 CHAPTER VIII The Norfolk Broads. The little group gathered together in Major Milroy's parlor to wait for the carriages from Thorpe Ambrose would hardly have conveyed the idea, to any previously uninstructed person introduced among them, of a party assembled in expectation of a picnic. They were almost dull enough, as far as outward appearances went, to have been a party assembled in expectation of a marriage. Even Miss Milroy herself, though conscious of looking her best in her bright muslin dress and her gaily-feathered new hat, was at this inauspicious moment Miss Milroy under a cloud. Although Ellen's note had assured her, in Ellen's strongest language, that the one great object of reconciling the governess's arrival with the celebration of the picnic was an object achieved, the doubt still remained whether the plan proposed, whatever it might be, would meet with her father's approval. In a word Miss Milroy declined to feel sure of her day's pleasure until the carriage made its appearance and took her from the door. The Major, on his side, arrayed for the festive occasion in a tight blue frock-coat which he had not worn for years, and threatened with a whole long day of separation from his old friend and comrade the clock, was a man out of his element, if ever such a man existed yet. As for the friends who had been asked at Ellen's request, the widow-lady, otherwise Mrs. Pentecost, and her son, the Reverend Samuel, in delicate health, two people less capable, apparently, of adding to the hilarity of the day could hardly have been discovered in the length and breadth of all England. A young man who plays his part in society by looking on in green spectacles, and listening with a sickly smile, may be a prodigy of intellect and a mind of virtue, but he is hardly, perhaps, the right sort of man to have at a picnic. An old lady afflicted with deafness, whose one inexhaustible subject of interest is the subject of her son, and who, on the happily rare occasions when that son opens his lips, asks everybody eagerly, What does my boy say? Is a person to be pitied in respect of her infirmities, and a person to be admired in respect of her maternal devotedness, but not a person, if the thing could possibly be avoided, to take to a picnic. Such a man, nevertheless, was the Reverend Samuel Pentecost, and such a woman was the Reverend Samuel's mother, and in the dearth of any other producible guests, there they were, age to eat, drink, and be merry for the day at Mr. Armadale's pleasure-party to the Norfolk Brods. The arrival of Alan, with his faithful follower-pedgift, Junior, at his heels, roused the flagging spirits of the party at the cottage. The plan for enabling the governess to join the picnic, if she arrived that day, satisfied even Major Milroy's anxiety to show all proper attention to the lady who was coming into his house. After writing the necessary note of apology and invitation, and addressing it in her very best handwriting to the new governess, Miss Milroy ran upstairs to say goodbye to her mother, and returned with a smiling face and a side-look of relief directed at her father, to announce that there was nothing now to keep any of them a moment longer indoors. The company at once directed their steps to the garden-gate, and were there met face to face by the second great difficulty of the day. How were the six persons of the picnic to be divided between the two open carriages that were in waiting for them? Here again, pedgift Junior exhibited his invaluable faculty of contrivance. This highly cultivated young man possessed in an eminent degree an accomplishment more or less peculiar to all the young men of the age we live in. He was perfectly capable of taking his pleasure without forgetting his business. Such a client as the master of Thorpe Ambrose fell but seldom in his father's way, and to pay special but unobtrusive attention to Alan all through the day was the business of which young pedgift, while proving himself to be the life and soul of the picnic, never once lost sight from the beginning of the merry-making to the end. He had detected the state of affairs between Miss Millroy and Alan at a glance, and he at once provided for his client's inclinations in that quarter by offering, in virtue of his local knowledge, to lead the way in the first carriage, and by asking Major Millroy and the curate if they would do him the honour of accompanying him. We shall pass a very interesting place to a military man, sir, said young pedgift, passing the Major with his happy and unblushing confidence, the remains of a Roman encampment. And my father, sir, who is a subscriber, proceeded this rising lawyer, turning to the curate, wished me to ask your opinion of the new infant school buildings at Little Gilbeck. Would you kindly give it to me as we go along? He opened the carriage door, and helped in the Major and the curate before they could either of them start any difficulties. The necessary result followed. Alan and Miss Millroy rode together in the same carriage with the extra convenience of a deaf old lady in attendance to keep the squire's compliments within the necessary limits. Never yet had Alan enjoyed such an interview with Miss Millroy as the interview he now obtained on the road to the broads. The dear old lady, after a little anecdote or two on the subject of her son, did the one thing wanting to secure the perfect felicity of her two youthful companions. She became considerably