it: a policeman advised me to move on. He was

quite right; what else could I do? I looked up at the sky, and there

was my old friend of many a night’s watch at sea, the north star. ‘All

points of the compass are alike to me,’ I thought to myself; ‘I’ll go

_your_ way.’ Not even the star would keep me company that night. It got

behind a cloud, and left me alone in the rain and darkness. I groped my

way to a cart-shed, fell asleep, and dreamed of old times, when I served

my gypsy master and lived with the dogs. God! what I would have given

when I woke to have felt Tommy’s little cold muzzle in my hand! Why am

I dwelling on these things? Why don’t I get on to the end? You shouldn’t

encourage me, sir, by listening, so patiently. After a week more of

wandering, without hope to help me, or prospects to look to, I found

myself in the streets of Shrewsbury, staring in at the windows of a

book-seller’s shop. An old man came to the shop door, looked about him,

and saw me. ‘Do you want a job?’ he asked. ‘And are you not above

doing it cheap?’ The prospect of having something to do, and some human

creature to speak a word to, tempted me, and I did a day’s dirty work

in the book-seller’s warehouse for a shilling. More work followed at the

same rate. In a week I was promoted to sweep out the shop and put up the

shutters. In no very long time after, I was trusted to carry the books

out; and when quarter-day came, and the shop-man left, I took his place.

Wonderful luck! you will say; here I had found my way to a friend at

last. I had found my way to one of the most merciless misers in

England; and I had risen in the little world of Shrewsbury by the purely

commercial process of underselling all my competitors. The job in the

warehouse had been declined at the price by every idle man in the town,

and I did it. The regular porter received his weekly pittance under

weekly protest. I took two shillings less, and made no complaint. The

shop-man gave warning on the ground that he was underfed as well as

underpaid. I received half his salary, and lived contentedly on his

reversionary scraps. Never were two men so well suited to each other as

that book-seller and I. _His_ one object in life was to find somebody

who would work for him at starvation wages. _My_ one object in life was

to find somebody who would give me an asylum over my head. Without a

single sympathy in common--without a vestige of feeling of any sort,

hostile or friendly, growing up between us on either side--without

wishing each other good-night when we parted on the house stairs, or

good-morning when we met at the shop counter, we lived alone in that

house, strangers from first to last, for two whole years. A dismal

existence for a lad of my age, was it not? You are a clergyman and a

scholar--surely you can guess what made the life endurable to me?”

Mr. Brock remembered the well-worn volumes which had been found in the

usher’s bag. “The books made it endurable to you,” he said.

The eyes of the castaway kindled with a new light.

“Yes!” he said, “the books--the generous friends who met me without

suspicion--the merciful masters who never used me ill! The only years of

my life that I can look back on with something like pride are the years

I passed in the miser’s house. The only unalloyed pleasure I have ever

tasted is the pleasure that I found for myself on the miser’s shelves.

Early and late, through the long winter nights and the quiet summer

days, I drank at the fountain of knowledge, and never wearied of the

draught. There were few customers to serve, for the books were mostly of

the solid and scholarly kind. No responsibilities rested on me, for the

accounts were kept by my master, and only the small sums of money were

suffered to pass through my hands. He soon found out enough of me to

know that my honesty was to be trusted, and that my patience might be

counted on, treat me as he might. The one insight into _his_ character

which I obtained, on my side, widened the distance between us to its

last limits. He was a confirmed opium-eater in secret--a prodigal in

laudanum, though a miser in all besides. He never confessed his frailty,

and I never told him I had found it out. He had his pleasure apart from

me, and I had my pleasure apart from _him_. Week after week, month after

month, there we sat, without a friendly word ever passing between us--I,

alone with my book at the counter; he, alone with his ledger in the

parlor, dimly visible to me through the dirty window-pane of the glass

door, sometimes poring over his figures, sometimes lost and motionless

for hours in the ecstasy of his opium trance. Time passed, and made no

impression on us; the seasons of two years came and went, and found

us still unchanged. One morning, at the opening of the third year, my

master did not appear, as usual, to give me my allowance for breakfast.

I went upstairs, and found him helpless in his bed. He refused to trust

me with the keys of the cupboard, or to let me send for a doctor.

I bought a morsel of bread, and went back to my books, with no more

feeling for _him_ (I honestly confess it) than he would have had for

_me_ under the same circumstances. An hour or two later I was roused

from my reading by an occasional customer of ours, a retired medical

man. He went upstairs. I was glad to get rid of him and return to my

books. He came down again, and disturbed me once more. ‘I don’t much

like you, my lad,’ he said; ‘but I think it my duty to say that you will

soon have to shift for yourself. You are no great favorite in the

town, and you may have some difficulty in finding a new place. Provide

yourself with a written character from your master before it is too

late.’ He spoke to me coldly. I thanked him coldly on my side, and got

my character the same day. Do you think my master let me have it

for nothing? Not he! He bargained with me on his deathbed. I was his

creditor for a month’s salary, and he wouldn’t write a line of my

testimonial until I had first promised to forgive him the debt. Three

days afterward he died, enjoying to the last the happiness of having

overreached his shop-man. ‘Aha!’ he whispered, when the doctor

formally summoned me to take leave of him, ‘I got you cheap!’ Was Ozias

Midwinter’s stick as cruel as that? I think not. Well! there I was, out

on the world again, but surely with better prospects this time. I had

taught myself to read Latin, Greek, and German; and I had got my written

character to speak for me. All useless! The doctor was quite right; I

was not liked in the town. The lower order of the people despised me for

selling my services to the miser at the miser’s price. As for the better

classes, I did with them (God knows how!) what I have always done with

everybody except Mr. Armadale--I produced a disagreeable impression at

first sight; I couldn’t mend it afterward; and there was an end of me

in respectable quarters. It is quite likely I might have spent all my

savings, my puny little golden offspring of two years’ miserable

growth, but for a school advertisement which I saw in a local paper. The

heartlessly mean terms that were offered encouraged me to apply; and I

got the place. How I prospered in it, and what became of me next, there

is no need to tell you. The thread of my story is all wound off; my

vagabond life stands stripped of its mystery; and you know the worst of

me at last.”

A moment of silence followed those closing words. Midwinter rose from

the window-seat, and came back to the table with the letter from Wildbad

in his hand.

“My father’s confession has told you who I am; and my own confession has

told you what my life has been,” he said, addressing Mr. Brock, without

taking the chair to which the rector pointed. “I promised to make a

clean breast of it when I first asked leave to enter this room. Have I

kept my word?”

“It is impossible to doubt it,” replied Mr. Brock. “You have established

your claim on my confidence and my sympathy. I should be insensible,

indeed, if I could know what I now know of your childhood and your

youth, and not feel something of Allan’s kindness for Allan’s friend.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Midwinter, simply and gravely.

He sat down opposite Mr. Brook at the table for the first time.

“In a few hours you will have left this place,” he proceeded. “If I can

help you to leave it with your mind at ease, I will. There is more to be

said between us than we have said up to this time. My future relations

with Mr. Armadale are still left undecided; and the serious question

raised by my father’s letter is a question which we have neither of us

faced yet.”

He paused, and looked with a momentary impatience at the candle still

burning on the table, in the morning light. The struggle to speak with

composure, and to keep his own feelings stoically out of view, was

evidently growing harder and harder to him.

“It may possibly help your decision,” he went on, “if I tell you how I

determined to act toward Mr. Armadale--in the matter of the similarity

of our names--when I first read this letter, and when I had composed

myself sufficiently to be able to think at all.” He stopped, and cast

a second impatient look at the lighted candle. “Will you excuse the odd

fancy of an odd man?” he asked, with a faint smile. “I want to put out

the candle: I want to speak of the new subject, in the new light.”

He extinguished the candle as he spoke, and let the first tenderness of

the daylight flow uninterruptedly into the room.

“I must once more ask your patience,” he resumed, “if I return for a

moment to myself and my circumstances. I have already told you that my

stepfather made an attempt to discover me some years after I had turned

my back on the Scotch school. He took that step out of no anxiety of his

own, but simply as the agent of my father’s trustees. In the exercise of

their discretion, they had sold the estates in Barbadoes (at the time

of the emancipation of the slaves, and the ruin of West Indian property)

for what the estates would fetch. Having invested the proceeds,

they were bound to set aside a sum for my yearly education. This

responsibility obliged them to make the attempt to trace me--a fruitless

attempt, as you already know. A little later (as I have been since

informed) I was publicly addressed by an advertisement in the

newspapers, which I never saw. Later still, when I was twenty-one, a

second advertisement appeared (which I did see) offering a reward for

evidence of my death. If I was alive, I had a right to my half share

of the proceeds of the estates on coming of age; if dead, the money

reverted to my mother. I went to the lawyers, and heard from them what

I have just told you. After some difficulty in proving my identity--and

after an interview with my stepfather, and a message from my mother,

which has hopelessly widened the old breach between us--my claim was

allowed; and my money is now invested for me in the funds, under the

name that is really my own.”

Mr. Brock drew eagerly nearer to the table. He saw the end now to which

the speaker was tending

“Twice a year,” Midwinter pursued, “I must sign my own name to get my

own income. At all other times, and under all other circumstances, I

may hide my identity under any name I please. As Ozias Midwinter, Mr.

Armadale first knew me; as Ozias Midwinter he shall know me to the end

of my days. Whatever may be the result of this interview--whether I win

your confidence or whether I lose it--of one thing you may feel sure:

your pupil shall never know the horrible secret which I have trusted

to your keeping. This is no extraordinary resolution; for, as you know

already, it costs me no sacrifice of feeling to keep my assumed name.

There is nothing in my conduct to praise; it comes naturally out of the

gratitude of a thankful man. Review the circumstances for yourself,

sir, and set my own horror of revealing them to Mr. Armadale out of

the question. If the story of the names is ever told, there can be no

limiting it to the disclosure of my father’s crime; it must go back to

the story of Mrs. Armadale’s marriage. I have heard her son talk of her;

I know how he loves her memory. As God is my witness, he shall never

love it less dearly through _me_!”

Simply as the words were spoken, they touched the deepest sympathies

in the rector’s nature: they took his thoughts back to Mrs. Armadale’s

deathbed. There sat the man against whom she had ignorantly warned him

in her son’s interests; and that man, of his own free-will, had laid on

himself the obligation of respecting her secret for her son’s sake! The

memory of his own past efforts to destroy the very friendship out of

which this resolution had sprung rose and reproached Mr. Brock. He held

out his hand to Midwinter for the first time. “In her name, and in her

son’s name,” he said, warmly, “I thank you.”

Without replying, Midwinter spread the confession open before him on the

table.

“I think I have said all that it was my duty to say,” he began, “before

we could approach the consideration of this letter. Whatever may have

appeared strange in my conduct toward you and toward Mr. Armadale may

be now trusted to explain itself. You can easily imagine the natural

curiosity and surprise that I must have felt (ignorant as I then was of

the truth) when the sound of Mr. Armadale’s name first startled me as

the echo of my own. You will readily understand that I only hesitated

to tell him I was his namesake, because I hesitated to damage my

position--in your estimation, if not in his--by confessing that I had

come among you under an assumed name. And, after all that you have just

heard of my vagabond life and my low associates, you will hardly wonder

at the obstinate silence I maintained about myself, at a time when I did

not feel the sense of responsibility which my father’s confession has

laid on me. We can return to these small personal explanations, if you

wish it, at another time; they cannot be suffered to keep us from the

greater interests which we must settle before you leave this place.

We may come now--” His voice faltered, and he suddenly turned his face

toward the window, so as to hide it from the rector’s view. “We may come

now,” he repeated, his hand trembling visibly as it held the page,

“to the murder on board the timber-ship, and to the warning that has

followed me from my father’s grave.”

Softly--as if he feared they might reach Allan, sleeping in the

neighboring room--he read the last terrible words which the Scotchman’s

pen had written at Wildbad, as they fell from his father’s lips:

“Avoid the widow of the man I killed--if the widow still lives. Avoid

the maid whose wicked hand smoothed the way to the marriage--if the maid

is still in her service. And, more than all, avoid the man who bears the

same name as your own. Offend your best benefactor, if that benefactor’s

influence has connected you one with the other. Desert the woman who

loves you, if that woman is a link between you and him. Hide yourself

from him under an assumed name. Put the mountains and the seas between

you; be ungrateful; be unforgiving; be all that is most repellent

to your own gentler nature, rather than live under the same roof and

breathe the same air with that man. Never let the two Allan Armadales

meet in this world; never, never, never!”

After reading those sentences, he pushed the manuscript from him,

without looking up. The fatal reserve which he had been in a fair way of

conquering but a few minutes since, possessed itself of him once more.

Again his eyes wandered; again his voice sank in tone. A stranger who

had heard his story, and who saw him now, would have said, “His look is

lurking, his manner is bad; he is, every inch of him, his father’s son.”

“I have a question to ask you,” said Mr. Brock, breaking the silence

between them, on his side. “Why have you just read that passage in your

father’s letter?”

“To force me into telling you the truth,” was the answer. “You must

know how much there is of my father in me before you trust me to be Mr.

Armadale’s friend. I got my letter yesterday, in the morning. Some inner

warning troubled me, and I went down on the sea-shore by myself before I

broke the seal. Do you believe the dead can come back to the world they

once lived in? I believe my father came back in that bright morning

light, through the glare of that broad sunshine and the roar of that

joyful sea, and watched me while I read. When I got to the words that

you have just heard, and when I knew that the very end which he had died

dreading was the end that had really come, I felt the horror that had

crept over him in his last moments creeping over me. I struggled against

myself, as _he_ would have had me struggle. I tried to be all that was

most repellent to my own gentler nature; I tried to think pitilessly of

putting the mountains and the seas between me and the man who bore my

name. Hours passed before I could prevail on myself to go back and run

the risk of meeting Allan Armadale in this house. When I did get back,

and when he met me at night on the stairs, I thought I was looking him

in the face as _my_ father looked _his_ father in the face when the

cabin door closed between them. Draw your own conclusions, sir. Say, if

you like, that the inheritance of my father’s heathen belief in fate is

one of the inheritances he has left to me. I won’t dispute it; I

won’t deny that all through yesterday _his_ superstition was _my_

superstition. The night came before I could find my way to calmer and

brighter thoughts. But I did find my way. You may set it down in my

favor that I lifted myself at last above the influence of this horrible

letter. Do you know what helped me?”

“Did you reason with yourself?”

“I can’t reason about what I feel.”

“Did you quiet your mind by prayer?”

“I was not fit to pray.”

“And yet something guided you to the better feeling and the truer view?”

“Something did.”

“What was it?”

“My love for Allan Armadale.”

He cast a doubting, almost a timid look at Mr. Brock as he gave that

answer, and, suddenly leaving the table, went back to the window-seat.

“Have I no right to speak of him in that way?” he asked, keeping his

face hidden from the rector. “Have I not known him long enough; have I

not done enough for him yet? Remember what my experience of other men

had been when I first saw his hand held out to me--when I first heard

his voice speaking to me in my sick-room. What had I known of strangers’

hands all through my childhood? I had only known them as hands raised to

threaten and to strike me. His hand put my pillow straight, and patted

me on the shoulder, and gave me my food and drink. What had I known of

other men’s voices, when I was growing up to be a man myself? I had

only known them as voices that jeered, voices that cursed, voices that

whispered in corners with a vile distrust. _His_ voice said to me,

‘Cheer up, Midwinter! we’ll soon bring you round again. You’ll be strong

enough in a week to go out for a drive with me in our Somersetshire

lanes.’ Think of the gypsy’s stick; think of the devils laughing at me

when I went by their windows with my little dead dog in my arms; think

of the master who cheated me of my month’s salary on his deathbed--and

ask your own heart if the miserable wretch whom Allan Armadale has

treated as his equal and his friend has said too much in saying that

he loves him? I do love him! It _will_ come out of me; I can’t keep it

back. I love the very ground he treads on! I would give my life--yes,

the life that is precious to me now, because his kindness has made it a

happy one--I tell you I would give my life--”

The next words died away on his lips; the hysterical passion rose, and

conquered him. He stretched out one of his hands with a wild gesture

of entreaty to Mr. Brock; his head sank on the window-sill and he burst

into tears.

Even then the hard discipline of the man’s life asserted itself. He

expected no sympathy, he counted on no merciful human respect for human

weakness. The cruel necessity of self-suppression was present to his

mind, while the tears were pouring over his cheeks. “Give me a minute,”

he said, faintly. “I’ll fight it down in a minute; I won’t distress you

in this way again.”

True to his resolution, in a minute he had fought it down. In a minute

more he was able to speak calmly.

“We will get back, sir, to those better thoughts which have brought me

from my room to yours,” he resumed. “I can only repeat that I should

never have torn myself from the hold which this letter fastened on

me, if I had not loved Allan Armadale with all that I have in me of a

brother’s love. I said to myself, ‘If the thought of leaving him breaks

my heart, the thought of leaving him is wrong!’ That was some hours

since, and I am in the same mind still. I can’t believe--I won’t

believe--that a friendship which has grown out of nothing but kindness

on one side, and nothing but gratitude on the other, is destined to lead

to an evil end. Judge, you who are a clergyman, between the dead father,

whose word is in these pages, and the living son, whose word is now on

his lips! What is it appointed me to do, now that I am breathing the

same air, and living under the same roof with the son of the man whom my

father killed--to perpetuate my father’s crime by mortally injuring him,

or to atone for my father’s crime by giving him the devotion of my whole

life? The last of those two faiths is my faith, and shall be my faith,

happen what may. In the strength of that better conviction, I have come

here to trust you with my father’s secret, and to confess the wretched

story of my own life. In the strength of that better conviction, I can

face you resolutely with the one plain question, which marks the one

plain end of all that I have come here to say. Your pupil stands at the

starting-point of his new career, in a position singularly friendless;

his one great need is a companion of his own age on whom he can rely.

The time has come, sir, to decide whether I am to be that companion or

not. After all you have heard of Ozias Midwinter, tell me plainly, will

you trust him to be Allan Armadale’s friend?”

Mr. Brock met that fearlessly frank question by a fearless frankness on

his side.

“I believe you love Allan,” he said, “and I believe you have spoken the

truth. A man who has produced that impression on me is a man whom I am

bound to trust. I trust you.”

Midwinter started to his feet, his dark face flushing deep; his eyes

fixed brightly and steadily, at last, on the rector’s face. “A light!”

he exclaimed, tearing the pages of his father’s letter, one by one, from

the fastening that held them. “Let us destroy the last link that holds

us to the horrible past! Let us see this confession a heap of ashes

before we part!”

“Wait!” said Mr. Brock. “Before you burn it, there is a reason for

looking at it once more.”

The parted leaves of the manuscript dropped from Midwinter’s hands. Mr.

Brock took them up, and sorted them carefully until he found the last

page.

“I view your father’s superstition as you view it,” said the rector.

“But there is a warning given you here, which you will do well (for

Allan’s sake and for your own sake) not to neglect. The last link with

the past will not be destroyed when you have burned these pages. One of

the actors in this story of treachery and murder is not dead yet. Read

those words.”

He pushed the page across the table, with his finger on one sentence.

Midwinter’s agitation misled him. He mistook the indication, and read,

“Avoid the widow of the man I killed, if the widow still lives.”

“Not that sentence,” said the rector. “The next.”

Midwinter read it: “Avoid the maid whose wicked hand smoothed the way to

the marriage, if the maid is still in her service.”

“The maid and the mistress parted,” said Mr. Brock, “at the time of

the mistress’s marriage. The maid and the mistress met again at Mrs.

Armadale’s residence in Somersetshire last year. I myself met the

woman in the village, and I myself know that her visit hastened Mrs.

Armadale’s death. Wait a little, and compose yourself; I see I have

startled you.”

He waited as he was bid, his color fading away to a gray paleness and

the light in his clear brown eyes dying out slowly. What the rector had

said had produced no transient impression on him; there was more than

doubt, there was alarm in his face, as he sat lost in his own thought.

Was the struggle of the past night renewing itself already? Did he feel

the horror of his hereditary superstition creeping over him again?

“Can you put me on my guard against her?” he asked, after a long

interval of silence. “Can you tell me her name?”

“I can only tell you what Mrs. Armadale told me,” answered Mr. Brock.

“The woman acknowledged having been married in the long interval since

she and her mistress had last met. But not a word more escaped her about

her past life. She came to Mrs. Armadale to ask for money, under a

plea of distress. She got the money, and she left the house, positively

refusing, when the question was put to her, to mention her married

name.”

“You saw her yourself in the village. What was she like?”

“She kept her veil down. I can’t tell you.”

“You can tell me what you _did_ see?”

“Certainly. I saw, as she approached me, that she moved very gracefully,

that she had a beautiful figure, and that she was a little over the

middle height. I noticed, when she asked me the way to Mrs. Armadale’s

house, that her manner was the manner of a lady, and that the tone

of her voice was remarkably soft and winning. Lastly, I remembered

afterward that she wore a thick black veil, a black bonnet, a black

silk dress, and a red Paisley shawl. I feel all the importance of your

possessing some better means of identifying her than I can give you. But

unhappily--”

He stopped. Midwinter was leaning eagerly across the table, and

Midwinter’s hand was laid suddenly on his arm.

“Is it possible that you know the woman?” asked Mr. Brock, surprised at

the sudden change in his manner.

“No.”

“What have I said, then, that has startled you so?”

“Do you remember the woman who threw herself from the river steamer?”

asked the other--“the woman who caused that succession of deaths which

opened Allan Armadale’s way to the Thorpe Ambrose estate?”

“I remember the description of her in the police report,” answered the

rector.

“_That_ woman,” pursued Midwinter, “moved gracefully, and had a

beautiful figure. _That_ woman wore a black veil, a black bonnet, a

black silk gown, and a red Paisley shawl--” He stopped, released his

hold of Mr. Brock’s arm, and abruptly resumed his chair. “Can it be

the same?” he said to himself in a whisper. “_Is_ there a fatality

that follows men in the dark? And is it following _us_ in that woman’s

footsteps?”

If the conjecture was right, the one event in the past which had

appeared to be entirely disconnected with the events that had preceded

it was, on the contrary, the one missing link which made the chain

complete. Mr. Brock’s comfortable common sense instinctively denied that

startling conclusion. He looked at Midwinter with a compassionate smile.

“My young friend,” he said, kindly, “have you cleared your mind of all

superstition as completely as you think? Is what you have just said

worthy of the better resolution at which you arrived last night?”

Midwinter’s head drooped on his breast; the color rushed back over his

face; he sighed bitterly.

“You are beginning to doubt my sincerity,” he said. “I can’t blame you.”

“I believe in your sincerity as firmly as ever,” answered Mr. Brock. “I

only doubt whether you have fortified the weak places in your nature as

strongly as you yourself suppose. Many a man has lost the battle against

himself far oftener than you have lost it yet, and has nevertheless won

his victory in the end. I don’t blame you, I don’t distrust you. I only

notice what has happened, to put you on your guard against yourself.

Come! come! Let your own better sense help you; and you will agree with

me that there is really no evidence to justify the suspicion that the

woman whom I met in Somersetshire, and the woman who attempted suicide

in London, are one and the same. Need an old man like me remind a young

man like you that there are thousands of women in England with beautiful

figures--thousands of women who are quietly dressed in black silk gowns

and red Paisley shawls?”