blind for the occasion as well as deaf. A quarter of an hour after the carriage left the Major's cottage, the poor old soul reposing on snug cushions and fanned by a fine summer air fell peaceably asleep. Alan made love, and Miss Millroy sanctioned the manufacturer of that occasionally precious article of human commerce, sublimely indifferent on both sides to a solemn base accompaniment on two notes, played by the curate's mother's unsuspecting nose. The only interruption to the love-making, the snoring being a thing more grave and permanent in its nature was not interrupted at all, came at intervals from the carriage ahead. Not satisfied with having the Major's Roman encampment and the curate's infant schools on his mind, Peadgift, Jr. rose erect from time to time in his place, and respectfully hailing the hindmost vehicle, directed Alan's attention in a shrill tenor voice and with an excellent choice of language, two objects of interest on the road. The only way to quiet him was to answer, which Alan invariably did by shouting back, Yes, beautiful! upon which young Peadgift disappeared again in the recesses of the leading carriage, and took up the Romans and the infants where he had left them last. The scene through which the picnic-party was now passing merited far more attention than it received, either from Alan or Alan's friends. An hour's steady driving from the Major's cottage had taken young Armadale and his guests beyond the limits of midwinter's solitary walk, and was now bringing them nearer and nearer to one of the strangest and loveliest aspects of nature, which the inland landscape, not of Norfolk only, but of all England, can show. Little by little the face of the country began to change as the carriages approached the remote and lonely district of the broads. The wheat fields and turnip fields became perceptibly fewer, and the fat green grazing grounds on either side grew wider and wider in their smooth and sweeping range. Heaps of dry rushes and reeds, laid up for the basket-maker and the thatcher, began to appear at the roadside. The old gabled cottages of the early part of the drive dwindled and disappeared, and huts with mud-walls rose in their place. With the ancient church-towers and the wind and water-mills which had hitherto been the only lofty objects seen over the low marshy flat, there now rose all around the horizon, gliding slow and distant behind fringes of pollard willows, the sails of invisible boats moving on invisible waters. All the strange and startling anomalies presented by an inland agricultural district, isolated from other districts by its intricate surrounding network of pools and streams, holding its communications and carrying its produce by water instead of by land, began to present themselves in closer and closer succession. Nets appeared on cottage palings. Little flat-bottom boats lay strangely at rest among the flowers in cottage gardens. Farmers men passed to and fro clad in composite costume of the coast and the field, in sailor's hats and fisherman's boots, and ploughman's smocks, and even yet the low-lying labyrinth of waters embosoned in its mystery of solitude was a hidden labyrinth still. A minute more and the carriages took a sudden turn from the hard high-road into a little weedy lane. The wheels ran noiseless on the damp and spongy ground, a lonely outlying cottage appeared with its litter of nets and boats. A few yards further on, and the last morsel of firm earth suddenly ended in a tiny creek and key, one turn more to the end of the key, and there, spreading its great sheet of water far and bright and smooth on the right hand and the left, there as pure in its spotless blue as still in its heavenly peacefulness as the summer sky above it, was the first of the Norfolk broads. The carriages stopped, the love-making broke off, and the venerable Mrs. Pentecost, recovering the use of her senses at a moment's notice, fixed her eyes sternly on Alan the instant she woke. "'I see in your face, Mr. Armadale,' said the old lady sharply, "'that you think I have been asleep.' The consciousness of guilt acts differently on the two sexes. In nine cases out of ten, it is a much more manageable consciousness with a woman than with a man. All the confusion on this occasion was on the man's side. While Alan reddened and looked embarrassed, the quick-witted Miss Millroy instantly embraced the old lady with a burst of innocent laughter. "'He is quite incapable, dear Mrs. Pentecost,' said the little hypocrite, of anything so ridiculous as thinking you have been asleep. "'All I wish Mr. Armadale to know,' pursued the old lady, still suspicious of Alan, "'is that my head being giddy I am obliged to close my eyes in a carriage. Closing the eyes, Mr. Armadale, is one thing, and going to sleep is another. Where is my son?' The reverend Samuel appeared silently at the carriage door and assisted his mother to get out. "'Did you enjoy the drive, Sammy?' asked the old lady. "'Beautiful scenery, my dear, wasn't it?' Young ped-gift, on whom the arrangements for exploring the broads devolved, hustled about, giving his orders to the boatman. Major Millroy, placid and patient, sat apart on an overturned punt, and privately looked at his watch. Was it past noon already? More than an hour passed. For the first time, for many a long year, the famous clock at home had struck in an empty workshop. Time had lifted his wonderful scythe, and the corporal and his men had relieved guard, with no master's eye to watch their performances, with no master's hand to encourage them to do their best. The major sigh as he put his watch back in his pocket. "'I'm afraid I'm too old for this sort of thing,' thought the good man, looking about him dreamily. "'I don't find I enjoy it as much as I thought I should. When are we going on the water, I wonder? Where's Neely?' "'Neely,' more properly, Miss Millroy, was behind one of the carriages with the promoter of the picnic. They were immersed in the interesting subject of their own Christian names, and Alan was as near a point-blank proposal of marriage as it is well possible for a thoughtless young gentleman of two and twenty to be. "'Tell me the truth,' said Miss Millroy, with her eyes modestly riveted on the ground. "'When you first knew what my name was, you didn't like it, did you?' "'I like everything that belongs to you,' rejoined Alan vigorously. "'I think Eleanor is a beautiful name, and yet, I don't know why, I think the major made an improvement when he changed it to Neely. "'I can tell you why, Mr. Armadale,' said the major's daughter, with great gravity. "'There are some unfortunate people in this world whose names are—how can I express it? Whose names are misfits? Mine is a misfit. I don't blame my parents, for, of course, it was impossible to know when I was a baby how I should grow up. But as things are, I and my name don't fit each other. When you hear a young lady called Eleanor, you think of a tall, beautiful, interesting creature directly—the very opposite of me. With my personal appearance, Eleanor sounds ridiculous. And Neely, as you yourself remarked, is just the thing. No, no, don't say any more—I'm tired of the subject. I've got another name in my head, if we must speak of names, which is much better worth talking about than mine.' She stole a glance at her companion, which said plainly enough, the name is yours. Alan advanced a step nearer to her, and lowered his voice without the slightest necessity, to a mysterious whisper. Miss Millroy instantly resumed her investigation of the ground. She looked at it with such extraordinary interest, that a geologist might have suspected her of scientific flirtation with the superficial strata. What name are you thinking of? asked Alan. Miss Millroy addressed her answer, in the form of a remark to the superficial strata, and let them do what they liked with it, in their capacity of conductors of sound. If I had been a man, she said, I should so like to have been called Alan. She felt his eyes on her as she spoke, and turning her head aside became absorbed in the graining of the panel at the back of the carriage. How beautiful it is, she exclaimed, with a sudden outburst of interest in the vast subject of varnish. I wonder how they do it. Man persists, and woman yields. Alan declined to shift the ground from love-making to coach-making. Miss Millroy dropped the subject. Call me by my name if you really like it, he whispered persuasively. Call me Alan for once, just to try. She hesitated with a heightened colour and a charming smile, and shook her head. I couldn't just yet, she answered softly. May I call you neely? Is it too soon? She looked at him again, with a sudden disturbance about the bosom of her dress, and a sudden flash of tenderness in her dark grey eyes. You know best, she said faintly, in a whisper. The inevitable answer was on the tip of Alan's tongue. At the very instant, however, when he opened his lips, the abhorrent high tenor of Peadgift, Jr., shouting for Mr. Armadale, rang cheerfully through the quiet air. At the same moment, from the other side of the carriage, the lurid spectacles of the Reverend Samuel showed themselves officiously on the search, and the voice of the Reverend Samuel's mother, who had, with great dexterity, put the two ideas of the presence of water and a sudden movement among the company together, inquired distractedly if anybody was drowned. Sentiment flies and love shudders at all demonstrations of the noisy kind. Alan said, damn it, and rejoined young Peadgift. Miss Millroy sighed, and took refuge with her father. I've done it, Mr. Armadale, cried young Peadgift, greeting his patron gaily. We can all go on the water together. I've got the biggest boat on the broads. The little skiffs he added, in a lower tone, as he led the way to the key steps, besides being ticklish and easily upset, won't hold more than two with the boatman, and the major told me he should feel it his duty to go with his daughter, if we all separated in different boats. I thought that would hardly do, sir, pursued Peadgift, Jr., with a respectfully sly emphasis on the words. And besides, if we had put the old lady into a skiff, with her weight, sixteen stone if she's a pound, we might have had her upside down in the water half her time, which would have occasion delay and thrown what you call a damp on the proceedings. Here's the boat, Mr. Armadale, what do you think of it? The boat added one more to the strangely anomalous objects which appeared at the broads. It was nothing less than a stout old lifeboat, passing its last declining years on the smooth fresh water, after the stormy days of its youth time, on the wild Salt Sea. A comfortable little cabin for the use of fowlers in the winter season had been built amid ships, and a mast and sail adapted for inland navigation had been fitted forward. There was room enough and to spare for the guests, the dinner, and