Midwinter caught eagerly at the suggestion; too eagerly, as it might

have occurred to a harder critic on humanity than Mr. Brock.

“You are quite right, sir,” he said, “and I am quite wrong. Tens of

thousands of women answer the description, as you say. I have been

wasting time on my own idle fancies, when I ought to have been carefully

gathering up facts. If this woman ever attempts to find her way to

Allan, I must be prepared to stop her.” He began searching restlessly

among the manuscript leaves scattered about the table, paused over one

of the pages, and examined it attentively. “This helps me to something

positive,” he went on; “this helps me to a knowledge of her age. She was

twelve at the time of Mrs. Armadale’s marriage; add a year, and bring

her to thirteen; add Allan’s age (twenty-two), and we make her a woman

of five-and-thirty at the present time. I know her age; and I know that

she has her own reasons for being silent about her married life. This is

something gained at the outset, and it may lead, in time, to something

more.” He looked up brightly again at Mr. Brock. “Am I in the right way

now, sir? Am I doing my best to profit by the caution which you have

kindly given me?”

“You are vindicating your own better sense,” answered the rector,

encouraging him to trample down his own imagination, with an

Englishman’s ready distrust of the noblest of the human faculties. “You

are paving the way for your own happier life.”

“Am I?” said the other, thoughtfully.

He searched among the papers once more, and stopped at another of the

scattered pages.

“The ship!” he exclaimed, suddenly, his color changing again, and his

manner altering on the instant.

“What ship?” asked the rector.

“The ship in which the deed was done,” Midwinter answered, with the

first signs of impatience that he had shown yet. “The ship in which my

father’s murderous hand turned the lock of the cabin door.”

“What of it?” said Mr. Brock.

He appeared not to hear the question; his eyes remained fixed intently

on the page that he was reading.

“A French vessel, employed in the timber trade,” he said, still speaking

to himself--“a French vessel, named _La Grace de Dieu_. If my father’s

belief had been the right belief--if the fatality had been following me,

step by step, from my father’s grave, in one or other of my voyages, I

should have fallen in with that ship.” He looked up again at Mr. Brock.

“I am quite sure about it now,” he said. “Those women are two, and not

one.”

Mr. Brock shook his head.

“I am glad you have come to that conclusion,” he said. “But I wish you

had reached it in some other way.”

Midwinter started passionately to his feet, and, seizing on the pages of

the manuscript with both hands, flung them into the empty fireplace.

“For God’s sake let me burn it!” he exclaimed. “As long as there is a

page left, I shall read it. And, as long as I read it, my father gets

the better of me, in spite of myself!”

Mr. Brock pointed to the match-box. In another moment the confession

was in flames. When the fire had consumed the last morsel of paper,

Midwinter drew a deep breath of relief.

“I may say, like Macbeth: ‘Why, so, being gone, I am a man again!’”

he broke out with a feverish gayety. “You look fatigued, sir; and no

wonder,” he added, in a lower tone. “I have kept you too long from your

rest--I will keep you no longer. Depend on my remembering what you

have told me; depend on my standing between Allan and any enemy, man

or woman, who comes near him. Thank you, Mr. Brock; a thousand thousand

times, thank you! I came into this room the most wretched of living men;

I can leave it now as happy as the birds that are singing outside!”

As he turned to the door, the rays of the rising sun streamed through

the window, and touched the heap of ashes lying black in the black

fireplace. The sensitive imagination of Midwinter kindled instantly at

the sight.

“Look!” he said, joyously. “The promise of the Future shining over the

ashes of the Past!”

An inexplicable pity for the man, at the moment of his life when he

needed pity least, stole over the rector’s heart when the door had

closed, and he was left by himself again.

“Poor fellow!” he said, with an uneasy surprise at his own compassionate

impulse. “Poor fellow!”

III. DAY AND NIGHT

The morning hours had passed; the noon had come and gone; and Mr. Brock

had started on the first stage of his journey home.

After parting from the rector in Douglas Harbor, the two young men had

returned to Castletown, and had there separated at the hotel door, Allan

walking down to the waterside to look after his yacht, and Midwinter

entering the house to get the rest that he needed after a sleepless

night.

He darkened his room; he closed his eyes, but no sleep came to him.

On this first day of the rector’s absence, his sensitive nature

extravagantly exaggerated the responsibility which he now held in trust

for Mr. Brock. A nervous dread of leaving Allan by himself, even for a

few hours only, kept him waking and doubting, until it became a relief

rather than a hardship to rise from the bed again, and, following in

Allan’s footsteps, to take the way to the waterside which led to the

yacht.

The repairs of the little vessel were nearly completed. It was a breezy,

cheerful day; the land was bright, the water was blue, the quick waves

leaped crisply in the sunshine, the men were singing at their work.

Descending to the cabin, Midwinter discovered his friend busily

occupied in attempting to set the place to rights. Habitually the least

systematic of mortals, Allan now and then awoke to an overwhelming sense

of the advantages of order, and on such occasions a perfect frenzy of

tidiness possessed him. He was down on his knees, hotly and wildly at

work, when Midwinter looked in on him; and was fast reducing the neat

little world of the cabin to its original elements of chaos, with a

misdirected energy wonderful to see.

“Here’s a mess!” said Allan, rising composedly on the horizon of his own

accumulated litter. “Do you know, my dear fellow, I begin to wish I had

let well alone!”

Midwinter smiled, and came to his friend’s assistance with the natural

neat-handedness of a sailor.

The first object that he encountered was Allan’s dressing-case, turned

upside down, with half the contents scattered on the floor, and with

a duster and a hearth-broom lying among them. Replacing the various

objects which formed the furniture of the dressing-case one by

one, Midwinter lighted unexpectedly on a miniature portrait, of the

old-fashioned oval form, primly framed in a setting of small diamonds.

“You don’t seem to set much value on this,” he said. “What is it?”

Allan bent over him, and looked at the miniature. “It belonged to my

mother,” he answered; “and I set the greatest value on it. It is a

portrait of my father.”

Midwinter put the miniature abruptly, into Allan’s hands, and withdrew

to the opposite side of the cabin.

“You know best where the things ought to be put in your own

dressing-case,” he said, keeping his back turned on Allan. “I’ll make

the place tidy on this side of the cabin, and you shall make the place

tidy on the other.”

He began setting in order the litter scattered about him on the cabin

table and on the floor. But it seemed as if fate had decided that his

friend’s personal possessions should fall into his hands that morning,

employ them where he might. One among the first objects which he took

up was Allan’s tobacco jar, with the stopper missing, and with a letter

(which appeared by the bulk of it to contain inclosures) crumpled into

the mouth of the jar in the stopper’s place.

“Did you know that you had put this here?” he asked. “Is the letter of

any importance?”

Allan recognized it instantly. It was the first of the little series of

letters which had followed the cruising party to the Isle of Man--the

letter which young Armadale had briefly referred to as bringing him

“more worries from those everlasting lawyers,” and had then dismissed

from further notice as recklessly as usual.

“This is what comes of being particularly careful,” said Allan; “here is

an instance of my extreme thoughtfulness. You may not think it but I put

the letter there on purpose. Every time I went to the jar, you know, I

was sure to see the letter; and every time I saw the letter, I was sure

to say to myself, ‘This must be answered.’ There’s nothing to laugh at;

it was a perfectly sensible arrangement, if I could only have remembered

where I put the jar. Suppose I tie a knot in my pocket-handkerchief this

time? You have a wonderful memory, my dear fellow. Perhaps you’ll remind

me in the course of the day, in case I forget the knot next.”

Midwinter saw his first chance, since Mr. Brock’s departure, of usefully

filling Mr. Brock’s place.

“Here is your writing-case,” he said; “why not answer the letter at

once? If you put it away again, you may forget it again.”

“Very true,” returned Allan. “But the worst of it is, I can’t quite make

up my mind what answer to write. I want a word of advice. Come and sit

down here, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

With his loud boyish laugh--echoed by Midwinter, who caught the

infection of his gayety--he swept a heap of miscellaneous incumbrances

off the cabin sofa, and made room for his friend and himself to take

their places. In the high flow of youthful spirits, the two sat down to

their trifling consultation over a letter lost in a tobacco jar. It was

a memorable moment to both of them, lightly as they thought of it at the

time. Before they had risen again from their places, they had taken the

first irrevocable step together on the dark and tortuous road of their

future lives.

Reduced to plain facts, the question on which Allan now required his

friend’s advice may be stated as follows:

While the various arrangements connected with the succession to Thorpe

Ambrose were in progress of settlement, and while the new possessor

of the estate was still in London, a question had necessarily arisen

relating to the person who should be appointed to manage the property.

The steward employed by the Blanchard family had written, without loss

of time, to offer his services. Although a perfectly competent and

trustworthy man, he failed to find favor in the eyes of the new

proprietor. Acting, as usual, on his first impulses, and resolved,

at all hazards, to install Midwinter as a permanent inmate at Thorpe

Ambrose, Allan had determined that the steward’s place was the place

exactly fitted for his friend, for the simple reason that it would

necessarily oblige his friend to live with him on the estate. He

had accordingly written to decline the proposal made to him without

consulting Mr. Brock, whose disapproval he had good reason to fear; and

without telling Midwinter, who would probably (if a chance were allowed

him of choosing) have declined taking a situation which his previous

training had by no means fitted him to fill.

Further correspondence had followed this decision, and had raised two

new difficulties which looked a little embarrassing on the face of them,

but which Allan, with the assistance of his lawyer, easily contrived to

solve. The first difficulty, of examining the outgoing steward’s books,

was settled by sending a professional accountant to Thorpe Ambrose; and

the second difficulty, of putting the steward’s empty cottage to some

profitable use (Allan’s plans for his friend comprehending Midwinter’s

residence under his own roof), was met by placing the cottage on the

list of an active house agent in the neighboring county town. In this

state the arrangements had been left when Allan quitted London. He had

heard and thought nothing more of the matter, until a letter from his

lawyers had followed him to the Isle of Man, inclosing two proposals

to occupy the cottage, both received on the same day, and requesting to

hear, at his earliest convenience, which of the two he was prepared to

accept.

Finding himself, after having conveniently forgotten the subject for

some days past, placed face to face once more with the necessity for

decision, Allan now put the two proposals into his friend’s hands, and,

after a rambling explanation of the circumstances of the case, requested

to be favored with a word of advice. Instead of examining the proposals,

Midwinter unceremoniously put them aside, and asked the two very natural

and very awkward questions of who the new steward was to be, and why he

was to live in Allan’s house?

“I’ll tell you who, and I’ll tell you why, when we get to Thorpe

Ambrose,” said Allan. “In the meantime we’ll call the steward X. Y. Z.,

and we’ll say he lives with me, because I’m devilish sharp, and I mean

to keep him under my own eye. You needn’t look surprised. I know the man

thoroughly well; he requires a good deal of management. If I offered him

the steward’s place beforehand, his modesty would get in his way, and he

would say ‘No.’ If I pitch him into it neck and crop, without a word of

warning and with nobody at hand to relieve him of the situation, he’ll

have nothing for it but to consult my interests, and say ‘Yes.’ X. Y. Z.

is not at all a bad fellow, I can tell you. You’ll see him when we go

to Thorpe Ambrose; and I rather think you and he will get on uncommonly

well together.”

The humorous twinkle in Allan’s eye, the sly significance in Allan’s

voice, would have betrayed his secret to a prosperous man. Midwinter was

as far from suspecting it as the carpenters who were at work above them

on the deck of the yacht.

“Is there no steward now on the estate?” he asked, his face showing

plainly that he was far from feeling satisfied with Allan’s answer. “Is

the business neglected all this time?”

“Nothing of the sort!” returned Allan. “The business is going with ‘a

wet sheet and a flowing sea, and a wind that follows free.’ I’m not

joking; I’m only metaphorical. A regular accountant has poked his nose

into the books, and a steady-going lawyer’s clerk attends at the office

once a week. That doesn’t look like neglect, does it? Leave the new

steward alone for the present, and just tell me which of those two

tenants you would take, if you were in my place.”

Midwinter opened the proposals, and read them attentively.

The first proposal was from no less a person than the solicitor at

Thorpe Ambrose, who had first informed Allan at Paris of the large

fortune that had fallen into his hands. This gentleman wrote personally

to say that he had long admired the cottage, which was charmingly

situated within the limits of the Thorpe Ambrose grounds. He was

a bachelor, of studious habits, desirous of retiring to a country

seclusion after the wear and tear of his business hours; and he ventured

to say that Mr. Armadale, in accepting him as a tenant, might count

on securing an unobtrusive neighbor, and on putting the cottage into

responsible and careful hands.

The second proposal came through the house agent, and proceeded from a

total stranger. The tenant who offered for the cottage, in this case,

was a retired officer in the army--one Major Milroy. His family merely

consisted of an invalid wife and an only child--a young lady. His

references were unexceptionable; and he, too, was especially anxious to

secure the cottage, as the perfect quiet of the situation was exactly

what was required by Mrs. Milroy in her feeble state of health.

“Well, which profession shall I favor?” asked Allan. “The army or the

law?”

“There seems to me to be no doubt about it,” said Midwinter. “The lawyer

has been already in correspondence with you; and the lawyer’s claim is,

therefore, the claim to be preferred.”

“I knew you would say that. In all the thousands of times I have asked

other people for advice, I never yet got the advice I wanted. Here’s

this business of letting the cottage as an instance. I’m all on the

other side myself. I want to have the major.”

“Why?”

Young Armadale laid his forefinger on that part of the agent’s letter

which enumerated Major Milroy’s family, and which contained the three

words--“a young lady.”

“A bachelor of studious habits walking about my grounds,” said Allan,

“is not an interesting object; a young lady is. I have not the least

doubt Miss Milroy is a charming girl. Ozias Midwinter of the serious

countenance! think of her pretty muslin dress flitting about among your

trees and committing trespasses on your property; think of her adorable

feet trotting into your fruit-garden, and her delicious fresh lips

kissing your ripe peaches; think of her dimpled hands among your early

violets, and her little cream-colored nose buried in your blush-roses.

What does the studious bachelor offer me in exchange for the loss of all

this? He offers me a rheumatic brown object in gaiters and a wig. No!

no! Justice is good, my dear friend; but, believe me, Miss Milroy is

better.”

“Can you be serious about any mortal thing, Allan?”

“I’ll try to be, if you like. I know I ought to take the lawyer; but

what can I do if the major’s daughter keeps running in my head?”

Midwinter returned resolutely to the just and sensible view of the

matter, and pressed it on his friend’s attention with all the persuasion

of which he was master. After listening with exemplary patience until

he had done, Allan swept a supplementary accumulation of litter off the

cabin table, and produced from his waistcoat pocket a half-crown coin.

“I’ve got an entirely new idea,” he said. “Let’s leave it to chance.”

The absurdity of the proposal--as coming from a landlord--was

irresistible. Midwinter’s gravity deserted him.

“I’ll spin,” continued Allan, “and you shall call. We must give

precedence to the army, of course; so we’ll say Heads, the major; Tails,

the lawyer. One spin to decide. Now, then, look out!”

He spun the half-crown on the cabin table.

“Tails!” cried Midwinter, humoring what he believed to be one of Allan’s

boyish jokes.

The coin fell on the table with the Head uppermost.

“You don’t mean to say you are really in earnest!” said Midwinter, as

the other opened his writing-case and dipped his pen in the ink.

“Oh, but I am, though!” replied Allan. “Chance is on my side, and Miss

Milroy’s; and you’re outvoted, two to one. It’s no use arguing. The

major has fallen uppermost, and the major shall have the cottage. I

won’t leave it to the lawyers; they’ll only be worrying me with more

letters. I’ll write myself.”

He wrote his answers to the two proposals, literally in two minutes. One

to the house agent: “Dear sir, I accept Major Milroy’s offer; let him

come in when he pleases. Yours truly, Allan Armadale.” And one to the

lawyer: “Dear sir, I regret that circumstances prevent me from

accepting your proposal. Yours truly,” etc. “People make a fuss about

letter-writing,” Allan remarked, when he had done. “_I_ find it easy

enough.”

He wrote the addresses on his two notes, and stamped them for the post,

whistling gayly. While he had been writing, he had not noticed how

his friend was occupied. When he had done, it struck him that a sudden

silence had fallen on the cabin; and, looking up, he observed that

Midwinter’s whole attention was strangely concentrated on the half crown

as it lay head uppermost on the table. Allan suspended his whistling in

astonishment.

“What on earth are you doing?” he asked.

“I was only wondering,” replied Midwinter.

“What about?” persisted Allan.

“I was wondering,” said the other, handing him back the half-crown,

“whether there is such a thing as chance.”

Half an hour later the two notes were posted; and Allan, whose close

superintendence of the repairs of the yacht had hitherto allowed him but

little leisure time on shore, had proposed to while away the idle hours

by taking a walk in Castletown. Even Midwinter’s nervous anxiety to

deserve Mr. Brock’s confidence in him could detect nothing objectionable

in this harmless proposal, and the young men set forth together to see

what they could make of the metropolis of the Isle of Man.

It is doubtful if there is a place on the habitable globe which,

regarded as a sight-seeing investment offering itself to the spare

attention of strangers, yields so small a percentage of interest in

return as Castletown. Beginning with the waterside, there was an inner

harbor to see, with a drawbridge to let vessels through; an outer

harbor, ending in a dwarf lighthouse; a view of a flat coast to the

right, and a view of a flat coast to the left. In the central solitudes

of the city, there was a squat gray building called “the castle”; also

a memorial pillar dedicated to one Governor Smelt, with a flat top for

a statue, and no statue standing on it; also a barrack, holding the

half-company of soldiers allotted to the island, and exhibiting one

spirit-broken sentry at its lonely door. The prevalent color of the town

was faint gray. The few shops open were parted at frequent intervals

by other shops closed and deserted in despair. The weary lounging of

boatmen on shore was trebly weary here; the youth of the district smoked

together in speechless depression under the lee of a dead wall; the

ragged children said mechanically: “Give us a penny,” and before the

charitable hand could search the merciful pocket, lapsed away again in

misanthropic doubt of the human nature they addressed. The silence of

the grave overflowed the churchyard, and filled this miserable town. But

one edifice, prosperous to look at, rose consolatory in the desolation

of these dreadful streets. Frequented by the students of the neighboring

“College of King William,” this building was naturally dedicated to

the uses of a pastry-cook’s shop. Here, at least (viewed through the

friendly medium of the window), there was something going on for a

stranger to see; for here, on high stools, the pupils of the college

sat, with swinging legs and slowly moving jaws, and, hushed in the

horrid stillness of Castletown, gorged their pastry gravely, in an

atmosphere of awful silence.

“Hang me if I can look any longer at the boys and the tarts!” said

Allan, dragging his friend away from the pastry-cook’s shop. “Let’s try

if we can’t find something else to amuse us in the next street.”

The first amusing object which the next street presented was a

carver-and-gilder’s shop, expiring feebly in the last stage of

commercial decay. The counter inside displayed nothing to view but the

recumbent head of a boy, peacefully asleep in the unbroken solitude of

the place. In the window were exhibited to the passing stranger three

forlorn little fly-spotted frames; a small posting-bill, dusty with

long-continued neglect, announcing that the premises were to let; and

one colored print, the last of a series illustrating the horrors

of drunkenness, on the fiercest temperance principles. The

composition--representing an empty bottle of gin, an immensely spacious

garret, a perpendicular Scripture reader, and a horizontal expiring

family--appealed to public favor, under the entirely unobjectionable

title of “The Hand of Death.” Allan’s resolution to extract amusement

from Castletown by main force had resisted a great deal, but it

failed him at this stage of the investigations. He suggested trying an

excursion to some other place. Midwinter readily agreeing, they went

back to the hotel to make inquiries.

Thanks to the mixed influence of Allan’s ready gift of familiarity,

and total want of method in putting his questions, a perfect deluge of

information flowed in on the two strangers, relating to every subject

but the subject which had actually brought them to the hotel. They

made various interesting discoveries in connection with the laws and

constitution of the Isle of Man, and the manners and customs of the

natives. To Allan’s delight, the Manxmen spoke of England as of a

well-known adjacent island, situated at a certain distance from the

central empire of the Isle of Man. It was further revealed to the two

Englishmen that this happy little nation rejoiced in laws of its own,

publicly proclaimed once a year by the governor and the two head judges,

grouped together on the top of an ancient mound, in fancy costumes

appropriate to the occasion. Possessing this enviable institution,

the island added to it the inestimable blessing of a local parliament,

called the House of Keys, an assembly far in advance of the other

parliament belonging to the neighboring island, in this respect--that

the members dispensed with the people, and solemnly elected each other.

With these and many more local particulars, extracted from all sorts and

conditions of men in and about the hotel, Allan whiled away the weary

time in his own essentially desultory manner, until the gossip died out

of itself, and Midwinter (who had been speaking apart with the landlord)

quietly recalled him to the matter in hand. The finest coast scenery in

the island was said to be to the westward and the southward, and there

was a fishing town in those regions called Port St. Mary, with a hotel

at which travelers could sleep. If Allan’s impressions of Castletown

still inclined him to try an excursion to some other place, he had only

to say so, and a carriage would be produced immediately. Allan jumped at

the proposal, and in ten minutes more he and Midwinter were on their way

to the western wilds of the island.

With trifling incidents, the day of Mr. Brock’s departure had worn on

thus far. With trifling incidents, in which not even Midwinter’s nervous

watchfulness could see anything to distrust, it was still to proceed,

until the night came--a night which one at least of the two companions

was destined to remember to the end of his life.

Before the travelers had advanced two miles on their road, an accident

happened. The horse fell, and the driver reported that the animal had

seriously injured himself. There was no alternative but to send for

another carriage to Castletown, or to get on to Port St. Mary on foot.

Deciding to walk, Midwinter and Allan had not gone far before they were

overtaken by a gentleman driving alone in an open chaise. He civilly

introduced himself as a medical man, living close to Port St. Mary, and

offered seats in his carriage. Always ready to make new acquaintances,

Allan at once accepted the proposal. He and the doctor (whose name was

ascertained to be Hawbury) became friendly and familiar before they

had been five minutes in the chaise together; Midwinter, sitting behind

them, reserved and silent, on the back seat. They separated just outside

Port St. Mary, before Mr. Hawbury’s house, Allan boisterously admiring

the doctor’s neat French windows and pretty flower-garden and lawn,

and wringing his hand at parting as if they had known each other

from boyhood upward. Arrived in Port St. Mary, the two friends found

themselves in a second Castletown on a smaller scale. But the country

round, wild, open, and hilly, deserved its reputation. A walk brought

them well enough on with the day--still the harmless, idle day that it

had been from the first--to see the evening near at hand. After waiting

a little to admire the sun, setting grandly over hill, and heath, and

crag, and talking, while they waited, of Mr. Brock and his long journey

home, they returned to the hotel to order their early supper. Nearer and

nearer the night, and the adventure which the night was to bring with

it, came to the two friends; and still the only incidents that happened

were incidents to be laughed at, if they were noticed at all. The

supper was badly cooked; the waiting-maid was impenetrably stupid; the

old-fashioned bell-rope in the coffee-room had come down in Allan’s

hands, and, striking in its descent a painted china shepherdess on the

chimney-piece, had laid the figure in fragments on the floor. Events as

trifling as these were still the only events that had happened, when the

twilight faded, and the lighted candles were brought into the room.