the three men in charge. Alan clapped his faithful lieutenant approvingly on the shoulder, and even Mrs. Pentecost, when the whole party were comfortably established on board, took a comparatively cheerful view of the prospects of the picnic. If anything happens, said the old lady, addressing the company generally, there's one comfort for all of us, my son can swim. The boat floated out from the creek into the placid waters of the broad, and the full beauty of the scene opened on the view. On the northward and westward, as the boat reached the middle of the lake, the shore lay clear and low in the sunshine, fringed darkly at certain points by rows of dwarf trees, and dotted here and there in the opener spaces, with windmills and reed-thatched cottages of puddled mud. Southward the great sheet of water narrowed gradually to a little group of close nestling islands which closed the prospect, while to the east a long gently undulating line of reeds followed the windings of the broad, and shut out all view of the watery wastes beyond. So clear and so light was the summer air that the one cloud in the eastern quarter of the heaven was the smoke cloud left by a passing steamer three miles distant and more on the invisible sea. When the voices of the pleasure-party were still, not a sound rose far or near, but the faint ripple at the boughs, as the men, with slow deliberate strokes of their long poles, pressed the boat forward softly over the shallow water. The world and the world's turmoil seemed left behind forever on the land. The silence was the silence of enchantment, the delicious interflow of the soft purity of the sky and the bright tranquillity of the lake. Established in perfect comfort in the boat, the major and his daughter on one side, the curate and his mother on the other, and Alan and young pedgift between the two, the water-party floated smoothly towards the little nest of islands at the end of the broad. Miss Millroy was in raptures, Alan was delighted, and the major for once forgot his clock. Everyone felt pleasurably, in their different ways, the quiet and beauty of the scene. Mrs. Pentecost, in her way, felt it like a clairvoyant, with closed eyes. Look behind you, Mr. Armadale, whispered young pedgift. I think the parson's beginning to enjoy himself. An unwanted briskness, portentious, apparently, of coming speech, did certainly, at that moment, enliven the curate's manner. He jerked his head from side to side like a bird, he cleared his throat and clasped his hands, and looked with a gentle interest at the company. Getting into spirit seemed, in the case of this excellent person, to be alarmingly like getting into the pulpit. Even in this scene of tranquillity, said the Reverend Samuel, coming out softly with his first contribution to the society in the shape of a remark, the Christian mind, led, so to speak, from one extreme to another, is forcibly recalled to the unstable nature of all earthly enjoyments. How if this calm should not last? How if the winds rose, and the waters became agitated? You needn't alarm yourself about that, sir, said young pedgift. Dune's the fine season here, and you can swim!" Mrs. Pentecost, mesmerically affected, in all probability, by the near-neighborhood of her son, opened her eyes suddenly and asked, with her customary eagerness, What does my boy say? The Reverend Samuel repeated his words in the key that suited his mother's infirmity. The old lady nodded in high approval, and pursued her son's train of thought through the medium of a quotation. Ah! sighed Mrs. Pentecost with infinite relish. He rides the whirlwind, Sammy, and directs the storm. Noble words, said the Reverend Samuel, noble and consoling words. I say, whispered Allen, if he goes on much longer in that way, what's to be done? I told you, Papa, it was a risk to ask them, added Miss Milroy in another whisper. My dear, remonstrated the major, we knew nobody else in the neighborhood, and as Mr. Armadale kindly suggested our bringing our friends, what could we do? We can't upset the boat, remarked young Peadgift with sardonic gravity. It's a lifeboat, unfortunately. May I venture to suggest putting something into the Reverend Gentleman's mouth, Mr. Armadale? It's close on three o'clock. What do you say to ringing the dinner bell, sir? Never was the right man more entirely in the right place than Peadgift Jr. at the picnic. In ten minutes more the boat was brought to a standstill among the reeds, the Thorpe Ambrose hampers were unpacked on the roof of the cabin, and the current of the curate's eloquence was checked for the day. How inestimably important in its moral results, and therefore how praiseworthy in itself, is the act of eating and drinking, the social virtues centre in the stomach, a man who is not a better husband, father and brother after dinner than before, is, digestively speaking, an incurably vicious man. What hidden charms of character disclose themselves, what dormant amiabilities awaken, when our common humanity gathers together to pour out the gastric juice. At the opening of the hampers from Thorpe Ambrose, sweet sociability, offspring of the happy union of civilization and Mrs. Gripper, exhaled among the boating party, and melted in one friendly fusion the discordant elements of which that party had hitherto been composed. Now did the reverend Samuel Pentecost, whose light had hitherto been hidden under a bushel, prove at last that he could do something by proving that