Finding Midwinter, after the double fatigue of a sleepless night and

a restless day, but little inclined for conversation, Allan left him

resting on the sofa, and lounged into the passage of the hotel, on the

chance of discovering somebody to talk to. Here another of the trivial

incidents of the day brought Allan and Mr. Hawbury together again, and

helped--whether happily or not, yet remained to be seen--to strengthen

the acquaintance between them on either side.

The “bar” of the hotel was situated at one end of the passage, and

the landlady was in attendance there, mixing a glass of liquor for the

doctor, who had just looked in for a little gossip. On Allan’s asking

permission to make a third in the drinking and the gossiping, Mr.

Hawbury civilly handed him the glass which the landlady had just filled.

It contained cold brandy-and-water. A marked change in Allan’s face, as

he suddenly drew back and asked for whisky instead, caught the doctor’s

medical eye. “A case of nervous antipathy,” said Mr. Hawbury, quietly

taking the glass away again. The remark obliged Allan to acknowledge

that he had an insurmountable loathing (which he was foolish enough to

be a little ashamed of mentioning) to the smell and taste of brandy. No

matter with what diluting liquid the spirit was mixed, the presence of

it, instantly detected by his organs of taste and smell, turned him sick

and faint if the drink touched his lips. Starting from this personal

confession, the talk turned on antipathies in general; and the doctor

acknowledged, on his side, that he took a professional interest in the

subject, and that he possessed a collection of curious cases at home,

which his new acquaintance was welcome to look at, if Allan had nothing

else to do that evening, and if he would call, when the medical work of

the day was over, in an hour’s time.

Cordially accepting the invitation (which was extended to Midwinter

also, if he cared to profit by it), Allan returned to the coffee-room to

look after his friend. Half asleep and half awake, Midwinter was still

stretched on the sofa, with the local newspaper just dropping out of his

languid hand.

“I heard your voice in the passage,” he said, drowsily. “Whom were you

talking to?”

“The doctor,” replied Allan. “I am going to smoke a cigar with him, in

an hour’s time. Will you come too?”

Midwinter assented with a weary sigh. Always shyly unwilling to make new

acquaintances, fatigue increased the reluctance he now felt to become

Mr. Hawbury’s guest. As matters stood, however, there was no alternative

but to go; for, with Allan’s constitutional imprudence, there was no

safely trusting him alone anywhere, and more especially in a stranger’s

house. Mr. Brock would certainly not have left his pupil to visit

the doctor alone; and Midwinter was still nervously conscious that he

occupied Mr. Brock’s place.

“What shall we do till it’s time to go?” asked Allan, looking about

him. “Anything in this?” he added, observing the fallen newspaper, and

picking it up from the floor.

“I’m too tired to look. If you find anything interesting, read it out,”

said Midwinter, thinking that the reading might help to keep him awake.

Part of the newspaper, and no small part of it, was devoted to extracts

from books recently published in London. One of the works most largely

laid under contribution in this manner was of the sort to interest

Allan: it was a highly spiced narrative of Traveling Adventures in

the wilds of Australia. Pouncing on an extract which described the

sufferings of the traveling-party, lost in a trackless wilderness,

and in danger of dying by thirst, Allan announced that he had found

something to make his friend’s flesh creep, and began eagerly to read

the passage aloud.

Resolute not to sleep, Midwinter followed the progress of the adventure,

sentence by sentence, without missing a word. The consultation of the

lost travelers, with death by thirst staring them in the face; the

resolution to press on while their strength lasted; the fall of a heavy

shower, the vain efforts made to catch the rainwater, the transient

relief experienced by sucking their wet clothes; the sufferings renewed

a few hours after; the night advance of the strongest of the party,

leaving the weakest behind; the following a flight of birds when morning

dawned; the discovery by the lost men of the broad pool of water that

saved their lives--all this Midwinter’s fast-failing attention mastered

painfully, Allan’s voice growing fainter and fainter on his ear with

every sentence that was read. Soon the next words seemed to drop away

gently, and nothing but the slowly sinking sound of the voice was left.

Then the light in the room darkened gradually, the sound dwindled

into delicious silence, and the last waking impressions of the weary

Midwinter came peacefully to an end.

The next event of which he was conscious was a sharp ringing at the

closed door of the hotel. He started to his feet, with the ready

alacrity of a man whose life has accustomed him to wake at the shortest

notice. An instant’s look round showed him that the room was empty, and

a glance at his watch told him that it was close on midnight. The noise

made by the sleepy servant in opening the door, and the tread the next

moment of quick footsteps in the passage, filled him with a sudden

foreboding of something wrong. As he hurriedly stepped forward to go

out and make inquiry, the door of the coffee-room opened, and the doctor

stood before him.

“I am sorry to disturb you,” said Mr. Hawbury. “Don’t be alarmed;

there’s nothing wrong.”

“Where is my friend?” asked Midwinter.

“At the pier head,” answered the doctor. “I am, to a certain extent,

responsible for what he is doing now; and I think some careful person,

like yourself, ought to be with him.”

The hint was enough for Midwinter. He and the doctor set out for the

pier immediately, Mr. Hawbury mentioning on the way the circumstances

under which he had come to the hotel.

Punctual to the appointed hour Allan had made his appearance at the

doctor’s house, explaining that he had left his weary friend so fast

asleep on the sofa that he had not had the heart to wake him. The

evening had passed pleasantly, and the conversation had turned on many

subjects, until, in an evil hour, Mr. Hawbury had dropped a hint

which showed that he was fond of sailing, and that he possessed a

pleasure-boat of his own in the harbor. Excited on the instant by his

favorite topic, Allan had left his host no hospitable alternative but to

take him to the pier head and show him the boat. The beauty of the night

and the softness of the breeze had done the rest of the mischief; they

had filled Allan with irresistible longings for a sail by moonlight.

Prevented from accompanying his guest by professional hindrances which

obliged him to remain on shore, the doctor, not knowing what else to

do, had ventured on disturbing Midwinter, rather than take the

responsibility of allowing Mr. Armadale (no matter how well he might be

accustomed to the sea) to set off on a sailing trip at midnight entirely

by himself.

The time taken to make this explanation brought Midwinter and the doctor

to the pier head. There, sure enough, was young Armadale in the boat,

hoisting the sail, and singing the sailor’s “Yo-heave-ho!” at the top of

his voice.

“Come along, old boy!” cried Allan. “You’re just in time for a frolic by

moonlight!”

Midwinter suggested a frolic by daylight, and an adjournment to bed in

the meantime.

“Bed!” cried Allan, on whose harum-scarum high spirits Mr. Hawbury’s

hospitality had certainly not produced a sedative effect. “Hear him,

doctor! one would think he was ninety! Bed, you drowsy old dormouse!

Look at that, and think of bed if you can!”

He pointed to the sea. The moon was shining in the cloudless heaven;

the night-breeze blew soft and steady from the land; the peaceful waters

rippled joyfully in the silence and the glory of the night. Midwinter

turned to the doctor with a wise resignation to circumstances: he had

seen enough to satisfy him that all words of remonstrance would be words

simply thrown away.

“How is the tide?” he asked.

Mr. Hawbury told him.

“Are there oars in the boat?”

“Yes.”

“I am well used to the sea,” said Midwinter, descending the pier steps.

“You may trust me to take care of my friend, and to take care of the

boat.”

“Good-night, doctor!” shouted Allan. “Your whisky-and-water is

delicious--your boat’s a little beauty--and you’re the best fellow I

ever met in my life!”

The doctor laughed and waved his hand, and the boat glided out from the

harbor, with Midwinter at the helm.

As the breeze then blew, they were soon abreast of the westward

headland, bounding the Bay of Poolvash, and the question was started

whether they should run out to sea or keep along the shore. The wisest

proceeding, in the event of the wind failing them, was to keep by the

land. Midwinter altered the course of the boat, and they sailed on

smoothly in a south-westerly direction, abreast of the coast.

Little by little the cliffs rose in height, and the rocks, massed wild

and jagged, showed rifted black chasms yawning deep in their seaward

sides. Off the bold promontory called Spanish Head, Midwinter looked

ominously at his watch. But Allan pleaded hard for half an hour more,

and for a glance at the famous channel of the Sound, which they were now

fast nearing, and of which he had heard some startling stories from

the workmen employed on his yacht. The new change which Midwinter’s

compliance with this request rendered it necessary to make in the course

of the boat brought her close to the wind; and revealed, on one side,

the grand view of the southernmost shores of the Isle of Man, and, on

the other, the black precipices of the islet called the Calf, separated

from the mainland by the dark and dangerous channel of the Sound.

Once more Midwinter looked at his watch. “We have gone far enough,” he

said. “Stand by the sheet!”

“Stop!” cried Allan, from the bows of the boat. “Good God! here’s a

wrecked ship right ahead of us!”

Midwinter let the boat fall off a little, and looked where the other

pointed.

There, stranded midway between the rocky boundaries on either side of

the Sound--there, never again to rise on the living waters from her

grave on the sunken rock; lost and lonely in the quiet night; high, and

dark, and ghostly in the yellow moonshine, lay the Wrecked Ship.

“I know the vessel,” said Allan, in great excitement. “I heard my

workmen talking of her yesterday. She drifted in here, on a pitch-dark

night, when they couldn’t see the lights; a poor old worn-out

merchantman, Midwinter, that the ship-brokers have bought to break up.

Let’s run in and have a look at her.”

Midwinter hesitated. All the old sympathies of his sea-life strongly

inclined him to follow Allan’s suggestion; but the wind was falling

light, and he distrusted the broken water and the swirling currents of

the channel ahead. “This is an ugly place to take a boat into when you

know nothing about it,” he said.

“Nonsense!” returned Allan. “It’s as light as day, and we float in two

feet of water.”

Before Midwinter could answer, the current caught the boat, and swept

them onward through the channel straight toward the wreck.

“Lower the sail,” said Midwinter, quietly, “and ship the oars. We are

running down on her fast enough now, whether we like it or not.”

Both well accustomed to the use of the oar, they brought the course of

the boat under sufficient control to keep her on the smoothest side of

the channel--the side which was nearest to the Islet of the Calf. As

they came swiftly up with the wreck, Midwinter resigned his oar to

Allan; and, watching his opportunity, caught a hold with the boat-hook

on the fore-chains of the vessel. The next moment they had the boat

safely in hand, under the lee of the wreck.

The ship’s ladder used by the workmen hung over the fore-chains.

Mounting it, with the boat’s rope in his teeth, Midwinter secured one

end, and lowered the other to Allan in the boat. “Make that fast,” he

said, “and wait till I see if it’s all safe on board.” With those words,

he disappeared behind the bulwark.

“Wait?” repeated Allan, in the blankest astonishment at his friend’s

excessive caution. “What on earth does he mean? I’ll be hanged if I

wait. Where one of us goes, the other goes too!”

He hitched the loose end of the rope round the forward thwart of the

boat, and, swinging himself up the ladder, stood the next moment on the

deck. “Anything very dreadful on board?” he inquired sarcastically, as

he and his friend met.

Midwinter smiled. “Nothing whatever,” he replied. “But I couldn’t be

sure that we were to have the whole ship to ourselves till I got over

the bulwark and looked about me.”

Allan took a turn on the deck, and surveyed the wreck critically from

stem to stern.

“Not much of a vessel,” he said; “the Frenchmen generally build better

ships than this.”

Midwinter crossed the deck, and eyed Allan in a momentary silence.

“Frenchmen?” he repeated, after an interval. “Is this vessel French?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“The men I have got at work on the yacht told me. They know all about

her.”

Midwinter came a little nearer. His swarthy face began to look, to

Allan’s eyes, unaccountably pale in the moonlight.

“Did they mention what trade she was engaged in?”

“Yes; the timber trade.”

As Allan gave that answer, Midwinter’s lean brown hand clutched him fast

by the shoulder, and Midwinter’s teeth chattered in his head like the

teeth of a man struck by a sudden chill.

“Did they tell you her name?” he asked, in a voice that dropped suddenly

to a whisper.

“They did, I think. But it has slipped my memory.--Gently, old fellow;

these long claws of yours are rather tight on my shoulder.”

“Was the name--?” He stopped, removed his hand, and dashed away the

great drops that were gathering on his forehead. “Was the name _La Grace

de Dieu_?”

“How the deuce did you come to know it? That’s the name, sure enough.

_La Grace de Dieu_.”

At one bound, Midwinter leaped on the bulwark of the wreck.

“The boat!” he cried, with a scream of horror that rang far and wide

through the stillness of the night, and brought Allan instantly to his

side.

The lower end of the carelessly hitched rope was loose on the water, and

ahead, in the track of the moonlight, a small black object was floating

out of view. The boat was adrift.

IV. THE SHADOW OF THE PAST.

One stepping back under the dark shelter of the bulwark, and one

standing out boldly in the yellow light of the moon, the two friends

turned face to face on the deck of the timber-ship, and looked at each

other in silence. The next moment Allan’s inveterate recklessness seized

on the grotesque side of the situation by main force. He seated himself

astride on the bulwark, and burst out boisterously into his loudest and

heartiest laugh.

“All my fault,” he said; “but there’s no help for it now. Here we are,

hard and fast in a trap of our own setting; and there goes the last of

the doctor’s boat! Come out of the dark, Midwinter; I can’t half see you

there, and I want to know what’s to be done next.”

Midwinter neither answered nor moved. Allan left the bulwark, and,

mounting the forecastle, looked down attentively at the waters of the

Sound.

“One thing is pretty certain,” he said. “With the current on that side,

and the sunken rocks on this, we can’t find our way out of the scrape

by swimming, at any rate. So much for the prospect at this end of the

wreck. Let’s try how things look at the other. Rouse up, messmate!” he

called out, cheerfully, as he passed Midwinter. “Come and see what the

old tub of a timber-ship has got to show us astern.” He sauntered on,

with his hands in his pockets, humming the chorus of a comic song.

His voice had produced no apparent effect on his friend; but, at the

light touch of his hand in passing, Midwinter started, and moved out

slowly from the shadow of the bulwark. “Come along!” cried Allan,

suspending his singing for a moment, and glancing back. Still, without a

word of answer, the other followed. Thrice he stopped before he reached

the stern end of the wreck: the first time, to throw aside his hat,

and push back his hair from his forehead and temples; the second time,

reeling, giddy, to hold for a moment by a ring-bolt close at hand; the

last time (though Allan was plainly visible a few yards ahead), to look

stealthily behind him, with the furtive scrutiny of a man who believes

that other footsteps are following him in the dark. “Not yet!” he

whispered to himself, with eyes that searched the empty air. “I shall

see him astern, with his hand on the lock of the cabin door.”

The stern end of the wreck was clear of the ship-breakers’ lumber,

accumulated in the other parts of the vessel. Here, the one object

that rose visible on the smooth surface of the deck was the low wooden

structure which held the cabin door and roofed in the cabin stairs. The

wheel-house had been removed, the binnacle had been removed, but

the cabin entrance, and all that had belonged to it, had been left

untouched. The scuttle was on, and the door was closed.

On gaining the after-part of the vessel, Allan walked straight to the

stern, and looked out to sea over the taffrail. No such thing as a

boat was in view anywhere on the quiet, moon-brightened waters. Knowing

Midwinter’s sight to be better than his own, he called out, “Come up

here, and see if there’s a fisherman within hail of us.” Hearing no

reply, he looked back. Midwinter had followed him as far as the cabin,

and had stopped there. He called again in a louder voice, and beckoned

impatiently. Midwinter had heard the call, for he looked up, but still

he never stirred from his place. There he stood, as if he had reached

the utmost limits of the ship and could go no further.

Allan went back and joined him. It was not easy to discover what he was

looking at, for he kept his face turned away from the moonlight; but it

seemed as if his eyes were fixed, with a strange expression of inquiry,

on the cabin door. “What is there to look at there?” Allan asked.

“Let’s see if it’s locked.” As he took a step forward to open the door,

Midwinter’s hand seized him suddenly by the coat collar and forced him

back. The moment after, the hand relaxed without losing its grasp, and

trembled violently, like the hand of a man completely unnerved.

“Am I to consider myself in custody?” asked Allan, half astonished and

half amused. “Why in the name of wonder do you keep staring at the cabin

door? Any suspicious noises below? It’s no use disturbing the rats--if

that’s what you mean--we haven’t got a dog with us. Men? Living men they

can’t be; for they would have heard us and come on deck. Dead men? Quite

impossible! No ship’s crew could be drowned in a land-locked place like

this, unless the vessel broke up under them--and here’s the vessel

as steady as a church to speak for herself. Man alive, how your hand

trembles! What is there to scare you in that rotten old cabin? What are

you shaking and shivering about? Any company of the supernatural sort on

board? Mercy preserve us! (as the old women say) do you see a ghost?”

“_I see two_!” answered the other, driven headlong into speech and

action by a maddening temptation to reveal the truth. “Two!” he

repeated, his breath bursting from him in deep, heavy gasps, as he tried

vainly to force back the horrible words. “The ghost of a man like you,

drowning in the cabin! And the ghost of a man like me, turning the lock

of the door on him!”

Once more young Armadale’s hearty laughter rang out loud and long

through the stillness of the night.

“Turning the lock of the door, is he?” said Allan, as soon as his

merriment left him breath enough to speak. “That’s a devilish unhandsome

action, Master Midwinter, on the part of your ghost. The least I can do,

after that, is to let mine out of the cabin, and give him the run of the

ship.”

With no more than a momentary exertion of his superior strength, he

freed himself easily from Midwinter’s hold. “Below there!” he called

out, gayly, as he laid his strong hand on the crazy lock, and tore open

the cabin door. “Ghost of Allan Armadale, come on deck!” In his terrible

ignorance of the truth, he put his head into the doorway and looked

down, laughing, at the place where his murdered father had died. “Pah!”

he exclaimed, stepping back suddenly, with a shudder of disgust. “The

air is foul already; and the cabin is full of water.”

It was true. The sunken rocks on which the vessel lay wrecked had burst

their way through her lower timbers astern, and the water had welled up

through the rifted wood. Here, where the deed had been done, the fatal

parallel between past and present was complete. What the cabin had been

in the time of the fathers, that the cabin was now in the time of the

sons.

Allan pushed the door to again with his foot, a little surprised at

the sudden silence which appeared to have fallen on his friend from the

moment when he had laid his hand on the cabin lock. When he turned to

look, the reason of the silence was instantly revealed. Midwinter had

dropped on the deck. He lay senseless before the cabin door; his face

turned up, white and still, to the moonlight, like the face of a dead

man.

In a moment Allan was at his side. He looked uselessly round the lonely

limits of the wreck, as he lifted Midwinter’s head on his knee, for a

chance of help, where all chance was ruthlessly cut off. “What am I to

do?” he said to himself, in the first impulse of alarm. “Not a drop

of water near, but the foul water in the cabin.” A sudden recollection

crossed his memory, the florid color rushed back over his face, and he

drew from his pocket a wicker-covered flask. “God bless the doctor for

giving me this before we sailed!” he broke out, fervently, as he poured

down Midwinter’s throat some drops of the raw whisky which the flask

contained. The stimulant acted instantly on the sensitive system of the

swooning man. He sighed faintly, and slowly opened his eyes. “Have I

been dreaming?” he asked, looking up vacantly in Allan’s face. His

eyes wandered higher, and encountered the dismantled masts of the wreck

rising weird and black against the night sky. He shuddered at the sight

of them, and hid his face on Allan’s knee. “No dream!” he murmured to

himself, mournfully. “Oh me, no dream!”

“You have been overtired all day,” said Allan, “and this infernal

adventure of ours has upset you. Take some more whisky, it’s sure to

do you good. Can you sit by yourself, if I put you against the bulwark,

so?”

“Why by myself? Why do you leave me?” asked Midwinter.

Allan pointed to the mizzen shrouds of the wreck, which were still left

standing. “You are not well enough to rough it here till the workmen

come off in the morning,” he said. “We must find our way on shore at

once, if we can. I am going up to get a good view all round, and see if

there’s a house within hail of us.”

Even in the moment that passed while those few words were spoken,

Midwinter’s eyes wandered back distrustfully to the fatal cabin door.

“Don’t go near it!” he whispered. “Don’t try to open it, for God’s

sake!”

“No, no,” returned Allan, humoring him. “When I come down from the

rigging, I’ll come back here.” He said the words a little constrainedly,

noticing, for the first time while he now spoke, an underlying distress

in Midwinter’s face, which grieved and perplexed him. “You’re not angry

with me?” he said, in his simple, sweet-tempered way. “All this is my

fault, I know; and I was a brute and a fool to laugh at you, when I

ought to have seen you were ill. I am so sorry, Midwinter. Don’t be

angry with me!”

Midwinter slowly raised his head. His eyes rested with a mournful

interest, long and tender, on Allan’s anxious face.

“Angry?” he repeated, in his lowest, gentlest tones. “Angry with

_you_?--Oh, my poor boy, were you to blame for being kind to me when I

was ill in the old west-country inn? And was I to blame for feeling your

kindness thankfully? Was it our fault that we never doubted each other,

and never knew that we were traveling together blindfold on the way that

was to lead us here? The cruel time is coming, Allan, when we shall

rue the day we ever met. Shake hands, brother, on the edge of the

precipice--shake hands while we are brothers still!”

Allan turned away quickly, convinced that his mind had not yet recovered

the shock of the fainting fit. “Don’t forget the whisky!” he said,

cheerfully, as he sprang into the rigging, and mounted to the

mizzen-top.

It was past two, the moon was waning, and the darkness that comes before

dawn was beginning to gather round the wreck. Behind Allan, as he now

stood looking out from the elevation of the mizzen-top, spread the broad

and lonely sea. Before him were the low, black, lurking rocks, and the

broken waters of the channel, pouring white and angry into the vast calm

of the westward ocean beyond. On the right hand, heaved back grandly

from the water-side, were the rocks and precipices, with their little

table-lands of grass between; the sloping downs, and upward-rolling

heath solitudes of the Isle of Man. On the left hand rose the craggy

sides of the Islet of the Calf, here rent wildly into deep black chasms,

there lying low under long sweeping acclivities of grass and heath. No

sound rose, no light was visible, on either shore. The black lines of

the topmost masts of the wreck looked shadowy and faint in the darkening

mystery of the sky; the land breeze had dropped; the small shoreward

waves fell noiseless: far or near, no sound was audible but the

cheerless bubbling of the broken water ahead, pouring through the awful

hush of silence in which earth and ocean waited for the coming day.

Even Allan’s careless nature felt the solemn influence of the time. The

sound of his own voice startled him when he looked down and hailed his

friend on deck.

“I think I see one house,” he said. “Here-away, on the mainland to the

right.” He looked again, to make sure, at a dim little patch of white,

with faint white lines behind it, nestling low in a grassy hollow,

on the main island. “It looks like a stone house and inclosure,” he

resumed. “I’ll hail it, on the chance.” He passed his arm round a rope

to steady himself, made a speaking-trumpet of his hands, and suddenly

dropped them again without uttering a sound. “It’s so awfully quiet,”

he whispered to himself. “I’m half afraid to call out.” He looked down

again on deck. “I shan’t startle you, Midwinter, shall I?” he said, with

an uneasy laugh. He looked once more at the faint white object, in

the grassy hollow. “It won’t do to have come up here for nothing,” he

thought, and made a speaking-trumpet of his hands again. This time he

gave the hail with the whole power of his lungs. “On shore there!” he

shouted, turning his face to the main island. “Ahoy-hoy-hoy!”

The last echoes of his voice died away and were lost. No sound answered

him but the cheerless bubbling of the broken water ahead.

He looked down again at his friend, and saw the dark figure of Midwinter

rise erect, and pace the deck backward and forward, never disappearing

out of sight of the cabin when it retired toward the bows of the wreck,

and never passing beyond the cabin when it returned toward the stern.

“He is impatient to get away,” thought Allan; “I’ll try again.” He

hailed the land once more, and, taught by previous experience, pitched

his voice in its highest key.

This time another sound than the sound of the bubbling water answered

him. The lowing of frightened cattle rose from the building in the

grassy hollow, and traveled far and drearily through the stillness

of the morning air. Allan waited and listened. If the building was a

farmhouse the disturbance among the beasts would rouse the men. If it

was only a cattle-stable, nothing more would happen. The lowing of

the frightened brutes rose and fell drearily, the minutes passed, and

nothing happened.

“Once more!” said Allan, looking down at the restless figure pacing

beneath him. For the third time he hailed the land. For the third time

he waited and listened.

In a pause of silence among the cattle, he heard behind him, on the

opposite shore of the channel, faint and far among the solitudes of the

Islet of the Calf, a sharp, sudden sound, like the distant clash of a

heavy door-bolt drawn back. Turning at once in the new direction, he

strained his eyes to look for a house. The last faint rays of the

waning moonlight trembled here and there on the higher rocks, and on the

steeper pinnacles of ground, but great strips of darkness lay dense

and black over all the land between; and in that darkness the house, if

house there were, was lost to view.

“I have roused somebody at last,” Allan called out, encouragingly, to

Midwinter, still walking to and fro on the deck, strangely indifferent

to all that was passing above and beyond him. “Look out for the

answering, hail!” And with his face set toward the islet, Allan shouted

for help.

The shout was not answered, but mimicked with a shrill, shrieking

derision, with wilder and wilder cries, rising out of the deep distant

darkness, and mingling horribly the expression of a human voice with the

sound of a brute’s. A sudden suspicion crossed Allan’s mind, which

made his head swim and turned his hand cold as it held the rigging. In

breathless silence he looked toward the quarter from which the first

mimicry of his cry for help had come. After a moment’s pause the shrieks

were renewed, and the sound of them came nearer. Suddenly a figure,

which seemed the figure of a man, leaped up black on a pinnacle of

rock, and capered and shrieked in the waning gleam of the moonlight.

The screams of a terrified woman mingled with the cries of the capering

creature on the rock. A red spark flashed out in the darkness from a

light kindled in an invisible window. The hoarse shouting of a man’s

voice in anger was heard through the noise. A second black figure leaped

up on the rock, struggled with the first figure, and disappeared with it

in the darkness. The cries grew fainter and fainter, the screams of the

woman were stilled, the hoarse voice of the man was heard again for a

moment, hailing the wreck in words made unintelligible by the distance,

but in tones plainly expressive of rage and fear combined. Another

moment, and the clang of the door-bolt was heard again, the red spark

of light was quenched in darkness, and all the islet lay quiet in the

shadows once more. The lowing of the cattle on the main-land ceased,

rose again, stopped. Then, cold and cheerless as ever, the eternal

bubbling of the broken water welled up through the great gap of

silence--the one sound left, as the mysterious stillness of the hour

fell like a mantle from the heavens, and closed over the wreck.

Allan descended from his place in the mizzen-top, and joined his friend

again on deck.

“We must wait till the ship-breakers come off to their work,” he said,

meeting Midwinter halfway in the course of his restless walk. “After

what has happened, I don’t mind confessing that I’ve had enough of

hailing the land. Only think of there being a madman in that house

ashore, and of my waking him! Horrible, wasn’t it?”

Midwinter stood still for a moment, and looked at Allan, with the

perplexed air of a man who hears circumstances familiarly mentioned to

which he is himself a total stranger. He appeared, if such a thing had

been possible, to have passed over entirely without notice all that had

just happened on the Islet of the Calf.

“Nothing is horrible _out_ of this ship,” he said. “Everything is

horrible _in_ it.”

Answering in those strange words, he turned away again, and went on with

his walk.

Allan picked up the flask of whisky lying on the deck near him, and

revived his spirits with a dram. “Here’s one thing on board that isn’t

horrible,” he retorted briskly, as he screwed on the stopper of the

flask; “and here’s another,” he added, as he took a cigar from his

case and lit it. “Three o’clock!” he went on, looking at his watch, and

settling himself comfortably on deck with his back against the bulwark.

“Daybreak isn’t far off; we shall have the piping of the birds to cheer

us up before long. I say, Midwinter, you seem to have quite got over

that unlucky fainting fit. How you do keep walking! Come here and have

a cigar, and make yourself comfortable. What’s the good of tramping

backward and forward in that restless way?”

“I am waiting,” said Midwinter.

“Waiting! What for?”

“For what is to happen to you or to me--or to both of us--before we are

out of this ship.”

“With submission to your superior judgment, my dear fellow, I think

quite enough has happened already. The adventure will do very well as

it stands now; more of it is more than I want.” He took another dram

of whisky, and rambled on, between the puffs of his cigar, in his usual

easy way. “I’ve not got your fine imagination, old boy; and I hope the

next thing that happens will be the appearance of the workmen’s boat. I

suspect that queer fancy of yours has been running away with you while

you were down here all by yourself. Come, now, what were you thinking of

while I was up in the mizzen-top frightening the cows?”

Midwinter suddenly stopped. “Suppose I tell you?” he said.

“Suppose you do?”

The torturing temptation to reveal the truth, roused once already by his

companion’s merciless gayety of spirit, possessed itself of Midwinter

for the second time. He leaned back in the dark against the high side

of the ship, and looked down in silence at Allan’s figure, stretched

comfortably on the deck. “Rouse him,” the fiend whispered, subtly, “from

that ignorant self-possession and that pitiless repose. Show him the

place where the deed was done; let him know it with your knowledge, and

fear it with your dread. Tell him of the letter you burned, and of the

words no fire can destroy which are living in your memory now. Let him

see your mind as it was yesterday, when it roused your sinking faith in

your own convictions, to look back on your life at sea, and to cherish

the comforting remembrance that, in all your voyages, you had never

fallen in with this ship. Let him see your mind as it is now, when the

ship has got you at the turning-point of your new life, at the outset of

your friendship with the one man of all men whom your father warned you

to avoid. Think of those death-bed words, and whisper them in his ear,

that he may think of them, too: ‘Hide yourself from him under an assumed

name. Put the mountains and the seas between you; be ungrateful, be

unforgiving; be all that is most repellent to your own gentler nature,

rather than live under the same roof and breathe the same air with that

man.’” So the tempter counseled. So, like a noisome exhalation from the

father’s grave, the father’s influence rose and poisoned the mind of the

son.

The sudden silence surprised Allan; he looked back drowsily over his

shoulder. “Thinking again!” he exclaimed, with a weary yawn.

Midwinter stepped out from the shadow, and came nearer to Allan than he

had come yet. “Yes,” he said, “thinking of the past and the future.”

“The past and the future?” repeated Allan, shifting himself comfortably

into a new position. “For my part, I’m dumb about the past. It’s a sore

subject with me: the past means the loss of the doctor’s boat. Let’s

talk about the future. Have you been taking a practical view? as dear

old Brock calls it. Have you been considering the next serious question

that concerns us both when we get back to the hotel--the question of

breakfast?”

After an instant’s hesitation, Midwinter took a step nearer. “I have

been thinking of your future and mine,” he said; “I have been thinking

of the time when your way in life and my way in life will be two ways

instead of one.”

“Here’s the daybreak!” cried Allan. “Look up at the masts; they’re

beginning to get clear again already. I beg your pardon. What were you

saying?”

Midwinter made no reply. The struggle between the hereditary

superstition that was driving him on, and the unconquerable affection

for Allan that was holding him back, suspended the next words on his

lips. He turned aside his face in speechless suffering. “Oh, my father!”

he thought, “better have killed me on that day when I lay on your bosom,

than have let me live for this.”

“What’s that about the future?” persisted Allan. “I was looking for the

daylight; I didn’t hear.”

Midwinter controlled himself, and answered: “You have treated me with

your usual kindness,” he said, “in planning to take me with you to

Thorpe Ambrose. I think, on reflection, I had better not intrude myself

where I am not known and not expected.” His voice faltered, and he

stopped again. The more he shrank from it, the clearer the picture of

the happy life that he was resigning rose on his mind.

Allan’s thoughts instantly reverted to the mystification about the new

steward which he had practiced on his friend when they were consulting

together in the cabin of the yacht. “Has he been turning it over in

his mind?” wondered Allan; “and is he beginning at last to suspect the

truth? I’ll try him.--Talk as much nonsense, my dear fellow, as you

like,” he rejoined, “but don’t forget that you are engaged to see me

established at Thorpe Ambrose, and to give me your opinion of the new

steward.”

Midwinter suddenly stepped forward again, close to Allan.

“I am not talking about your steward or your estate,” he burst out

passionately; “I am talking about myself. Do you hear? Myself! I am not

a fit companion for you. You don’t know who I am.” He drew back into the

shadowy shelter of the bulwark as suddenly as he had come out from it.

“O God! I can’t tell him,” he said to himself, in a whisper.

For a moment, and for a moment only, Allan was surprised. “Not know

who you are?” Even as he repeated the words, his easy goodhumor got

the upper-hand again. He took up the whisky flask, and shook it

significantly. “I say,” he resumed, “how much of the doctor’s medicine

did you take while I was up in the mizzen-top?”

The light tone which he persisted in adopting stung Midwinter to the

last pitch of exasperation. He came out again into the light, and

stamped his foot angrily on the deck. “Listen to me!” he said. “You

don’t know half the low things I have done in my lifetime. I have been a

tradesman’s drudge; I have swept out the shop and put up the shutters;

I have carried parcels through the street, and waited for my master’s

money at his customers’ doors.”

“I have never done anything half as useful,” returned Allan, composedly.

“Dear old boy, what an industrious fellow you have been in your time!”

“I’ve been a vagabond and a blackguard in my time,” returned the other,

fiercely; “I’ve been a street tumbler, a tramp, a gypsy’s boy! I’ve

sung for half-pence with dancing dogs on the high-road! I’ve worn a

foot-boy’s livery, and waited at table! I’ve been a common sailors’

cook, and a starving fisherman’s Jack-of-all-trades! What has a

gentleman in your position in common with a man in mine? Can you take

_me_ into the society at Thorpe Ambrose? Why, my very name would be

a reproach to you. Fancy the faces of your new neighbors when their

footmen announce Ozias Midwinter and Allan Armadale in the same breath!”

He burst into a harsh laugh, and repeated the two names again, with a

scornful bitterness of emphasis which insisted pitilessly on the marked

contrast between them.

Something in the sound of his laughter jarred painfully even on Allan’s

easy nature. He raised himself on the deck and spoke seriously for the

first time. “A joke’s a joke, Midwinter,” he said, “as long as you don’t

carry it too far. I remember your saying something of the same sort to

me once before when I was nursing you in Somersetshire. You forced me

to ask you if I deserved to be kept at arms-length by _you_ of all the

people in the world. Don’t force me to say so again. Make as much fun of

me as you please, old fellow, in any other way. _That_ way hurts me.”

Simple as the words were, and simply as they had been spoken, they

appeared to work an instant revolution in Midwinter’s mind. His

impressible nature recoiled as from some sudden shock. Without a word of

reply, he walked away by himself to the forward part of the ship. He sat

down on some piled planks between the masts, and passed his hand over

his head in a vacant, bewildered way. Though his father’s belief in

fatality was his own belief once more--though there was no longer the

shadow of a doubt in his mind that the woman whom Mr. Brock had met in

Somersetshire, and the woman who had tried to destroy herself in London,

were one and the same--though all the horror that mastered him when he

first read the letter from Wildbad had now mastered him again, Allan’s

appeal to their past experience of each other had come home to his

heart, with a force more irresistible than the force of his superstition

itself. In the strength of that very superstition, he now sought the

pretext which might encourage him to sacrifice every less generous

feeling to the one predominant dread of wounding the sympathies of his

friend. “Why distress him?” he whispered to himself. “We are not the end

here: there is the Woman behind us in the dark. Why resist him when the

mischief’s done, and the caution comes too late? What _is_ to be _will_

be. What have I to do with the future? and what has he?”

He went back to Allan, sat down by his side, and took his hand. “Forgive

me,” he said, gently; “I have hurt you for the last time.” Before it

was possible to reply, he snatched up the whisky flask from the deck.

“Come!” he exclaimed, with a sudden effort to match his friend’s

cheerfulness, “you have been trying the doctor’s medicine, why shouldn’t

I?”

Allan was delighted. “This is something like a change for the better,”

he said; “Midwinter is himself again. Hark! there are the birds. Hail,

smiling morn! smiling morn!” He sang the words of the glee in his old,

cheerful voice, and clapped Midwinter on the shoulder in his old, hearty

way. “How did you manage to clear your head of those confounded megrims?

Do you know you were quite alarming about something happening to one or

other of us before we were out of this ship?”

“Sheer nonsense!” returned Midwinter, contemptuously. “I don’t think my

head has ever been quite right since that fever; I’ve got a bee in my

bonnet, as they say in the North. Let’s talk of something else. About

those people you have let the cottage to? I wonder whether the agent’s

account of Major Milroy’s family is to be depended on? There might be

another lady in the household besides his wife and his daughter.”

“Oho!” cried Allan, “_you’re_ beginning to think of nymphs among the

trees, and flirtations in the fruit-garden, are you? Another lady, eh?

Suppose the major’s family circle won’t supply another? We shall have to

spin that half-crown again, and toss up for which is to have the first

chance with Miss Milroy.”

For once Midwinter spoke as lightly and carelessly as Allan himself.

“No, no,” he said, “the major’s landlord has the first claim to the

notice of the major’s daughter. I’ll retire into the background, and

wait for the next lady who makes her appearance at Thorpe Ambrose.”

“Very good. I’ll have an address to the women of Norfolk posted in the

park to that effect,” said Allan. “Are you particular to a shade about

size or complexion? What’s your favorite age?”

Midwinter trifled with his own superstition, as a man trifles with the

loaded gun that may kill him, or with the savage animal that may maim

him for life. He mentioned the age (as he had reckoned it himself) of

the woman in the black gown and the red Paisley shawl.

“Five-and-thirty,” he said.

As the words passed his lips, his factitious spirits deserted him. He

left his seat, impenetrably deaf to all Allan’s efforts at rallying him

on his extraordinary answer, and resumed his restless pacing of the deck

in dead silence. Once more the haunting thought which had gone to and

fro with him in the hour of darkness went to and fro with him now in the

hour of daylight.

Once more the conviction possessed itself of his mind that something was

to happen to Allan or to himself before they left the wreck.

Minute by minute the light strengthened in the eastern sky; and the

shadowy places on the deck of the timber-ship revealed their barren

emptiness under the eye of day. As the breeze rose again, the sea began

to murmur wakefully in the morning light. Even the cold bubbling of the

broken water changed its cheerless note, and softened on the ear as the

mellowing flood of daylight poured warm over it from the rising sun.

Midwinter paused near the forward part of the ship, and recalled his

wandering attention to the passing time. The cheering influences of the

hour were round him, look where he might. The happy morning smile of the

summer sky, so brightly merciful to the old and weary earth, lavished

its all-embracing beauty even on the wreck. The dew that lay glittering

on the inland fields lay glittering on the deck, and the worn and rusted

rigging was gemmed as brightly as the fresh green leaves on shore.

Insensibly, as he looked round, Midwinter’s thoughts reverted to the

comrade who had shared with him the adventure of the night. He returned

to the after-part of the ship, spoke to Allan as he advanced. Receiving

no answer, he approached the recumbent figure and looked closer at it.

Left to his own resources, Allan had let the fatigues of the night take

their own way with him. His head had sunk back; his hat had fallen off;

he lay stretched at full length on the deck of the timber-ship, deeply

and peacefully asleep.

Midwinter resumed his walk; his mind lost in doubt; his own past

thoughts seeming suddenly to have grown strange to him. How darkly his

forebodings had distrusted the coming time, and how harmlessly that time

had come! The sun was mounting in the heavens, the hour of release was

drawing nearer and nearer, and of the two Armadales imprisoned in the

fatal ship, one was sleeping away the weary time, and the other was

quietly watching the growth of the new day.

The sun climbed higher; the hour wore on. With the latent distrust of

the wreck which still clung to him, Midwinter looked inquiringly on

either shore for signs of awakening human life. The land was still

lonely. The smoke wreaths that were soon to rise from cottage chimneys

had not risen yet.

After a moment’s thought he went back again to the after-part of the

vessel, to see if there might be a fisherman’s boat within hail astern

of them. Absorbed for the moment by the new idea, he passed Allan

hastily, after barely noticing that he still lay asleep. One step more

would have brought him to the taffrail, when that step was suspended by

a sound behind him, a sound like a faint groan. He turned, and looked at

the sleeper on the deck. He knelt softly, and looked closer.

“It has come!” he whispered to himself. “Not to _me_--but to _him_.”

It had come, in the bright freshness of the morning; it had come, in the

mystery and terror of a Dream. The face which Midwinter had last seen

in perfect repose was now the distorted face of a suffering man. The

perspiration stood thick on Allan’s forehead, and matted his curling

hair. His partially opened eyes showed nothing but the white of the

eyeball gleaming blindly. His outstretched hands scratched and struggled

on the deck. From moment to moment he moaned and muttered helplessly;

but the words that escaped him were lost in the grinding and gnashing of

his teeth. There he lay--so near in the body to the friend who bent

over him; so far away in the spirit, that the two might have been in

different worlds--there he lay, with the morning sunshine on his face,

in the torture of his dream.

One question, and one only, rose in the mind of the man who was looking

at him. What had the fatality which had imprisoned him in the wreck

decreed that he should see?

Had the treachery of Sleep opened the gates of the grave to that one of

the two Armadales whom the other had kept in ignorance of the truth? Was

the murder of the father revealing itself to the son--there, on the very

spot where the crime had been committed--in the vision of a dream?

With that question overshadowing all else in his mind, the son of the

homicide knelt on the deck, and looked at the son of the man whom his

father’s hand had slain.

The conflict between the sleeping body and the waking mind was

strengthening every moment. The dreamer’s helpless groaning for

deliverance grew louder; his hands raised themselves, and clutched at

the empty air. Struggling with the all-mastering dread that still held

him, Midwinter laid his hand gently on Allan’s forehead. Light as the

touch was, there were mysterious sympathies in the dreaming man that

answered it. His groaning ceased, and his hands dropped slowly. There

was an instant of suspense and Midwinter looked closer. His breath just

fluttered over the sleeper’s face. Before the next breath had risen to

his lips, Allan suddenly sprang up on his knees--sprang up, as if the

call of a trumpet had rung on his ear, awake in an instant.

“You have been dreaming,” said Midwinter, as the other looked at him

wildly, in the first bewilderment of waking.

Allan’s eyes began to wander about the wreck, at first vacantly,

then with a look of angry surprise. “Are we here still?” he said, as

Midwinter helped him to his feet. “Whatever else I do on board this

infernal ship,” he added, after a moment, “I won’t go to sleep again!”

As he said those words, his friend’s eyes searched his face in silent

inquiry. They took a turn together on the deck.

“Tell me your dream,” said Midwinter, with a strange tone of suspicion

in his voice, and a strange appearance of abruptness in his manner.

“I can’t tell it yet,” returned Allan. “Wait a little till I’m my own

man again.”

They took another turn on the deck. Midwinter stopped, and spoke once

more.

“Look at me for a moment, Allan,” he said.

There was something of the trouble left by the dream, and something

of natural surprise at the strange request just addressed to him, in

Allan’s face, as he turned it full on the speaker; but no shadow of

ill-will, no lurking lines of distrust anywhere. Midwinter turned aside

quickly, and hid, as he best might, an irrepressible outburst of relief.

“Do I look a little upset?” asked Allan, taking his arm, and leading him

on again. “Don’t make yourself nervous about me if I do. My head feels

wild and giddy, but I shall soon get over it.”

For the next few minutes they walked backward and forward in silence,

the one bent on dismissing the terror of the dream from his thoughts,

the other bent on discovering what the terror of the dream might be.

Relieved of the dread that had oppressed it, the superstitious nature

of Midwinter had leaped to its next conclusion at a bound. What if the

sleeper had been visited by another revelation than the revelation of

the Past? What if the dream had opened those unturned pages in the book

of the Future which told the story of his life to come? The bare

doubt that it might be so strengthened tenfold Midwinter’s longing to

penetrate the mystery which Allan’s silence still kept a secret from

him.

“Is your head more composed?” he asked. “Can you tell me your dream

now?”

While he put the question, a last memorable moment in the Adventure of

the Wreck was at hand.

They had reached the stern, and were just turning again when Midwinter

spoke. As Allan opened his lips to answer, he looked out mechanically to

sea. Instead of replying, he suddenly ran to the taffrail, and waved his

hat over his head, with a shout of exultation.

Midwinter joined him, and saw a large six-oared boat pulling straight

for the channel of the Sound. A figure, which they both thought they

recognized, rose eagerly in the stern-sheets and returned the waving

of Allan’s hat. The boat came nearer, the steersman called to them

cheerfully, and they recognized the doctor’s voice.

“Thank God you’re both above water!” said Mr. Hawbury, as they met him

on the deck of the timber-ship. “Of all the winds of heaven, which wind

blew you here?”

He looked at Midwinter as he made the inquiry, but it was Allan who

told him the story of the night, and Allan who asked the doctor for

information in return. The one absorbing interest in Midwinter’s

mind--the interest of penetrating the mystery of the dream--kept him

silent throughout. Heedless of all that was said or done about him, he

watched Allan, and followed Allan, like a dog, until the time came for

getting down into the boat. Mr. Hawbury’s professional eye rested on him

curiously, noting his varying color, and the incessant restlessness

of his hands. “I wouldn’t change nervous systems with that man for the

largest fortune that could be offered me,” thought the doctor as he took

the boat’s tiller, and gave the oarsmen their order to push off from the

wreck.

Having reserved all explanations on his side until they were on their

way back to Port St. Mary, Mr. Hawbury next addressed himself to the

gratification of Allan’s curiosity. The circumstances which had brought

him to the rescue of his two guests of the previous evening were simple

enough. The lost boat had been met with at sea by some fishermen of Port

Erin, on the western side of the island, who at once recognized it as

the doctor’s property, and at once sent a messenger to make inquiry,

at the doctor’s house. The man’s statement of what had happened had

naturally alarmed Mr. Hawbury for the safety of Allan and his friend. He

had immediately secured assistance, and, guided by the boatman’s advice,

had made first for the most dangerous place on the coast--the only

place, in that calm weather, in which an accident could have happened to

a boat sailed by experienced men--the channel of the Sound. After

thus accounting for his welcome appearance on the scene, the doctor

hospitably insisted that his guests of the evening should be his guests

of the morning as well. It would still be too early when they got back

for the people at the hotel to receive them, and they would find bed and

breakfast at Mr. Hawbury’s house.

At the first pause in the conversation between Allan and the doctor,

Midwinter, who had neither joined in the talk nor listened to the talk,

touched his friend on the arm. “Are you better?” he asked, in a whisper.

“Shall you soon be composed enough to tell me what I want to know?”

Allan’s eyebrows contracted impatiently; the subject of the dream, and

Midwinter’s obstinacy in returning to it, seemed to be alike distasteful

to him. He hardly answered with his usual good humor. “I suppose I shall

have no peace till I tell you,” he said, “so I may as well get it over

at once.”

“No!” returned Midwinter, with a look at the doctor and his oarsmen.

“Not where other people can hear it--not till you and I are alone.”

“If you wish to see the last, gentlemen, of your quarters for the

night,” interposed the doctor, “now is your time! The coast will shut

the vessel out in a minute more.”

In silence on the one side and on the other, the two Armadales looked

their last at the fatal ship. Lonely and lost they had found the wreck

in the mystery of the summer night; lonely and lost they left the wreck

in the radiant beauty of the summer morning.

An hour later the doctor had seen his guests established in their

bedrooms, and had left them to take their rest until the breakfast hour

arrived.

Almost as soon as his back was turned, the doors of both rooms opened

softly, and Allan and Midwinter met in the passage.

“Can you sleep after what has happened?” asked Allan.

Midwinter shook his head. “You were coming to my room, were you not?” he

said. “What for?”

“To ask you to keep me company. What were you coming to _my_ room for?”

“To ask you to tell me your dream.”

“Damn the dream! I want to forget all about it.”

“And _I_ want to know all about it.”

Both paused; both refrained instinctively from saying more. For the

first time since the beginning of their friendship they were on the

verge of a disagreement, and that on the subject of the dream. Allan’s

good temper just stopped them on the brink.

“You are the most obstinate fellow alive,” he said; “but if you will

know all about it, you must know all about it, I suppose. Come into my

room, and I’ll tell you.”

He led the way, and Midwinter followed. The door closed and shut them in

together.

V. THE SHADOW OF THE FUTURE.

When Mr. Hawbury joined his guests in the breakfast-room, the strange

contrast of character between them which he had noticed already was

impressed on his mind more strongly than ever. One of them sat at the

well-spread table, hungry and happy, ranging from dish to dish, and

declaring that he had never made such a breakfast in his life. The other

sat apart at the window; his cup thanklessly deserted before it was

empty, his meat left ungraciously half-eaten on his plate. The

doctor’s morning greeting to the two accurately expressed the differing

impressions which they had produced on his mind.

He clapped Allan on the shoulder, and saluted him with a joke. He

bowed constrainedly to Midwinter, and said, “I am afraid you have not

recovered the fatigues of the night.”

“It’s not the night, doctor, that has damped his spirits,” said Allan.

“It’s something I have been telling him. It is not my fault, mind. If

I had only known beforehand that he believed in dreams, I wouldn’t have

opened my lips.”

“Dreams?” repeated the doctor, looking at Midwinter directly, and

addressing him under a mistaken impression of the meaning of Allan’s

words. “With your constitution, you ought to be well used to dreaming by

this time.”

“This way, doctor; you have taken the wrong turning!” cried Allan.

“I’m the dreamer, not he. Don’t look astonished; it wasn’t in this

comfortable house; it was on board that confounded timber-ship. The fact

is, I fell asleep just before you took us off the wreck; and it’s not to

be denied that I had a very ugly dream. Well, when we got back here--”

“Why do you trouble Mr. Hawbury about a matter that cannot possibly

interest him?” asked Midwinter, speaking for the first time, and

speaking very impatiently.

“I beg your pardon,” returned the doctor, rather sharply; “so far as I

have heard, the matter does interest me.”

“That’s right, doctor!” said Allan. “Be interested, I beg and pray; I

want you to clear his head of the nonsense he has got in it now. What

do you think? He will have it that my dream is a warning to me to avoid

certain people; and he actually persists in saying that one of those

people is--himself! Did you ever hear the like of it? I took great

pains; I explained the whole thing to him. I said, warning be hanged;

it’s all indigestion! You don’t know what I ate and drank at the

doctor’s supper-table; I do. Do you think he would listen to me? Not he.

You try him next; you’re a professional man, and he must listen to you.

Be a good fellow, doctor, and give me a certificate of indigestion; I’ll

show you my tongue with pleasure.”

“The sight of your face is quite enough,” said Mr. Hawbury. “I certify,

on the spot, that you never had such a thing as an indigestion in your

life. Let’s hear about the dream, and see what we can make of it, if you

have no objection, that is to say.”

Allan pointed at Midwinter with his fork.

“Apply to my friend, there,” he said; “he has got a much better account

of it than I can give you. If you’ll believe me, he took it all down in

writing from my own lips; and he made me sign it at the end, as if it

was my ‘last dying speech and confession’ before I went to the gallows.

Out with it, old boy--I saw you put it in your pocket-book--out with

it!”

“Are you really in earnest?” asked Midwinter, producing his pocketbook

with a reluctance which was almost offensive under the circumstances,

for it implied distrust of the doctor in the doctor’s own house.

Mr. Hawbury’s color rose. “Pray don’t show it to me, if you feel the

least unwillingness,” he said, with the elaborate politeness of an

offended man.

“Stuff and nonsense!” cried Allan. “Throw it over here!”

Instead of complying with that characteristic request, Midwinter took

the paper from the pocket-book, and, leaving his place, approached Mr.

Hawbury. “I beg your pardon,” he said, as he offered the doctor the

manuscript with his own hand. His eyes dropped to the ground, and his

face darkened, while he made the apology. “A secret, sullen fellow,”

thought the doctor, thanking him with formal civility; “his friend is

worth ten thousand of him.” Midwinter went back to the window, and sat

down again in silence, with the old impenetrable resignation which had

once puzzled Mr. Brock.

“Read that, doctor,” said Allan, as Mr. Hawbury opened the written

paper. “It’s not told in my roundabout way; but there’s nothing added

to it, and nothing taken away. It’s exactly what I dreamed, and exactly

what I should have written myself, if I had thought the thing worth

putting down on paper, and if I had had the knack of writing--which,”

concluded Allan, composedly stirring his coffee, “I haven’t, except it’s

letters; and I rattle _them_ off in no time.”

Mr. Hawbury spread the manuscript before him on the breakfast-table, and

read these lines:

“ALLAN ARMADALE’S DREAM.

“Early on the morning of June the first, eighteen hundred and fifty-one,

I found myself (through circumstances which it is not important to

mention in this place) left alone with a friend of mine--a young man

about my own age--on board the French timber-ship named _La Grace de

Dieu_, which ship then lay wrecked in the channel of the Sound between

the main-land of the Isle of Man and the islet called the Calf. Having

not been in bed the previous night, and feeling overcome by fatigue, I

fell asleep on the deck of the vessel. I was in my usual good health at

the time, and the morning was far enough advanced for the sun to have

risen. Under these circumstances, and at that period of the day, I

passed from sleeping to dreaming. As clearly as I can recollect it,

after the lapse of a few hours, this was the succession of events

presented to me by the dream:

“1. The first event of which I was conscious was the appearance of my

father. He took me silently by the hand; and we found ourselves in the

cabin of a ship.

“2. Water rose slowly over us in the cabin; and I and my father sank

through the water together.

“3. An interval of oblivion followed; and then the sense came to me of

being left alone in the darkness.

“4. I waited.

“5. The darkness opened, and showed me the vision--as in a picture--of a

broad, lonely pool, surrounded by open ground. Above the farther margin

of the pool I saw the cloudless western sky, red with the light of

sunset.

“6. On the near margin of the pool there stood the Shadow of a Woman.

“7. It was the shadow only. No indication was visible to me by which I

could identify it, or compare it with any living creature. The long robe

showed me that it was the shadow of a woman, and showed me nothing more.

“8. The darkness closed again--remained with me for an interval--and

opened for the second time.

“9. I found myself in a room, standing before a long window. The

only object of furniture or of ornament that I saw (or that I can now

remember having seen) was a little statue placed near me. The window

opened on a lawn and flower-garden; and the rain was pattering heavily

against the glass.

“10. I was not alone in the room. Standing opposite to me at the window

was the Shadow of a Man.

“11. I saw no more of it; I knew no more of it than I saw and knew of

the shadow of the woman. But the shadow of the man moved. It stretched

out its arm toward the statue; and the statue fell in fragments on the

floor.

“12. With a confused sensation in me, which was partly anger and partly

distress, I stooped to look at the fragments. When I rose again, the

Shadow had vanished, and I saw no more.

“13. The darkness opened for the third time, and showed me the Shadow of

the Woman and the Shadow of the Man together.

“14. No surrounding scene (or none that I can now call to mind) was

visible to me.

“15. The Man-Shadow was the nearest; the Woman-Shadow stood back.

From where she stood, there came a sound as of the pouring of a liquid

softly. I saw her touch the shadow of the man with one hand, and with

the other give him a glass. He took the glass, and gave it to me. In

the moment when I put it to my lips, a deadly faintness mastered me from

head to foot. When I came to my senses again, the Shadows had vanished,

and the third vision was at an end.

“16. The darkness closed over me again; and the interval of oblivion

followed.

“17. I was conscious of nothing more, till I felt the morning sun shine

on my face, and heard my friend tell me that I had awakened from a

dream....”

After reading the narrative attentively to the last line (under

which appeared Allan’s signature), the doctor looked across the

breakfast-table at Midwinter, and tapped his fingers on the manuscript

with a satirical smile.

“Many men, many opinions,” he said. “I don’t agree with either of you

about this dream. Your theory,” he added, looking at Allan, with a

smile, “we have disposed of already: the supper that _you_ can’t digest

is a supper which has yet to be discovered. My theory we will come to

presently; your friend’s theory claims attention first.” He turned again

to Midwinter, with his anticipated triumph over a man whom he disliked

a little too plainly visible in his face and manner. “If I understand

rightly,” he went on, “you believe that this dream is a warning!

supernaturally addressed to Mr. Armadale, of dangerous events that are

threatening him, and of dangerous people connected with those events

whom he would do wisely to avoid. May I inquire whether you have arrived

at this conclusion as an habitual believer in dreams, or as having

reasons of your own for attaching especial importance to this one dream

in particular?”

“You have stated what my conviction is quite accurately,” returned

Midwinter, chafing under the doctor’s looks and tones. “Excuse me if

I ask you to be satisfied with that admission, and to let me keep my

reasons to myself.”

“That’s exactly what he said to me,” interposed Allan. “I don’t believe

he has got any reasons at all.”

“Gently! gently!” said Mr. Hawbury. “We can discuss the subject without

intruding ourselves into anybody’s secrets. Let us come to my own method

of dealing with the dream next. Mr. Midwinter will probably not be

surprised to hear that I look at this matter from an essentially

practical point of view.”

“I shall not be at all surprised,” retorted Midwinter. “The view of a

medical man, when he has a problem in humanity to solve, seldom ranges

beyond the point of his dissecting-knife.”

The doctor was a little nettled on his side. “Our limits are not quite

so narrow as that,” he said; “but I willingly grant you that there

are some articles of your faith in which we doctors don’t believe.

For example, we don’t believe that a reasonable man is justified in

attaching a supernatural interpretation to any phenomenon which comes

within the range of his senses, until he has certainly ascertained that

there is no such thing as a natural explanation of it to be found in the

first instance.”

“Come; that’s fair enough, I’m sure,” exclaimed Allan. “He hit you hard

with the ‘dissecting-knife,’ doctor; and now you have hit him back again

with your ‘natural explanation.’ Let’s have it.”

“By all means,” said Mr. Hawbury. “Here it is. There is nothing at all

extraordinary in my theory of dreams: it is the theory accepted by

the great mass of my profession. A dream is the reproduction, in the

sleeping state of the brain, of images and impressions produced on it

in the waking state; and this reproduction is more or less involved,

imperfect, or contradictory, as the action of certain faculties in the

dreamer is controlled more or less completely by the influence of sleep.

Without inquiring further into this latter part of the subject--a very

curious and interesting part of it--let us take the theory, roughly and

generally, as I have just stated it, and apply it at once to the dream

now under consideration.” He took up the written paper from the table,

and dropped the formal tone (as of a lecturer addressing an audience)

into which he had insensibly fallen. “I see one event already in this

dream,” he resumed, “which I know to be the reproduction of a waking

impression produced on Mr. Armadale in my own presence. If he will only

help me by exerting his memory, I don’t despair of tracing back the

whole succession of events set down here to something that he has said

or thought, or seen or done, in the four-and-twenty hours, or less,

which preceded his falling asleep on the deck of the timber-ship.”

“I’ll exert my memory with the greatest pleasure,” said Allan. “Where

shall we start from?”

“Start by telling me what you did yesterday, before I met you and your

friend on the road to this place,” replied Mr. Hawbury. “We will say,

you got up and had your breakfast. What next?”

“We took a carriage next,” said Allan, “and drove from Castletown

to Douglas to see my old friend, Mr. Brock, off by the steamer to

Liverpool. We came back to Castletown and separated at the hotel door.

Midwinter went into the house, and I went on to my yacht in the harbor.

By-the-bye, doctor, remember you have promised to go cruising with us

before we leave the Isle of Man.”

“Many thanks; but suppose we keep to the matter in hand. What next?”

Allan hesitated. In both senses of the word his mind was at sea already.

“What did you do on board the yacht?”

“Oh, I know! I put the cabin to rights--thoroughly to rights. I give

you my word of honor, I turned every blessed thing topsy-turvy. And my

friend there came off in a shore-boat and helped me. Talking of boats, I

have never asked you yet whether your boat came to any harm last night.

If there’s any damage done, I insist on being allowed to repair it.”

The doctor abandoned all further attempts at the cultivation of Allan’s

memory in despair.

“I doubt if we shall be able to reach our object conveniently in this

way,” he said. “It will be better to take the events of the dream in

their regular order, and to ask the questions that naturally suggest

themselves as we go on. Here are the first two events to begin with. You

dream that your father appears to you--that you and he find yourselves

in the cabin of a ship--that the water rises over you, and that you sink

in it together. Were you down in the cabin of the wreck, may I ask?”

“I couldn’t be down there,” replied Allan, “as the cabin was full of

water. I looked in and saw it, and shut the door again.”

“Very good,” said Mr. Hawbury. “Here are the waking impressions clear

enough, so far. You have had the cabin in your mind; and you have had

the water in your mind; and the sound of the channel current (as I well

know without asking) was the last sound in your ears when you went to

sleep. The idea of drowning comes too naturally out of such impressions

as these to need dwelling on. Is there anything else before we go on?

Yes; there is one more circumstance left to account for.”

“The most important circumstance of all,” remarked Midwinter, joining in

the conversation, without stirring from his place at the window.

“You mean the appearance of Mr. Armadale’s father? I was just coming

to that,” answered Mr. Hawbury. “Is your father alive?” he added,

addressing himself to Allan once more.

“My father died before I was born.”

The doctor started. “This complicates it a little,” he said. “How did

you know that the figure appearing to you in the dream was the figure of

your father?”

Allan hesitated again. Midwinter drew his chair a little away from the

window, and looked at the doctor attentively for the first time.

“Was your father in your thoughts before you went to sleep?” pursued

Mr. Hawbury. “Was there any description of him--any portrait of him at

home--in your mind?”

“Of course there was!” cried Allan, suddenly seizing the lost

recollection. “Midwinter! you remember the miniature you found on the

floor of the cabin when we were putting the yacht to rights? You said I

didn’t seem to value it; and I told you I did, because it was a portrait

of my father--”

“And was the face in the dream like the face in the miniature?” asked

Mr. Hawbury.

“Exactly like! I say, doctor, this is beginning to get interesting!”

“What do you say now?” asked Mr. Hawbury, turning toward the window

again.

Midwinter hurriedly left his chair, and placed himself at the table with

Allan. Just as he had once already taken refuge from the tyranny of his

own superstition in the comfortable common sense of Mr. Brock, so, with

the same headlong eagerness, with the same straightforward sincerity

of purpose, he now took refuge in the doctor’s theory of dreams. “I say

what my friend says,” he answered, flushing with a sudden enthusiasm;

“this is beginning to get interesting. Go on; pray go on.”

The doctor looked at his strange guest more indulgently than he had

looked yet. “You are the only mystic I have met with,” he said, “who is

willing to give fair evidence fair play. I don’t despair of converting

you before our inquiry comes to an end. Let us get on to the next set

of events,” he resumed, after referring for a moment to the manuscript.

“The interval of oblivion which is described as succeeding the first

of the appearances in the dream may be easily disposed of. It means,

in plain English, the momentary cessation of the brain’s intellectual

action, while a deeper wave of sleep flows over it, just as the sense

of being alone in the darkness, which follows, indicates the renewal of

that action, previous to the reproduction of another set of impressions.

Let us see what they are. A lonely pool, surrounded by an open country;

a sunset sky on the further side of the pool; and the shadow of a woman

on the near side. Very good; now for it, Mr. Armadale! How did that pool

get into your head? The open country you saw on your way from Castletown

to this place. But we have no pools or lakes hereabouts; and you can have

seen none recently elsewhere, for you came here after a cruise at sea.

Must we fall back on a picture, or a book, or a conversation with your

friend?”

Allan looked at Midwinter. “I don’t remember talking about pools or

lakes,” he said. “Do you?”

Instead of answering the question, Midwinter suddenly appealed to the

doctor.

“Have you got the last number of the Manx newspaper?” he asked.

The doctor produced it from the sideboard. Midwinter turned to the

page containing those extracts from the recently published “Travels in

Australia,” which had roused Allan’s, interest on the previous evening,

and the reading of which had ended by sending his friend to sleep.

There--in the passage describing the sufferings of the travelers from

thirst, and the subsequent discovery which saved their lives--there,

appearing at the climax of the narrative, was the broad pool of water

which had figured in Allan’s dream!

“Don’t put away the paper,” said the doctor, when Midwinter had shown it

to him, with the necessary explanation. “Before we are at the end of the

inquiry, it is quite possible we may want that extract again. We have

got at the pool. How about the sunset? Nothing of that sort is referred

to in the newspaper extract. Search your memory again, Mr. Armadale; we

want your waking impression of a sunset, if you please.”

Once more, Allan was at a loss for an answer; and, once more,

Midwinter’s ready memory helped him through the difficulty.

“I think I can trace our way back to this impression, as I traced our

way back to the other,” he said, addressing the doctor. “After we got

here yesterday afternoon, my friend and I took a long walk over the

hills--”

“That’s it!” interposed Allan. “I remember. The sun was setting as we

came back to the hotel for supper, and it was such a splendid red sky,

we both stopped to look at it. And then we talked about Mr. Brock, and

wondered how far he had got on his journey home. My memory may be a slow

one at starting, doctor; but when it’s once set going, stop it if you

can! I haven’t half done yet.”

“Wait one minute, in mercy to Mr. Midwinter’s memory and mine,” said the

doctor. “We have traced back to your waking impressions the vision of

the open country, the pool, and the sunset. But the Shadow of the Woman

has not been accounted for yet. Can you find us the original of this

mysterious figure in the dream landscape?”

Allan relapsed into his former perplexity, and Midwinter waited for what

was to come, with his eyes fixed in breathless interest on the doctor’s

face. For the first time there was unbroken silence in the room. Mr.

Hawbury looked interrogatively from Allan to Allan’s friend. Neither of

them answered him. Between the shadow and the shadow’s substance there

was a great gulf of mystery, impenetrable alike to all three of them.

“Patience,” said the doctor, composedly. “Let us leave the figure by the

pool for the present and try if we can’t pick her up again as we go on.

Allow me to observe, Mr. Midwinter, that it is not very easy to identify

a shadow; but we won’t despair. This impalpable lady of the lake may

take some consistency when we next meet with her.”

Midwinter made no reply. From that moment his interest in the inquiry

began to flag.

“What is the next scene in the dream?” pursued Mr. Hawbury, referring

to the manuscript. “Mr. Armadale finds himself in a room. He is standing

before a long window opening on a lawn and flower-garden, and the rain

is pattering against the glass. The only thing he sees in the room is

a little statue; and the only company he has is the Shadow of a Man

standing opposite to him. The Shadow stretches out its arm, and the

statue falls in fragments on the floor; and the dreamer, in anger and

distress at the catastrophe (observe, gentlemen, that here the sleeper’s

reasoning faculty wakes up a little, and the dream passes rationally,

for a moment, from cause to effect), stoops to look at the broken

pieces. When he looks up again, the scene has vanished. That is to say,

in the ebb and flow of sleep, it is the turn of the flow now, and the

brain rests a little. What’s the matter, Mr. Armadale? Has that restive

memory of yours run away with you again?”

“Yes,” said Allan. “I’m off at full gallop. I’ve run the broken statue

to earth; it’s nothing more nor less than a china shepherdess I knocked

off the mantel-piece in the hotel coffee-room, when I rang the bell

for supper last night. I say, how well we get on; don’t we? It’s like

guessing a riddle. Now, then, Midwinter! your turn next.”

“No!” said the doctor. “My turn, if you please. I claim the long window,

the garden, and the lawn, as my property. You will find the long window,

Mr. Armadale, in the next room. If you look out, you’ll see the garden

and lawn in front of it; and, if you’ll exert that wonderful memory of

yours, you will recollect that you were good enough to take special and

complimentary notice of my smart French window and my neat garden, when

I drove you and your friend to Port St. Mary yesterday.”

“Quite right,” rejoined Allan; “so I did. But what about the rain that

fell in the dream? I haven’t seen a drop of rain for the last week.”

Mr. Hawbury hesitated. The Manx newspaper which had been left on the

table caught his eye. “If we can think of nothing else,” he said, “let

us try if we can’t find the idea of the rain where we found the idea of

the pool.” He looked through the extract carefully. “I have got it!”

he exclaimed. “Here is rain described as having fallen on these thirsty

Australian travelers, before they discovered the pool. Behold the

shower, Mr. Armadale, which got into your mind when you read the extract

to your friend last night! And behold the dream, Mr. Midwinter, mixing

up separate waking impressions just as usual!”

“Can you find the waking impression which accounts for the human figure

at the window?” asked Midwinter; “or are we to pass over the Shadow of

the Man as we have passed over the Shadow of the Woman already?”

He put the question with scrupulous courtesy of manner, but with a tone

of sarcasm in his voice which caught the doctor’s ear, and set up the

doctor’s controversial bristles on the instant.

“When you are picking up shells on the beach, Mr. Midwinter, you usually

begin with the shells that lie nearest at hand,” he rejoined. “We are

picking up facts now; and those that are easiest to get at are the facts

we will take first. Let the Shadow of the Man and the Shadow of the

Woman pair off together for the present; we won’t lose sight of them, I

promise you. All in good time, my dear sir; all in good time!”

He, too, was polite, and he, too, was sarcastic. The short truce between

the opponents was at an end already. Midwinter returned significantly to

his former place by the window. The doctor instantly turned his back

on the window more significantly still. Allan, who never quarreled

with anybody’s opinion, and never looked below the surface of anybody’s

conduct, drummed cheerfully on the table with the handle of his knife.

“Go on, doctor!” he called out; “my wonderful memory is as fresh as

ever.”

“Is it?” said Mr. Hawbury, referring again to the narrative of the

dream. “Do you remember what happened when you and I were gossiping with

the landlady at the bar of the hotel last night?”

“Of course I do! You were kind enough to hand me a glass of

brandy-and-water, which the landlady had just mixed for your own

drinking. And I was obliged to refuse it because, as I told you, the

taste of brandy always turns me sick and faint, mix it how you please.”

“Exactly so,” returned the doctor. “And here is the incident reproduced

in the dream. You see the man’s shadow and the woman’s shadow together

this time. You hear the pouring out of liquid (brandy from the hotel

bottle, and water from the hotel jug); the glass is handed by the

woman-shadow (the landlady) to the man-shadow (myself); the man-shadow

hands it to you (exactly what I did); and the faintness (which you

had previously described to me) follows in due course. I am shocked

to identify these mysterious appearances, Mr. Midwinter, with such

miserably unromantic originals as a woman who keeps a hotel, and a man

who physics a country district. But your friend himself will tell you

that the glass of brandy-and-water was prepared by the landlady, and

that it reached him by passing from her hand to mine. We have picked

up the shadows, exactly as I anticipated; and we have only to account

now--which may be done in two words--for the manner of their appearance

in the dream. After having tried to introduce the waking impression of

the doctor and the landlady separately, in connection with the wrong set

of circumstances, the dreaming mind comes right at the third trial, and

introduces the doctor and the landlady together, in connection with the

right set of circumstances. There it is in a nutshell!--Permit me to

hand you back the manuscript, with my best thanks for your very complete

and striking confirmation of the rational theory of dreams.” Saying

those words, Mr. Hawbury returned the written paper to Midwinter, with

the pitiless politeness of a conquering man.

“Wonderful! not a point missed anywhere from beginning to end! By

Jupiter!” cried Allan, with the ready reverence of intense ignorance.

“What a thing science is!”

“Not a point missed, as you say,” remarked the doctor, complacently.

“And yet I doubt if we have succeeded in convincing your friend.”

“You have _not_ convinced me,” said Midwinter. “But I don’t presume on

that account to say that you are wrong.”

He spoke quietly, almost sadly. The terrible conviction of the

supernatural origin of the dream, from which he had tried to escape, had

possessed itself of him again. All his interest in the argument was at

an end; all his sensitiveness to its irritating influences was gone. In

the case of any other man, Mr. Hawbury would have been mollified by

such a concession as his adversary had now made to him; but he disliked

Midwinter too cordially to leave him in the peaceable enjoyment of an

opinion of his own.

“Do you admit,” asked the doctor, more pugnaciously than ever, “that I

have traced back every event of the dream to a waking impression which

preceded it in Mr. Armadale’s mind?”

“I have no wish to deny that you have done so,” said Midwinter,

resignedly.

“Have I identified the shadows with their living originals?”

“You have identified them to your own satisfaction, and to my friend’s

satisfaction. Not to mine.”

“Not to yours? Can _you_ identify them?”

“No. I can only wait till the living originals stand revealed in the

future.”

“Spoken like an oracle, Mr. Midwinter! Have you any idea at present of

who those living originals may be?”

“I have. I believe that coming events will identify the Shadow of the

Woman with a person whom my friend has not met with yet; and the Shadow

of the Man with myself.”

Allan attempted to speak. The doctor stopped him. “Let us clearly

understand this,” he said to Midwinter. “Leaving your own case out

of the question for the moment, may I ask how a shadow, which has no

distinguishing mark about it, is to be identified with a living woman

whom your friend doesn’t know?”

Midwinter’s color rose a little. He began to feel the lash of the

doctor’s logic.

“The landscape picture of the dream has its distinguishing marks,” he

replied; “and in that landscape the living woman will appear when the

living woman is first seen.”

“The same thing will happen, I suppose,” pursued the doctor, “with the

man-shadow which you persist in identifying with yourself. You will be

associated in the future with a statue broken in your friend’s presence,

with a long window looking out on a garden, and with a shower of rain

pattering against the glass? Do you say that?”

“I say that.”

“And so again, I presume, with the next vision? You and the mysterious

woman will be brought together in some place now unknown, and will

present to Mr. Armadale some liquid yet unnamed, which will turn him

faint?--Do you seriously tell me you believe this?”

“I seriously tell you I believe it.”

“And, according to your view, these fulfillments of the dream will

mark the progress of certain coming events, in which Mr. Armadale’s

happiness, or Mr. Armadale’s safety, will be dangerously involved?”

“That is my firm conviction.”

The doctor rose, laid aside his moral dissecting-knife, considered for a

moment, and took it up again.

“One last question,” he said. “Have you any reason to give for going out

of your way to adopt such a mystical view as this, when an unanswerably

rational explanation of the dream lies straight before you?”

“No reason,” replied Midwinter, “that I can give, either to you or to my

friend.”

The doctor looked at his watch with the air of a man who is suddenly

reminded that he has been wasting his time.

“We have no common ground to start from,” he said; “and if we talk till

doomsday, we should not agree. Excuse my leaving you rather abruptly.

It is later than I thought; and my morning’s batch of sick people

are waiting for me in the surgery. I have convinced _your_ mind, Mr.

Armadale, at any rate; so the time we have given to this discussion has

not been altogether lost. Pray stop here, and smoke your cigar. I shall

be at your service again in less than an hour.” He nodded cordially to

Allan, bowed formally to Midwinter, and quitted the room.

As soon as the doctor’s back was turned, Allan left his place at the

table, and appealed to his friend, with that irresistible heartiness of

manner which had always found its way to Midwinter’s sympathies, from

the first day when they met at the Somersetshire inn.

“Now the sparring-match between you and the doctor is over,” said Allan,

“I have got two words to say on my side. Will you do something for my

sake which you won’t do for your own?”

Midwinter’s face brightened instantly. “I will do anything you ask me,”

he said.

“Very well. Will you let the subject of the dream drop out of our talk

altogether from this time forth?”

“Yes, if you wish it.”

“Will you go a step further? Will you leave off thinking about the

dream?”

“It’s hard to leave off thinking about it, Allan. But I will try.”

“That’s a good fellow! Now give me that trumpery bit of paper, and let’s

tear it up, and have done with it.”

He tried to snatch the manuscript out of his friend’s hand; but

Midwinter was too quick for him, and kept it beyond his reach.

“Come! come!” pleaded Allan. “I’ve set my heart on lighting my cigar

with it.”

Midwinter hesitated painfully. It was hard to resist Allan; but he did

resist him. “I’ll wait a little,” he said, “before you light your cigar

with it.”

“How long? Till to-morrow?”

“Longer.”

“Till we leave the Isle of Man?”

“Longer.”

“Hang it--give me a plain answer to a plain question! How long _will_

you wait?”

Midwinter carefully restored the paper to its place in his pocketbook.

“I’ll wait,” he said, “till we get to Thorpe Ambrose.”

THE END OF THE FIRST BOOK.

*****

BOOK THE SECOND

I. LURKING MISCHIEF.

1. _From Ozias Midwinter to Mr. Brock_.

“Thorpe Ambrose, June 15, 1851.

“DEAR MR. BROCK--Only an hour since we reached this house, just as the

servants were locking up for the night. Allan has gone to bed, worn out

by our long day’s journey, and has left me in the room they call the

library, to tell you the story of our journey to Norfolk. Being better

seasoned than he is to fatigues of all kinds, my eyes are quite wakeful

enough for writing a letter, though the clock on the chimney-piece

points to midnight, and we have been traveling since ten in the morning.

“The last news you had of us was news sent by Allan from the Isle of

Man. If I am not mistaken, he wrote to tell you of the night we passed

on board the wrecked ship. Forgive me, dear Mr. Brock, if I say nothing

on that subject until time has helped me to think of it with a quieter

mind. The hard fight against myself must all be fought over again; but I

will win it yet, please God; I will, indeed.

“There is no need to trouble you with any account of our journeyings

about the northern and western districts of the island, or of the short

cruises we took when the repairs of the yacht were at last complete.

It will be better if I get on at once to the morning of yesterday, the

fourteenth. We had come in with the night-tide to Douglas Harbor, and,

as soon as the post-office was open; Allan, by my advice, sent on shore

for letters. The messenger returned with one letter only, and the

writer of it proved to be the former mistress of Thorpe Ambrose--Mrs.

Blanchard.

“You ought to be informed, I think, of the contents of this letter, for

it has seriously influenced Allan’s plans. He loses everything, sooner

or later, as you know, and he has lost the letter already. So I must

give you the substance of what Mrs. Blanchard wrote to him, as plainly

as I can.

“The first page announced the departure of the ladies from Thorpe

Ambrose. They left on the day before yesterday, the thirteenth, having,

after much hesitation, finally decided on going abroad, to visit some

old friends settled in Italy, in the neighborhood of Florence. It

appears to be quite possible that Mrs. Blanchard and her niece may

settle there, too, if they can find a suitable house and grounds to let.

They both like the Italian country and the Italian people, and they are

well enough off to please themselves. The elder lady has her jointure,

and the younger is in possession of all her father’s fortune.

“The next page of the letter was, in Allan’s opinion, far from a

pleasant page to read.

“After referring, in the most grateful terms, to the kindness which had

left her niece and herself free to leave their old home at their own

time, Mrs. Blanchard added that Allan’s considerate conduct had produced

such a strongly favorable impression among the friends and dependents of

the family that they were desirous of giving him a public reception

on his arrival among them. A preliminary meeting of the tenants on the

estate and the principal persons in the neighboring town had already

been held to discuss the arrangements, and a letter might be expected

shortly from the clergyman inquiring when it would suit Mr. Armadale’s

convenience to take possession personally and publicly of his estates in

Norfolk.

“You will now be able to guess the cause of our sudden departure from

the Isle of Man. The first and foremost idea in your old pupil’s mind,

as soon as he had read Mrs. Blanchard’s account of the proceedings at

the meeting, was the idea of escaping the public reception, and the one

certain way he could see of avoiding it was to start for Thorpe Ambrose

before the clergyman’s letter could reach him.

“I tried hard to make him think a little before he acted on his first

impulse in this matter; but he only went on packing his portmanteau in

his own impenetrably good-humored way. In ten minutes his luggage was

ready, and in five minutes more he had given the crew their directions

for taking the yacht back to Somersetshire. The steamer to Liverpool was

alongside of us in the harbor, and I had really no choice but to go on

board with him or to let him go by himself. I spare you the account of

our stormy voyage, of our detention at Liverpool, and of the trains we

missed on our journey across the country. You know that we have got here

safely, and that is enough. What the servants think of the new squire’s

sudden appearance among them, without a word of warning, is of no great

consequence. What the committee for arranging the public reception may

think of it when the news flies abroad to-morrow is, I am afraid, a more

serious matter.

“Having already mentioned the servants, I may proceed to tell you that

the latter part of Mrs. Blanchard’s letter was entirely devoted to

instructing Allan on the subject of the domestic establishment which

she has left behind her. It seems that all the servants, indoors and out

(with three exceptions), are waiting here, on the chance that Allan

will continue them in their places. Two of these exceptions are readily

accounted for: Mrs. Blanchard’s maid and Miss Blanchard’s maid go abroad

with their mistresses. The third exceptional case is the case of the

upper housemaid; and here there is a little hitch. In plain words,

the housemaid has been sent away at a moment’s notice, for what Mrs.

Blanchard rather mysteriously describes as ‘levity of conduct with a

stranger.’

“I am afraid you will laugh at me, but I must confess the truth. I have

been made so distrustful (after what happened to us in the Isle of Man)

of even the most trifling misadventures which connect themselves in any

way with Allan’s introduction to his new life and prospects, that I have

already questioned one of the men-servants here about this apparently

unimportant matter of the housemaid’s going away in disgrace.

“All I can learn is that a strange man had been noticed hanging

suspiciously about the grounds; that the housemaid was so ugly a woman

as to render it next to a certainty that he had some underhand purpose

to serve in making himself agreeable to her; and that he has not as yet

been seen again in the neighborhood since the day of her dismissal. So

much for the one servant who has been turned out at Thorpe Ambrose. I

can only hope there is no trouble for Allan brewing in that quarter. As

for the other servants who remain, Mrs. Blanchard describes them, both

men and women, as perfectly trustworthy, and they will all, no doubt,

continue to occupy their present places.

“Having now done with Mrs. Blanchard’s letter, my next duty is to beg

you, in Allan’s name and with Allan’s love, to come here and stay with

him at the earliest moment when you can leave Somersetshire. Although

I cannot presume to think that my own wishes will have any special

influence in determining you to accept this invitation, I must

nevertheless acknowledge that I have a reason of my own for earnestly

desiring to see you here. Allan has innocently caused me a new anxiety

about my future relations with him, and I sorely need your advice to

show me the right way of setting that anxiety at rest.

“The difficulty which now perplexes me relates to the steward’s place

at Thorpe Ambrose. Before to-day I only knew that Allan had hit on

some plan of his own for dealing with this matter, rather strangely

involving, among other results, the letting of the cottage which was

the old steward’s place of abode, in consequence of the new steward’s

contemplated residence in the great house. A chance word in our

conversation on the journey here led Allan into speaking out more

plainly than he had spoken yet, and I heard to my unutterable

astonishment that the person who was at the bottom of the whole

arrangement about the steward was no other than myself!

“It is needless to tell you how I felt this new instance of Allan’s

kindness. The first pleasure of hearing from his own lips that I had

deserved the strongest proof he could give of his confidence in me was

soon dashed by the pain which mixes itself with all pleasure--at least,

with all that I have ever known. Never has my past life seemed so

dreary to look back on as it seems now, when I feel how entirely it has

unfitted me to take the place of all others that I should have liked to

occupy in my friend’s service. I mustered courage to tell him that I had

none of the business knowledge and business experience which his steward

ought to possess. He generously met the objection by telling me that I

could learn; and he has promised to send to London for the person who

has already been employed for the time being in the steward’s office,

and who will, therefore, be perfectly competent to teach me.

“Do you, too, think I can learn? If you do, I will work day and night to

instruct myself. But if (as I am afraid) the steward’s duties are of

far too serious a kind to be learned off-hand by a man so young and so

inexperienced as I am, then pray hasten your journey to Thorpe Ambrose,

and exert your influence over Allan personally. Nothing less will induce

him to pass me over, and to employ a steward who is really fit to take

the place. Pray, pray act in this matter as you think best for Allan’s

interests. Whatever disappointment I may feel, _he_ shall not see it.

“Believe me, dear Mr. Brock, gratefuly yours,

“OZIAS MIDWINTER.

“P.S.--I open the envelope again to add one word more. If you have heard

or seen anything since your return to Somersetshire of the woman in

the black dress and the red shawl, I hope you will not forget, when you

write, to let me know it.

“O. M.”

2. _From Mrs. Oldershaw to Miss Gwilt_.

“Ladies’ Toilet Repository, Diana Street, Pimlico,

“Wednesday.

“MY DEAR LYDIA--To save the post, I write to you, after a long day’s

worry at my place of business, on the business letter-paper, having news

since we last met which it seems advisable to send you at the earliest

opportunity.

“To begin at the beginning. After carefully considering the thing, I

am quite sure you will do wisely with young Armadale if you hold your

tongue about Madeira and all that happened there. Your position was, no

doubt, a very strong one with his mother. You had privately helped

her in playing a trick on her own father; you had been ungratefully

dismissed, at a pitiably tender age, as soon as you had served her

purpose; and, when you came upon her suddenly, after a separation of

more than twenty years, you found her in failing health, with a grown-up

son, whom she had kept in total ignorance of the true story of her

marriage.

“Have you any such advantages as these with the young gentleman who has

survived her? If he is not a born idiot he will decline to believe your

shocking aspersions on the memory of his mother; and--seeing that you

have no proofs at this distance of time to meet him with--there is an

end of your money-grubbing in the golden Armadale diggings. Mind, I

don’t dispute that the old lady’s heavy debt of obligation, after what

you did for her in Madeira, is not paid yet; and that the son is the

next person to settle with you, now the mother has slipped through your

fingers. Only squeeze him the right way, my dear, that’s what I venture

to suggest--squeeze him the right way.

“And which is the right way? That question brings me to my news.

“Have you thought again of that other notion of yours of trying your

hand on this lucky young gentleman, with nothing but your own good

looks and your own quick wits to help you? The idea hung on my mind so

strangely after you were gone that it ended in my sending a little note

to my lawyer, to have the will under which young Armadale has got

his fortune examined at Doctor’s Commons. The result turns out to

be something infinitely more encouraging than either you or I could

possibly have hoped for. After the lawyer’s report to me, there cannot

be a moment’s doubt of what you ought to do. In two words, Lydia, take

the bull by the horns--and marry him!

“I am quite serious. He is much better worth the venture than you

suppose. Only persuade him to make you Mrs. Armadale, and you may set

all after-discoveries at flat defiance. As long as he lives, you can

make your own terms with him; and, if he dies, the will entitles you, in

spite of anything he can say or do--with children or without them--to

an income chargeable on his estate of _twelve hundred a year for life_.

There is no doubt about this; the lawyer himself has looked at the will.

Of course, Mr. Blanchard had his son and his son’s widow in his eye

when he made the provision. But, as it is not limited to any one heir by

name, and not revoked anywhere, it now holds as good with young Armadale

as it would have held under other circumstances with Mr. Blanchard’s

son. What a chance for you, after all the miseries and the dangers you

have gone through, to be mistress of Thorpe Ambrose, if he lives; to

have an income for life, if he dies! Hook him, my poor dear; hook him at

any sacrifice.

“I dare say you will make the same objection when you read this which

you made when we were talking about it the other day; I mean the

objection of your age.

“Now, my good creature, just listen to me. The question is--not whether

you were five-and-thirty last birthday; we will own the dreadful truth,

and say you were--but whether you do look, or don’t look, your real age.

My opinion on this matter ought to be, and is, one of the best opinions

in London. I have had twenty years experience among our charming sex in

making up battered old faces and wornout old figures to look like new,

and I say positively you don’t look a day over thirty, if as much.

If you will follow my advice about dressing, and use one or two of my

applications privately, I guarantee to put you back three years more.

I will forfeit all the money I shall have to advance for you in this

matter, if, when I have ground you young again in my wonderful mill,

you look more than seven-and-twenty in any man’s eyes living--except,

of course, when you wake anxious in the small hours of the morning; and

then, my dear, you will be old and ugly in the retirement of your own

room, and it won’t matter.

“‘But,’ you may say, ‘supposing all this, here I am, even with your

art to help me, looking a good six years older than he is; and that

is against me at starting.’ Is it? Just think again. Surely, your

own experience must have shown you that the commonest of all common

weaknesses, in young fellows of this Armadale’s age, is to fall in love

with women older than themselves. Who are the men who really appreciate

us in the bloom of our youth (I’m sure I have cause to speak well of the

bloom of youth; I made fifty guineas to-day by putting it on the spotted

shoulders of a woman old enough to be your mother)--who are the men, I

say, who are ready to worship us when we are mere babies of seventeen?

The gay young gentlemen in the bloom of their own youth? No! The cunning

old wretches who are on the wrong side of forty.

“And what is the moral of this, as the story-books say?

“The moral is that the chances, with such a head as you have got on

your shoulders, are all in your favor. If you feel your present forlorn

position, as I believe you do; if you know what a charming woman (in the

men’s eyes) you can still be when you please; and if all your resolution

has really come back, after that shocking outbreak of desperation on

board the steamer (natural enough, I own, under the dreadful provocation

laid on you), you will want no further persuasion from me to try this

experiment. Only to think of how things turn out! If the other young

booby had not jumped into the river after you, _this_ young booby would

never have had the estate. It really looks as if fate had determined

that you were to be Mrs. Armadale, of Thorpe Ambrose; and who can

control his fate, as the poet says?

“Send me one line to say Yes or No; and believe me your attached old

friend,

“MARIA OLDERSHAW.”

3. _From Miss Gwilt to Mrs. Oldershaw_.

Richmond, Thursday.

‘YOU OLD WRETCH--I won’t say Yes or No till I have had a long, long

look at my glass first. If you had any real regard for anybody but your

wicked old self, you would know that the bare idea of marrying again

(after what I have gone through) is an idea that makes my flesh creep.

“But there can be no harm in your sending me a little more information

while I am making up my mind. You have got twenty pounds of mine still

left out of those things you sold for me; send ten pounds here for

my expenses, in a post-office order, and use the other ten for making

private inquiries at Thorpe Ambrose. I want to know when the two

Blanchard women go away, and when young Armadale stirs up the dead ashes

in the family fire-place. Are you quite sure he will turn out as easy to

manage as you think? If he takes after his hypocrite of a mother, I can

tell you this: Judas Iscariot has come to life again.

“I am very comfortable in this lodging. There are lovely flowers in the

garden, and the birds wake me in the morning delightfully. I have hired

a reasonably good piano. The only man I care two straws about--don’t be

alarmed; he was laid in his grave many a long year ago, under the name

of BEETHOVEN--keeps me company, in my lonely hours. The landlady would

keep me company, too, if I would only let her. I hate women. The new

curate paid a visit to the other lodger yesterday, and passed me on the

lawn as he came out. My eyes have lost nothing yet, at any rate, though

I _am_ five-and-thirty; the poor man actually blushed when I looked at

him! What sort of color do you think he would have turned, if one of the

little birds in the garden had whispered in his ear, and told him the

true story of the charming Miss Gwilt?

“Good-by, Mother Oldershaw. I rather doubt whether I am yours, or

anybody’s, affectionately; but we all tell lies at the bottoms of our

letters, don’t we? If you are my attached old friend, I must, of course,

be yours affectionately.

“LYDIA GWILT.

“P.S.--Keep your odious powders and paints and washes for the spotted

shoulders of your customers; not one of them shall touch my skin, I

promise you. If you really want to be useful, try and find out some

quieting draught to keep me from grinding my teeth in my sleep. I shall

break them one of these nights; and then what will become of my beauty,

I wonder?”

4. _From Mrs. Oldershaw to Miss Gwilt_.

“Ladies’ Toilet Repository, Tuesday.

“MY DEAR LYDIA--It is a thousand pities your letter was not addressed to

Mr. Armadale; your graceful audacity would have charmed him. It doesn’t

affect me; I am so well used to audacity in my way of life, you

know. Why waste your sparkling wit, my love, on your own impenetrable

Oldershaw? It only splutters and goes out. Will you try and be serious

this next time? I have news for you from Thorpe Ambrose, which is beyond

a joke, and which must not be trifled with.

“An hour after I got your letter I set the inquiries on foot. Not

knowing what consequences they might lead to, I thought it safest to

begin in the dark. Instead of employing any of the people whom I have

at my own disposal (who know you and know me), I went to the Private

Inquiry Office in Shadyside Place, and put the matter in the inspector’s

hands, in the character of a perfect stranger, and without mentioning

you at all. This was not the cheapest way of going to work, I own; but

it was the safest way, which is of much greater consequence.

“The inspector and I understood each other in ten minutes; and the right

person for the purpose--the most harmless looking young man you ever saw

in your life--was produced immediately. He left for Thorpe Ambrose an

hour after I saw him. I arranged to call at the office on the afternoons

of Saturday, Monday, and to-day for news. There was no news till to-day;

and there I found our confidential agent just returned to town, and

waiting to favor me with a full account of his trip to Norfolk.

“First of all, let me quiet your mind about those two questions of

yours; I have got answers to both the one and the other. The Blanchard

women go away to foreign parts on the thirteenth, and young Armadale is

at this moment cruising somewhere at sea in his yacht. There is talk

at Thorpe Ambrose of giving him a public reception, and of calling a

meeting of the local grandees to settle it all. The speechifying and

fuss on these occasions generally wastes plenty of time, and the public

reception is not thought likely to meet the new squire much before the

end of the month.

“If our messenger had done no more for us than this, I think he would

have earned his money. But the harmless young man is a regular Jesuit at

a private inquiry, with this great advantage over all the Popish priests

I have ever seen, that he has not got his slyness written in his face.

“Having to get his information through the female servants in the usual

way, he addressed himself, with admirable discretion, to the ugliest

woman in the house. ‘When they are nice-looking, and can pick and

choose,’ as he neatly expressed it to me, ‘they waste a great deal

of valuable time in deciding on a sweetheart. When they are ugly,

and haven’t got the ghost of a chance of choosing, they snap at a

sweetheart, if he comes their way, like a starved dog at a bone.’ Acting

on these excellent principles, our confidential agent succeeded, after

certain unavoidable delays, in addressing himself to the upper housemaid

at Thorpe Ambrose, and took full possession of her confidence at

the first interview. Bearing his instructions carefully in mind, he

encouraged the woman to chatter, and was favored, of course, with all

the gossip of the servants’ hall. The greater part of it (as repeated

to me) was of no earthly importance. But I listened patiently, and was

rewarded by a valuable discovery at last. Here it is.

“It seems there is an ornamental cottage in the grounds at Thorpe

Ambrose. For some reason unknown, young Armadale has chosen to let it,

and a tenant has come in already. He is a poor half-pay major in the

army, named Milroy, a meek sort of man, by all accounts, with a turn

for occupying himself in mechanical pursuits, and with a domestic

incumbrance in the shape of a bedridden wife, who has not been seen by

anybody. Well, and what of all this? you will ask, with that sparkling

impatience which becomes you so well. My dear Lydia, don’t sparkle! The

man’s family affairs seriously concern us both, for, as ill luck will

have it, the man has got a daughter!

“You may imagine how I questioned our agent, and how our agent ransacked

his memory, when I stumbled, in due course, on such a discovery as

this. If Heaven is responsible for women’s chattering tongues, Heaven

be praised! From Miss Blanchard to Miss Blanchard’s maid; from Miss

Blanchard’s maid to Miss Blanchard’s aunt’s maid; from Miss Blanchard’s

aunt’s maid, to the ugly housemaid; from the ugly housemaid to the

harmless-looking young man--so the stream of gossip trickled into the

right reservoir at last, and thirsty Mother Oldershaw has drunk it all

up.

“In plain English, my dear, this is how it stands. The major’s daughter

is a minx just turned sixteen; lively and nice-looking (hateful little

wretch!), dowdy in her dress (thank Heaven!) and deficient in her

manners (thank Heaven again!). She has been brought up at home. The

governess who last had charge of her left before her father moved to

Thorpe Ambrose. Her education stands woefully in want of a finishing

touch, and the major doesn’t quite know what to do next. None of his

friends can recommend him a new governess and he doesn’t like the

notion of sending the girl to school. So matters rest at present, on

the major’s own showing; for so the major expressed himself at a morning

call which the father and daughter paid to the ladies at the great

house.

“You have now got my promised news, and you will have little difficulty,

I think, in agreeing with me that the Armadale business must be settled

at once, one way or the other. If, with your hopeless prospects, and

with what I may call your family claim on this young fellow, you decide

on giving him up, I shall have the pleasure of sending you the balance

of your account with me (seven-and-twenty shillings), and shall then

be free to devote myself entirely to my own proper business. If, on the

contrary, you decide to try your luck at Thorpe Ambrose, then (there

being no kind of doubt that the major’s minx will set her cap at the

young squire) I should be glad to hear how you mean to meet the double

difficulty of inflaming Mr. Armadale and extinguishing Miss Milroy.

“Affectionately yours,

“MARIA OLDERSHAW.

5. _From Miss Gwilt to Mrs. Oldershaw.

(First Answer.)_

“Richmond, Wednesday Morning.

“MRS. OLDERSHAW--Send me my seven-and-twenty shillings, and devote

yourself to your own proper business. Yours, L. G.”

6. _From Miss Gwilt to Mrs. Oldershaw.

(Second Answer.)_

“Richmond, Wednesday Night.

“DEAR OLD LOVE--Keep the seven-and-twenty shillings, and burn my other

letter. I have changed my mind.

“I wrote the first time after a horrible night. I write this time after

a ride on horseback, a tumbler of claret, and the breast of a chicken.

Is that explanation enough? Please say Yes, for I want to go back to my

piano.

“No; I can’t go back yet; I must answer your question first. But are you

really so very simple as to suppose that I don’t see straight through

you and your letter? You know that the major’s difficulty is our

opportunity as well as I do; but you want me to take the responsibility

of making the first proposal, don’t you? Suppose I take it in your

own roundabout way? Suppose I say, ‘Pray don’t ask me how I propose

inflaming Mr. Armadale and extinguishing Miss Milroy; the question is

so shockingly abrupt I really can’t answer it. Ask me, instead, if it is

the modest ambition of my life to become Miss Milroy’s governess?’ Yes,

if you please, Mrs. Oldershaw, and if you will assist me by becoming my

reference.

“There it is for you! If some serious disaster happens (which is quite

possible), what a comfort it will be to remember that it was all my

fault!

“Now I have done this for you, will you do something for me. I want to

dream away the little time I am likely to have left here in my own way.

Be a merciful Mother Oldershaw, and spare me the worry of looking at

the Ins and Outs, and adding up the chances For and Against, in this new

venture of mine. Think for me, in short, until I am obliged to think for

myself.

“I had better not write any more, or I shall say something savage that

you won’t like. I am in one of my tempers to-night. I want a husband to

vex, or a child to beat, or something of that sort. Do you ever like to

see the summer insects kill themselves in the candle? I do, sometimes.

Good-night, Mrs. Jezebel. The longer you can leave me here the better.

The air agrees with me, and I am looking charmingly.

“L. G.”

7. _From Mrs. Oldershaw to Miss Gwilt_.

“Thursday.

“MY DEAR LYDIA--Some persons in my situation might be a little offended

at the tone of your last letter. But I am so fondly attached to you! And

when I love a person, it is so very hard, my dear, for that person to

offend me! Don’t ride quite so far, and only drink half a tumblerful of

claret next time. I say no more.

“Shall we leave off our fencing-match and come to serious matters now?

How curiously hard it always seems to be for women to understand each

other, especially when they have got their pens in their hands! But

suppose we try.

“Well, then, to begin with: I gather from your letter that you have

wisely decided to try the Thorpe Ambrose experiment, and to secure, if

you can, an excellent position at starting by becoming a member of Major

Milroy’s household. If the circumstances turn against you, and some

other woman gets the governess’s place (about which I shall have

something more to say presently), you will then have no choice but to

make Mr. Armadale’s acquaintance in some other character. In any case,

you will want my assistance; and the first question, therefore, to set

at rest between us is the question of what I am willing to do, and what

I can do, to help you.

“A woman, my dear Lydia, with your appearance, your manners, your

abilities, and your education, can make almost any excursions into

society that she pleases if she only has money in her pocket and a

respectable reference to appeal to in cases of emergency. As to the

money, in the first place. I will engage to find it, on condition of

your remembering my assistance with adequate pecuniary gratitude if you

win the Armadale prize. Your promise so to remember me, embodying the

terms in plain figures, shall be drawn out on paper by my own lawyer, so

that we can sign and settle at once when I see you in London.

“Next, as to the reference.

“Here, again, my services are at your disposal, on another condition. It

is this: that you present yourself at Thorpe Ambrose, under the name

to which you have returned ever since that dreadful business of your

marriage; I mean your own maiden name of Gwilt. I have only one motive

in insisting on this; I wish to run no needless risks. My experience,

as confidential adviser of my customers, in various romantic cases of

private embarrassment, has shown me that an assumed name is, nine times

out of ten, a very unnecessary and a very dangerous form of deception.

Nothing could justify your assuming a name but the fear of young

Armadale’s detecting you--a fear from which we are fortunately relieved

by his mother’s own conduct in keeping your early connection with her a

profound secret from her son and from everybody.

“The next, and last, perplexity to settle relates, my dear, to the

chances for and against your finding your way, in the capacity of

governess, into Major Milroy’s house. Once inside the door, with your

knowledge of music and languages, if you can keep your temper, you may

be sure of keeping the place. The only doubt, as things are now, is

whether you can get it.

“In the major’s present difficulty about his daughter’s education, the

chances are, I think, in favor of his advertising for a governess. Say

he does advertise, what address will he give for applicants to write to?

“If he gives an address in London, good-by to all chances in your favor

at once; for this plain reason, that we shall not be able to pick out

his advertisement from the advertisements of other people who want

governesses, and who will give them addresses in London as well. If, on

the other hand, our luck helps us, and he refers his correspondents to

a shop, post-office, or what not _at Thorpe Ambrose_, there we have our

advertiser as plainly picked out for us as we can wish. In this last

case, I have little or no doubt--with me for your reference--of your

finding your way into the major’s family circle. We have one great

advantage over the other women who will answer the advertisement. Thanks

to my inquiries on the spot, I know Major Milroy to be a poor man; and

we will fix the salary you ask at a figure that is sure to tempt him. As

for the style of the letter, if you and I together can’t write a modest

and interesting application for the vacant place, I should like to know

who can?

“All this, however, is still in the future. For the present my advice

is, stay where you are, and dream to your heart’s content, till you hear

from me again. I take in _The Times_ regularly, and you may trust my

wary eye not to miss the right advertisement. We can luckily give the

major time, without doing any injury to our own interests; for there

is no fear just yet of the girl’s getting the start of you. The public

reception, as we know, won’t be ready till near the end of the month;

and we may safely trust young Armadale’s vanity to keep him out of his

new house until his flatterers are all assembled to welcome him.

“It’s odd, isn’t it, to think how much depends on this half-pay

officer’s decision? For my part, I shall wake every morning now with

the same question in my mind: If the major’s advertisement appears, which

will the major say--Thorpe Ambrose, or London?

“Ever, my dear Lydia, affectionately yours,

“MARIA OLDERSHAW.”

II. ALLAN AS A LANDED GENTLEMAN.

Early on the morning after his first night’s rest at Thorpe Ambrose,

Allan rose and surveyed the prospect from his bedroom window, lost in

the dense mental bewilderment of feeling himself to be a stranger in his

own house.

The bedroom looked out over the great front door, with its portico, its

terrace and flight of steps beyond, and, further still, the broad sweep

of the well-timbered park to close the view. The morning mist nestled

lightly about the distant trees; and the cows were feeding sociably,

close to the iron fence which railed off the park from the drive

in front of the house. “All mine!” thought Allan, staring in blank

amazement at the prospect of his own possessions. “Hang me if I can beat

it into my head yet. All mine!”

He dressed, left his room, and walked along the corridor which led to

the staircase and hall, opening the doors in succession as he passed

them.

The rooms in this part of the house were bedrooms and dressing-rooms,

light, spacious, perfectly furnished; and all empty, except the one

bed-chamber next to Allan’s, which had been appropriated to Midwinter.

He was still sleeping when his friend looked in on him, having sat late

into the night writing his letter to Mr. Brock. Allan went on to the end

of the first corridor, turned at right angles into a second, and, that

passed, gained the head of the great staircase. “No romance here,” he

said to himself, looking down the handsomely carpeted stone stairs into

the bright modern hall. “Nothing to startle Midwinter’s fidgety

nerves in this house.” There was nothing, indeed; Allan’s essentially

superficial observation had not misled him for once. The mansion of

Thorpe Ambrose (built after the pulling down of the dilapidated old

manor-house) was barely fifty years old. Nothing picturesque, nothing in

the slightest degree suggestive of mystery and romance, appeared in any

part of it. It was a purely conventional country house--the product of

the classical idea filtered judiciously through the commercial English

mind. Viewed on the outer side, it presented the spectacle of a modern

manufactory trying to look like an ancient temple. Viewed on the inner

side, it was a marvel of luxurious comfort in every part of it, from

basement to roof. “And quite right, too,” thought Allan, sauntering

contentedly down the broad, gently graduated stairs. “Deuce take all

mystery and romance! Let’s be clean and comfortable, that’s what I say.”

Arrived in the hall, the new master of Thorpe Ambrose hesitated, and

looked about him, uncertain which way to turn next.

The four reception-rooms on the ground-floor opened into the hall, two

on either side. Allan tried the nearest door on his right hand at a

venture, and found himself in the drawing-room. Here the first sign of

life appeared, under life’s most attractive form. A young girl was in

solitary possession of the drawing-room. The duster in her hand appeared

to associate her with the domestic duties of the house; but at that

particular moment she was occupied in asserting the rights of nature

over the obligations of service. In other words, she was attentively

contemplating her own face in the glass over the mantelpiece.

“There! there! don’t let me frighten you,” said Allan, as the girl

started away from the glass, and stared at him in unutterable confusion.

“I quite agree with you, my dear; your face is well worth looking at.

Who are you? Oh, the housemaid. And what’s your name? Susan, eh? Come!

I like your name, to begin with. Do you know who I am, Susan? I’m your

master, though you may not think it. Your character? Oh, yes! Mrs.

Blanchard gave you a capital character. You shall stop here; don’t be

afraid. And you’ll be a good girl, Susan, and wear smart little caps and

aprons and bright ribbons, and you’ll look nice and pretty, and dust the

furniture, won’t you?” With this summary of a housemaid’s duties, Allan

sauntered back into the hall, and found more signs of life in that

quarter. A man-servant appeared on this occasion, and bowed, as became a

vassal in a linen jacket, before his liege lord in a wide-awake hat.

“And who may you be?” asked Allan. “Not the man who let us in last

night? Ah, I thought not. The second footman, eh? Character? Oh, yes;

capital character. Stop here, of course. You can valet me, can you?

Bother valeting me! I like to put on my own clothes, and brush them,

too, when they _are_ on; and, if I only knew how to black my own boots,

by George, I should like to do it! What room’s this? Morning-room, eh?

And here’s the dining-room, of course. Good heavens, what a table! it’s

as long as my yacht, and longer. I say, by-the-by, what’s your name?

Richard, is it? Well, Richard, the vessel I sail in is a vessel of my

own building! What do you think of that? You look to me just the right

sort of man to be my steward on board. If you’re not sick at sea--oh,

you _are_ sick at sea? Well, then, we’ll say nothing more about it.

And what room is this? Ah, yes; the library, of course--more in Mr.

Midwinter’s way than mine. Mr. Midwinter is the gentleman who came here

with me last night; and mind this, Richard, you’re all to show him as

much attention as you show me. Where are we now? What’s this door at the

back? Billiard-room and smoking-room, eh? Jolly. Another door! and more

stairs! Where do they go to? and who’s this coming up? Take your time,

ma’am; you’re not quite so young as you were once--take your time.”

The object of Allan’s humane caution was a corpulent elderly woman of

the type called “motherly.” Fourteen stairs were all that separated her

from the master of the house; she ascended them with fourteen stoppages

and fourteen sighs. Nature, various in all things, is infinitely various

in the female sex. There are some women whose personal qualities reveal

the Loves and the Graces; and there are other women whose personal

qualities suggest the Perquisites and the Grease Pot. This was one of

the other women.

“Glad to see you looking so well, ma’am,” said Allan, when the cook, in

the majesty of her office, stood proclaimed before him. “Your name is

Gripper, is it? I consider you, Mrs. Gripper, the most valuable person

in the house. For this reason, that nobody in the house eats a heartier

dinner every day than I do. Directions? Oh, no; I’ve no directions to

give. I leave all that to you. Lots of strong soup, and joints done

with the gravy in them--there’s my notion of good feeding, in two

words. Steady! Here’s somebody else. Oh, to be sure--the butler! Another

valuable person. We’ll go right through all the wine in the cellar,

Mr. Butler; and if I can’t give you a sound opinion after that,

we’ll persevere boldly, and go right through it again. Talking of

wine--halloo! here are more of them coming up stairs. There! there!

don’t trouble yourselves. You’ve all got capital characters, and you

shall all stop here along with me. What was I saying just now? Something

about wine; so it was. I’ll tell you what, Mr. Butler, it isn’t every

day that a new master comes to Thorpe Ambrose; and it’s my wish that we

should all start together on the best possible terms. Let the servants

have a grand jollification downstairs to celebrate my arrival, and

give them what they like to drink my health in. It’s a poor heart, Mrs.

Gripper, that never rejoices, isn’t it? No; I won’t look at the cellar

now: I want to go out, and get a breath of fresh air before breakfast.

Where’s Richard? I say, have I got a garden here? Which side of the

house is it! That side, eh? You needn’t show me round. I’ll go alone,

Richard, and lose myself, if I can, in my own property.”

With those words Allan descended the terrace steps in front of the

house, whistling cheerfully. He had met the serious responsibility of

settling his domestic establishment to his own entire satisfaction.

“People talk of the difficulty of managing their servants,” thought

Allan. “What on earth do they mean? I don’t see any difficulty at all.”

He opened an ornamental gate leading out of the drive at the side of the

house, and, following the footman’s directions, entered the shrubbery

that sheltered the Thorpe Ambrose gardens. “Nice shady sort of place

for a cigar,” said Allan, as he sauntered along with his hands in his

pockets “I wish I could beat it into my head that it really belongs to

_me_.”

The shrubbery opened on the broad expanse of a flower garden, flooded

bright in its summer glory by the light of the morning sun.

On one side, an archway, broken through, a wall, led into the fruit

garden. On the other, a terrace of turf led to ground on a lower level,

laid out as an Italian garden. Wandering past the fountains and statues,

Allan reached another shrubbery, winding its way apparently to some

remote part of the grounds. Thus far, not a human creature had been

visible or audible anywhere; but, as he approached the end of the second

shrubbery, it struck him that he heard something on the other side of

the foliage. He stopped and listened. There were two voices speaking

distinctly--an old voice that sounded very obstinate, and a young voice

that sounded very angry.

“It’s no use, miss,” said the old voice. “I mustn’t allow it, and I

won’t allow it. What would Mr. Armadale say?”

“If Mr. Armadale is the gentleman I take him for, you old brute!”

replied the young voice, “he would say, ‘Come into my garden, Miss

Milroy, as often as you like, and take as many nosegays as you please.’”

Allan’s bright blue eyes twinkled mischievously. Inspired by a sudden

idea, he stole softly to the end of the shrubbery, darted round the

corner of it, and, vaulting over a low ring fence, found himself in a

trim little paddock, crossed by a gravel walk. At a short distance down

the wall stood a young lady, with her back toward him, trying to force

her way past an impenetrable old man, with a rake in his hand, who stood

obstinately in front of her, shaking his head.

“Come into my garden, Miss Milroy, as often as you like, and take as

many nosegays as you please,” cried Allan, remorselessly repeating her

own words.

The young lady turned round, with a scream; her muslin dress, which she

was holding up in front, dropped from her hand, and a prodigious lapful

of flowers rolled out on the gravel walk.

Before another word could be said, the impenetrable old man stepped

forward, with the utmost composure, and entered on the question of his

own personal interests, as if nothing whatever had happened, and nobody

was present but his new master and himself.

“I bid you humbly welcome to Thorpe Ambrose, sir,” said this ancient of

the gardens. “My name is Abraham Sage. I’ve been employed in the grounds

for more than forty years; and I hope you’ll be pleased to continue me

in my place.”

So, with vision inexorably limited to the horizon of his own prospects,

spoke the gardener, and spoke in vain. Allan was down on his knees on

the gravel walk, collecting the fallen flowers, and forming his first

impressions of Miss Milroy from the feet upward.

She was pretty; she was not pretty; she charmed, she disappointed, she

charmed again. Tried by recognized line and rule, she was too short and

too well developed for her age. And yet few men’s eyes would have wished

her figure other than it was. Her hands were so prettily plump and

dimpled that it was hard to see how red they were with the blessed

exuberance of youth and health. Her feet apologized gracefully for her

old and ill fitting shoes; and her shoulders made ample amends for the

misdemeanor in muslin which covered them in the shape of a dress. Her

dark-gray eyes were lovely in their clear softness of color, in their

spirit, tenderness, and sweet good humor of expression; and her hair

(where a shabby old garden hat allowed it to be seen) was of just that

lighter shade of brown which gave value by contrast to the darker

beauty of her eyes. But these attractions passed, the little attendant

blemishes and imperfections of this self-contradictory girl began again.

Her nose was too short, her mouth was too large, her face was too round

and too rosy. The dreadful justice of photography would have had no

mercy on her; and the sculptors of classical Greece would have bowed

her regretfully out of their studios. Admitting all this, and more, the

girdle round Miss Milroy’s waist was the girdle of Venus nevertheless;

and the passkey that opens the general heart was the key she carried,

if ever a girl possessed it yet. Before Allan had picked up his second

handful of flowers, Allan was in love with her.

“Don’t! pray don’t, Mr. Armadale!” she said, receiving the flowers under

protest, as Allan vigorously showered them back into the lap of her

dress. “I am so ashamed! I didn’t mean to invite myself in that bold way

into your garden; my tongue ran away with me--it did, indeed! What can I

say to excuse myself? Oh, Mr. Armadale, what must you think of me?”

Allan suddenly saw his way to a compliment, and tossed it up to her

forthwith, with the third handful of flowers.

“I’ll tell you what I think, Miss Milroy,” he said, in his blunt, boyish

way. “I think the luckiest walk I ever took in my life was the walk this

morning that brought me here.”

He looked eager and handsome. He was not addressing a woman worn out

with admiration, but a girl just beginning a woman’s life; and it did

him no harm, at any rate, to speak in the character of master of Thorpe

Ambrose. The penitential expression on Miss Milroy’s face gently melted

away; she looked down, demure and smiling, at the flowers in her lap.

“I deserve a good scolding,” she said. “I don’t deserve compliments, Mr.

Armadale--least of all from _you_.”

“Oh, yes, you do!” cried the headlong Allan, getting briskly on

his legs. “Besides, it isn’t a compliment; it’s true. You are the

prettiest--I beg your pardon, Miss Milroy! _my_ tongue ran away with me

that time.”

Among the heavy burdens that are laid on female human nature, perhaps

the heaviest, at the age of sixteen, is the burden of gravity. Miss

Milroy struggled, tittered, struggled again, and composed herself for

the time being.

The gardener, who still stood where he had stood from the first,

immovably waiting for his next opportunity, saw it now, and gently

pushed his personal interests into the first gap of silence that had

opened within his reach since Allan’s appearance on the scene.

“I humbly bid you welcome to Thorpe Ambrose, sir,” said Abraham Sage,

beginning obstinately with his little introductory speech for the second

time. “My name--”

Before he could deliver himself of his name, Miss Milroy looked

accidentally in the horticulturist’s pertinacious face, and instantly

lost her hold on her gravity beyond recall. Allan, never backward in

following a boisterous example of any sort, joined in her laughter with

right goodwill. The wise man of the gardens showed no surprise, and took

no offense. He waited for another gap of silence, and walked in again

gently with his personal interests the moment the two young people

stopped to take breath.

“I have been employed in the grounds,” proceeded Abraham Sage,

irrepressibly, “for more than forty years--”

“You shall be employed in the grounds for forty more, if you’ll only

hold your tongue and take yourself off!” cried Allan, as soon as he

could speak.

“Thank you kindly, sir,” said the gardener, with the utmost politeness,

but with no present signs either of holding his tongue or of taking

himself off.

“Well?” said Allan.

Abraham Sage carefully cleared his throat, and shifted his rake from

one hand to the other. He looked down the length of his own invaluable

implement, with a grave interest and attention, seeing, apparently, not

the long handle of a rake, but the long perspective of a vista, with a

supplementary personal interest established at the end of it. “When

more convenient, sir,” resumed this immovable man, “I should wish

respectfully to speak to you about my son. Perhaps it may be more

convenient in the course of the day? My humble duty, sir, and my best

thanks. My son is strictly sober. He is accustomed to the stables, and

he belongs to the Church of England--without incumbrances.” Having thus

planted his offspring provisionally in his master’s estimation, Abraham

Sage shouldered his invaluable rake, and hobbled slowly out of view.

“If that’s a specimen of a trustworthy old servant,” said Allan, “I

think I’d rather take my chance of being cheated by a new one. _You_

shall not be troubled with him again, Miss Milroy, at any rate. All the

flower-beds in the garden are at your disposal, and all the fruit in the

fruit season, if you’ll only come here and eat it.”

“Oh, Mr. Armadale, how very, very kind you are. How can I thank you?”

Allan saw his way to another compliment--an elaborate compliment, in the

shape of a trap, this time.

“You can do me the greatest possible favor,” he said. “You can assist me

in forming an agreeable impression of my own grounds.”

“Dear me! how?” asked Miss Milroy, innocently.

Allan judiciously closed the trap on the spot in these words: “By taking

me with you, Miss Milroy, on your morning walk.” He spoke, smiled, and

offered his arm.

She saw the way, on her side, to a little flirtation. She rested her

hand on his arm, blushed, hesitated, and suddenly took it away again.

“I don’t think it’s quite right, Mr. Armadale,” she said, devoting

herself with the deepest attention to her collection of flowers.

“Oughtn’t we to have some old lady here? Isn’t it improper to take your

arm until I know you a little better than I do now? I am obliged to ask;

I have had so little instruction; I have seen so little of society, and

one of papa’s friends once said my manners were too bold for my age.

What do _you_ think?”

“I think it’s a very good thing your papa’s friend is not here now,”

answered the outspoken Allan; “I should quarrel with him to a dead

certainty. As for society, Miss Milroy, nobody knows less about it than

I do; but if we _had_ an old lady here, I must say myself I think she

would be uncommonly in the way. Won’t you?” concluded Allan, imploringly

offering his arm for the second time. “Do!”

Miss Milroy looked up at him sidelong from her flowers “You are as bad

as the gardener, Mr. Armadale!” She looked down again in a flutter

of indecision. “I’m sure it’s wrong,” she said, and took his arm the

instant afterward without the slightest hesitation.

They moved away together over the daisied turf of the paddock, young

and bright and happy, with the sunlight of the summer morning shining

cloudless over their flowery path.

“And where are we going to, now?” asked Allan. “Into another garden?”

She laughed gayly. “How very odd of you, Mr. Armadale, not to know, when

it all belongs to you! Are you really seeing Thorpe Ambrose this morning

for the first time? How indescribably strange it must feel! No, no;

don’t say any more complimentary things to me just yet. You may turn my

head if you do. We haven’t got the old lady with us; and I really must

take care of myself. Let me be useful; let me tell you all about your

own grounds. We are going out at that little gate, across one of the

drives in the park, and then over the rustic bridge, and then round

the corner of the plantation--where do you think? To where I live, Mr.

Armadale; to the lovely little cottage that you have let to papa. Oh, if

you only knew how lucky we thought ourselves to get it!”

She paused, looked up at her companion, and stopped another compliment

on the incorrigible Allan’s lips.

“I’ll drop your arm,” she said coquettishly, “if you do! We _were_ lucky

to get the cottage, Mr. Armadale. Papa said he felt under an obligation

to you for letting it, the day we got in. And _I_ said I felt under an

obligation, no longer ago than last week.”

“You, Miss Milroy!” exclaimed Allan.

“Yes. It may surprise you to hear it; but if you hadn’t let the cottage

to papa, I believe I should have suffered the indignity and misery of

being sent to school.”

Allan’s memory reverted to the half-crown that he had spun on the

cabin-table of the yacht, at Castletown. “If she only knew that I had

tossed up for it!” he thought, guiltily.

“I dare say you don’t understand why I should feel such a horror of

going to school,” pursued Miss Milroy, misinterpreting the momentary

silence on her companion’s side. “If I had gone to school in early

life--I mean at the age when other girls go--I shouldn’t have minded it

now. But I had no such chance at the time. It was the time of mamma’s

illness and of papa’s unfortunate speculation; and as papa had nobody to

comfort him but me, of course I stayed at home. You needn’t laugh; I was

of some use, I can tell you. I helped papa over his trouble, by sitting

on his knee after dinner, and asking him to tell me stories of all the

remarkable people he had known when he was about in the great world, at

home and abroad. Without me to amuse him in the evening, and his clock

to occupy him in the daytime--”

“His clock?” repeated Allan.

“Oh, yes! I ought to have told you. Papa is an extraordinary mechanical

genius. You will say so, too, when you see his clock. It’s nothing

like so large, of course, but it’s on the model of the famous clock

at Strasbourg. Only think, he began it when I was eight years old; and

(though I was sixteen last birthday) it isn’t finished yet! Some of our

friends were quite surprised he should take to such a thing when his

troubles began. But papa himself set that right in no time; he reminded

them that Louis the Sixteenth took to lock-making when _his_ troubles

began, and then everybody was perfectly satisfied.” She stopped, and

changed color confusedly. “Oh, Mr. Armadale,” she said, in genuine

embarrassment this time, “here is my unlucky tongue running away with me

again! I am talking to you already as if I had known you for years! This

is what papa’s friend meant when he said my manners were too bold. It’s

quite true; I have a dreadful way of getting familiar with people, if--”

She checked herself suddenly, on the brink of ending the sentence by

saying, “if I like them.”

“No, no; do go on!” pleaded Allan. “It’s a fault of mine to be familiar,

too. Besides, we _must_ be familiar; we are such near neighbors. I’m

rather an uncultivated sort of fellow, and I don’t know quite how to say

it; but I want your cottage to be jolly and friendly with my house, and

my house to be jolly and friendly with your cottage. There’s my meaning,

all in the wrong words. Do go on, Miss Milroy; pray go on!”

She smiled and hesitated. “I don’t exactly remember where I was,” she

replied, “I only remember I had something I wanted to tell you. This

comes, Mr. Armadale, of my taking your arm. I should get on so much

better, if you would only consent to walk separately. You won’t? Well,

then, will you tell me what it was I wanted to say? Where was I before I

went wandering off to papa’s troubles and papa’s clock?”

“At school!” replied Allan, with a prodigious effort of memory.

“_Not_ at school, you mean,” said Miss Milroy; “and all through _you_.

Now I can go on again, which is a great comfort. I am quite serious, Mr.

Armadale, in saying that I should have been sent to school, if you had

said No when papa proposed for the cottage. This is how it happened.

When we began moving in, Mrs. Blanchard sent us a most kind message from

the great house to say that her servants were at our disposal, if we

wanted any assistance. The least papa and I could do, after that, was to

call and thank her. We saw Mrs. Blanchard and Miss Blanchard. Mistress

was charming, and miss looked perfectly lovely in her mourning. I’m sure

you admire her? She’s tall and pale and graceful--quite your idea of

beauty, I should think?”

“Nothing like it,” began Allan. “My idea of beauty at the present

moment--”

Miss Milroy felt it coming, and instantly took her hand off his arm.

“I mean I have never seen either Mrs. Blanchard or her niece,” added

Allan, precipitately correcting himself.

Miss Milroy tempered justice with mercy, and put her hand back again.

“How extraordinary that you should never have seen them!” she went on.

“Why, you are a perfect stranger to everything and everybody at Thorpe

Ambrose! Well, after Miss Blanchard and I had sat and talked a little

while, I heard my name on Mrs. Blanchard’s lips and instantly held my

breath. She was asking papa if I had finished my education. Out came

papa’s great grievance directly. My old governess, you must know, left

us to be married just before we came here, and none of our friends

could produce a new one whose terms were reasonable. ‘I’m told, Mrs.

Blanchard, by people who understand it better than I do,’ says papa,

‘that advertising is a risk. It all falls on me, in Mrs. Milroy’s state

of health, and I suppose I must end in sending my little girl to school.

Do you happen to know of a school within the means of a poor man?’ Mrs.

Blanchard shook her head; I could have kissed her on the spot for doing

it. ‘All my experience, Major Milroy,’ says this perfect angel of a

woman, ‘is in favor of advertising. My niece’s governess was originally

obtained by an advertisement, and you may imagine her value to us when I

tell you she lived in our family for more than ten years.’ I could have

gone down on both my knees and worshipped Mrs. Blanchard then and there;

and I only wonder I didn’t! Papa was struck at the time--I could see

that--and he referred to it again on the way home. ‘Though I have been

long out of the world, my dear,’ says papa, ‘I know a highly-bred woman

and a sensible woman when I see her. Mrs. Blanchard’s experience puts

advertising in a new light; I must think about it.’ He has thought about

it, and (though he hasn’t openly confessed it to me) I know that he

decided to advertise, no later than last night. So, if papa thanks you

for letting the cottage, Mr. Armadale, I thank you, too. But for you, we

should never have known darling Mrs. Blanchard; and but for darling Mrs.

Blanchard, I should have been sent to school.”

Before Allan could reply, they turned the corner of the plantation,

and came in sight of the cottage. Description of it is needless; the

civilized universe knows it already. It was the typical cottage of the

drawing-master’s early lessons in neat shading and the broad pencil

touch--with the trim thatch, the luxuriant creepers, the modest

lattice-windows, the rustic porch, and the wicker bird-cage, all

complete.

“Isn’t it lovely?” said Miss Milroy. “Do come in!”

“May I?” asked Allan. “Won’t the major think it too early?”

“Early or late, I am sure papa will be only too glad to see you.”

She led the way briskly up the garden path, and opened the parlor door.

As Allan followed her into the little room, he saw, at the further end

of it, a gentleman sitting alone at an old-fashioned writing-table, with

his back turned to his visitor.

“Papa! a surprise for you!” said Miss Milroy, rousing him from his

occupation. “Mr. Armadale has come to Thorpe Ambrose; and I have brought

him here to see you.”

The major started; rose, bewildered for the moment; recovered

himself immediately, and advanced to welcome his young landlord, with

hospitable, outstretched hand.

A man with a larger experience of the world and a finer observation

of humanity than Allan possessed would have seen the story of Major

Milroy’s life written in Major Milroy’s face. The home troubles that

had struck him were plainly betrayed in his stooping figure and his wan,

deeply wrinkled cheeks, when he first showed himself on rising from

his chair. The changeless influence of one monotonous pursuit and one

monotonous habit of thought was next expressed in the dull, dreamy

self-absorption of his manner and his look while his daughter was

speaking to him. The moment after, when he had roused himself to welcome

his guest, was the moment which made the self-revelation complete. Then

there flickered in the major’s weary eyes a faint reflection of the

spirit of his happier youth. Then there passed over the major’s dull

and dreamy manner a change which told unmistakably of social graces and

accomplishments, learned at some past time in no ignoble social school;

a man who had long since taken his patient refuge from trouble in his

own mechanical pursuit; a man only roused at intervals to know himself

again for what he once had been. So revealed to all eyes that could read

him aright, Major Milroy now stood before Allan, on the first morning of

an acquaintance which was destined to be an event in Allan’s life.

“I am heartily glad to see you, Mr. Armadale,” he said, speaking in the

changeless quiet, subdued tone peculiar to most men whose occupations

are of the solitary and monotonous kind. “You have done me one favor

already by taking me as your tenant, and you now do me another by paying

this friendly visit. If you have not breakfasted already, let me waive

all ceremony on my side, and ask you to take your place at our little

table.”

“With the greatest pleasure, Major Milroy, if I am not in the way,”

replied Allan, delighted at his reception. “I was sorry to hear from

Miss Milroy that Mrs. Milroy is an invalid. Perhaps my being here

unexpectedly; perhaps the sight of a strange face--”

“I understand your hesitation, Mr. Armadale,” said the major; “but it is

quite unnecessary. Mrs. Milroy’s illness keeps her entirely confined to

her own room. Have we got everything we want on the table, my love?” he

went on, changing the subject so abruptly that a closer observer than

Allan might have suspected it was distasteful to him. “Will you come and

make tea?”

Miss Milroy’s attention appeared to be already pre-engaged; she made no

reply. While her father and Allan had been exchanging civilities, she

had been putting the writing-table in order, and examining the various

objects scattered on it with the unrestrained curiosity of a spoiled

child. The moment after the major had spoken to her, she discovered a

morsel of paper hidden between the leaves of the blotting-book, snatched

it up, looked at it, and turned round instantly, with an exclamation of

surprise.

“Do my eyes deceive me, papa?” she asked. “Or were you really and truly

writing the advertisement when I came in?”

“I had just finished it,” replied her father. “But, my dear, Mr.

Armadale is here--we are waiting for breakfast.”

“Mr. Armadale knows all about it,” rejoined Miss Milroy. “I told him in

the garden.”

“Oh, yes!” said Allan. “Pray, don’t make a stranger of me, major! If

it’s about the governess, I’ve got something (in an indirect sort of

way) to do with it too.”

Major Milroy smiled. Before he could answer, his daughter, who had been

reading the advertisement, appealed to him eagerly, for the second time.

“Oh, papa,” she said, “there’s one thing here I don’t like at all! Why

do you put grandmamma’s initials at the end? Why do you tell them to

write to grandmamma’s house in London?”

“My dear! your mother can do nothing in this matter, as you know. And

as for me (even if I went to London), questioning strange ladies about

their characters and accomplishments is the last thing in the world that

I am fit to do. Your grandmamma is on the spot; and your grandmamma is

the proper person to receive the letters, and to make all the necessary

inquires.”

“But I want to see the letters myself,” persisted the spoiled child.

“Some of them are sure to be amusing--”

“I don’t apologize for this very unceremonious reception of you, Mr.

Armadale,” said the major, turning to Allan, with a quaint and quiet

humor. “It may be useful as a warning, if you ever chance to marry and

have a daughter, not to begin, as I have done, by letting her have her

own way.”

Allan laughed, and Miss Milroy persisted.

“Besides,” she went on, “I should like to help in choosing which letters

we answer, and which we don’t. I think I ought to have some voice in the

selection of my own governess. Why not tell them, papa, to send their

letters down here--to the post-office or the stationer’s, or anywhere

you like? When you and I have read them, we can send up the letters we

prefer to grandmamma; and she can ask all the questions, and pick out

the best governess, just as you have arranged already, without leaving

ME entirely in the dark, which I consider (don’t you, Mr. Armadale?)

to be quite inhuman. Let me alter the address, papa; do, there’s a

darling!”

“We shall get no breakfast, Mr. Armadale, if I don’t say Yes,” said the

major good-humoredly. “Do as you like, my dear,” he added, turning to

his daughter. “As long as it ends in your grandmamma’s managing the

matter for us, the rest is of very little consequence.”

Miss Milroy took up her father’s pen, drew it through the last line of

the advertisement, and wrote the altered address with her own hand as

follows:

“_Apply, by letter, to M., Post-office, Thorpe Ambrose, Norfolk_.”

“There!” she said, bustling to her place at the breakfast-table. “The

advertisement may go to London now; and, if a governess _does_ come of

it, oh, papa, who in the name of wonder will she be? Tea or coffee, Mr.

Armadale? I’m really ashamed of having kept you waiting. But it is such

a comfort,” she added, saucily, “to get all one’s business off one’s

mind before breakfast!”

Father, daughter, and guest sat down together sociably at the little

round table, the best of good neighbors and good friends already.

Three days later, one of the London newsboys got _his_ business off his

mind before breakfast. His district was Diana Street, Pimlico; and the

last of the morning’s newspapers which he disposed of was the newspaper

he left at Mrs. Oldershaw’s door.

III. THE CLAIMS OF SOCIETY.

More than an hour after Allan had set forth on his exploring expedition

through his own grounds, Midwinter rose, and enjoyed, in his turn, a

full view by daylight of the magnificence of the new house.

Refreshed by his long night’s rest, he descended the great staircase as

cheerfully as Allan himself. One after another, he, too, looked into

the spacious rooms on the ground floor in breathless astonishment at the

beauty and the luxury which surrounded him. “The house where I lived in

service when I was a boy, was a fine one,” he thought, gayly; “but it

was nothing to this! I wonder if Allan is as surprised and delighted as

I am?” The beauty of the summer morning drew him out through the open

hall door, as it had drawn his friend out before him. He ran briskly

down the steps, humming the burden of one of the old vagabond tunes

which he had danced to long since in the old vagabond time. Even the

memories of his wretched childhood took their color, on that happy

morning, from the bright medium through which he looked back at them.

“If I was not out of practice,” he thought to himself, as he leaned

on the fence and looked over at the park, “I could try some of my old

tumbling tricks on that delicious grass.” He turned, noticed two of the

servants talking together near the shrubbery, and asked for news of the

master of the house.

The men pointed with a smile in the direction of the gardens; Mr.

Armadale had gone that way more than an hour since, and had met (as had

been reported) with Miss Milroy in the grounds. Midwinter followed the

path through the shrubbery, but, on reaching the flower garden, stopped,

considered a little, and retraced his steps. “If Allan has met with the

young lady,” he said to himself, “Allan doesn’t want me.” He laughed as

he drew that inevitable inference, and turned considerately to explore

the beauties of Thorpe Ambrose on the other side of the house.

Passing the angle of the front wall of the building, he descended some

steps, advanced along a paved walk, turned another angle, and found

himself in a strip of garden ground at the back of the house.

Behind him was a row of small rooms situated on the level of the

servants’ offices. In front of him, on the further side of the little

garden, rose a wall, screened by a laurel hedge, and having a door at

one end of it, leading past the stables to a gate that opened on the

high-road. Perceiving that he had only discovered thus far the shorter

way to the house, used by the servants and trades-people, Midwinter

turned back again, and looked in at the window of one of the rooms on

the basement story as he passed it. Were these the servants’ offices?

No; the offices were apparently in some other part of the ground-floor;

the window he had looked in at was the window of a lumber-room. The

next two rooms in the row were both empty. The fourth window, when he

approached it, presented a little variety. It served also as a door; and

it stood open to the garden at that moment.

Attracted by the book-shelves which he noticed on one of the walls,

Midwinter stepped into the room.

The books, few in number, did not detain him long; a glance at their

backs was enough without taking them down. The Waverley Novels, Tales

by Miss Edgeworth, and by Miss Edgeworth’s many followers, the Poems of

Mrs. Hemans, with a few odd volumes of the illustrated gift-books of

the period, composed the bulk of the little library. Midwinter turned to

leave the room, when an object on one side of the window, which he had

not previously noticed, caught his attention and stopped him. It was a

statuette standing on a bracket--a reduced copy of the famous Niobe of

the Florence Museum. He glanced from the statuette to the window, with a

sudden doubt which set his heart throbbing fast. It was a French window.

He looked out with a suspicion which he had not felt yet. The view

before him was the view of a lawn and garden. For a moment his mind

struggled blindly to escape the conclusion which had seized it, and

struggled in vain. Here, close round him and close before him--here,

forcing him mercilessly back from the happy present to the horrible

past, was the room that Allan had seen in the Second Vision of the

Dream.

He waited, thinking and looking round him while he thought. There

was wonderfully little disturbance in his face and manner; he looked

steadily from one to the other of the few objects in the room, as if the

discovery of it had saddened rather than surprised him. Matting of

some foreign sort covered the floor. Two cane chairs and a plain table

comprised the whole of the furniture. The walls were plainly papered,

and bare--broken to the eye in one place by a door leading into the

interior of the house; in another, by a small stove; in a third, by the

book-shelves which Midwinter had already noticed. He returned to the

books, and this time he took some of them down from the shelves.

The first that he opened contained lines in a woman’s handwriting,

traced in ink that had faded with time. He read the inscription--“Jane

Armadale, from her beloved father. Thorpe Ambrose, October, 1828.”

In the second, third, and fourth volumes that he opened, the same

inscription re-appeared. His previous knowledge of dates and persons

helped him to draw the true inference from what he saw. The books must

have belonged to Allan’s mother; and she must have inscribed them with

her name, in the interval of time between her return to Thorpe Ambrose

from Madeira and the birth of her son. Midwinter passed on to a volume

on another shelf--one of a series containing the writings of Mrs.

Hemans. In this case, the blank leaf at the beginning of the book was

filled on both sides with a copy of verses, the writing being still

in Mrs. Armadale’s hand. The verses were headed “Farewell to Thorpe

Ambrose,” and were dated “March, 1829”--two months only after Allan had

been born.

Entirely without merit in itself, the only interest of the little poem

was in the domestic story that it told.

The very room in which Midwinter then stood was described--with the

view on the garden, the window made to open on it, the bookshelves, the

Niobe, and other more perishable ornaments which Time had destroyed.

Here, at variance with her brothers, shrinking from her friends, the

widow of the murdered man had, on her own acknowledgment, secluded

herself, without other comfort than the love and forgiveness of her

father, until her child was born. The father’s mercy and the father’s

recent death filled many verses, happily too vague in their commonplace

expression of penitence and despair to give any hint of the marriage

story in Madeira to any reader who looked at them ignorant of the truth.

A passing reference to the writer’s estrangement from her surviving

relatives, and to her approaching departure from Thorpe Ambrose,

followed. Last came the assertion of the mother’s resolution to separate

herself from all her old associations; to leave behind her every

possession, even to the most trifling thing she had, that could remind

her of the miserable past; and to date her new life in the future from

the birthday of the child who had been spared to console her--who was

now the one earthly object that could still speak to her of love and

hope. So the old story of passionate feeling that finds comfort in

phrases rather than not find comfort at all was told once again. So the

poem in the faded ink faded away to its end.

Midwinter put the book back with a heavy sigh, and opened no other

volume on the shelves. “Here in the country house, or there on board the

wreck,” he said, bitterly, “the traces of my father’s crime follow me,

go where I may.” He advanced toward the window, stopped, and looked back

into the lonely, neglected little room. “Is _this_ chance?” he asked

himself. “The place where his mother suffered is the place he sees in

the Dream; and the first morning in the new house is the morning that

reveals it, not to _him_, but to me. Oh, Allan! Allan! how will it end?”