he could eat. Now did Pedgiff Jr. shine brighter than ever he had shone yet, in gems of caustic humour and exquisite fertilities of resource. Now did the squire, and the squire's charming guest, prove the triple connection between champagne that sparkles, love that grows bolder, and eyes whose vocabulary is without the word no. Now did cheerful old times come back to the major's memory, and cheerful old stories not told for years find their way to the major's lips. And now did Mrs. Pentecost, coming out wakefully in the whole force of her estimable maternal character, seize on a supplementary fork, and ply that useful instrument incessantly between the choicest morsels in the whole round of dishes, and the few vacant places left available on the reverend Samuel's plate. Don't laugh at my son, cried the old lady, observing the merriment which her proceedings produced among the company. It's my fault, poor dear, I make him eat. And there are men in this world who, seeing virtues such as these developed at the table, as they are developed nowhere else, can nevertheless rank the glorious privilege of dining with the smallest of the diurnal personal worries, which necessity imposes on mankind, with buttoning your waistcoat, for example, or lacing your stays. Trust no such monster as this with your tender secrets, your loves and hatreds, your hopes and fears. His heart is uncorrected by his stomach, and the social virtues are not in him. The last mellow hours of the day and the first cool breezes of the long summer evening had met before the dishes were all laid waste, and the bottles as empty as bottles should be. This point in the proceedings attained, the picnic-party looked lazily at Peadgift, Jr., to know what was to be done next. That inexhaustible functionary was equal as ever to all the calls on him. He had a new amusement ready before the quickest of the company could do so much, as ask him what that amusement was to be. Fond of music on the water, Miss Millroy, he asked, in his airiest and pleasantest manner, Miss Millroy adored music, both on the water and the land, always accepting the one case where she was practicing the art herself, on the piano at home. We'll get out of the reeds first, said young Peadgift. He gave his orders to the boatman, dived briskly into the little cabin, and reappeared with a concertina in his hand. Neat, Miss Millroy, isn't it? He observed, pointing to his initials, inlaid on the instrument in Mother of Pearl. My name's Augustus, like my father's. Some of my friends knock off the A, and call me Augustus, Jr. A small joke goes a long way among friends, doesn't it, Mr. Armadale? I sing a little to my own accompaniment, ladies and gentlemen, and if quite agreeable, I shall be proud and happy to do my best. Stop! cried Mrs. Pentecost. I dot on music! With this formidable announcement, the old lady opened a prodigious leather bag, from which she never parted night or day, and took out an ear-trumpet of the old-fashioned kind, something between a key bugle and a French horn. I don't care to use the thing generally, explained Mrs. Pentecost, because I'm afraid of its making me deffer than ever. But I can't and won't miss the music. I dot on music. If you'll hold the other end, Sammy, I'll stick it in my ear. Neely, my dear, tell him to begin. Young Pettgift was troubled with no nervous hesitation. He began at once, not with songs of the light and modern kind, such as might have been expected from an amateur of his age and character, but with declamatory and patriotic bursts of poetry set to the bold and blatant music which the people of England loved dearly at the earlier part of the present century, and which, whenever they can get it, they love dearly still. The death of Marmion, the battle of the Baltic, the Bay of Biscay, Nelson, under various vocal aspects, as exhibited by the late Brahms. These were the songs in which the roaring concertina and strident tenor of Gustus Jr. exalted together. Tell me when you're tired, ladies and gentlemen, said the minstrel solicitor. There's no conceit about me. Will you have a little sentiment by way of variety? Shall I wind up with the mistletoe bow and poor Marmion? Having favoured his audience with those two cheerful melodies, Young Pettgift respectfully requested the rest of the company to follow his vocal example in turn, offering, in every case, to play a running accompaniment in prompt you, if the singer would only be so obliging as to favour him with the keynote. Go on, somebody! cried Mrs. Pentecost eagerly. I tell you again, I dot on music. We haven't had half enough yet, have we, Sammy? The reverend Samuel made no reply. The unhappy man had reasons of his own, not exactly in his bosom, but a little lower, for remaining silent, in the midst of the general hilarity and the general applause. Alas for humanity! Even maternal love is alloyed with mortal fallibility. Owing much already to his excellent mother, the reverend Samuel was now additionally indebted to her for a smart indigestion. Nobody, however, noticed as yet the signs and tokens of internal revolution in the curate's face. Everybody was occupied in entreating everybody else to sing. Miss Millroy appealed to the founder of the feast. Do sing something, Mr. Armadale, she said? I should so like to hear you. If you once begin, sir, added the cheerful pedgift, you'll find it get uncommonly easy as you go on. Music is a science which requires to be taken by the throat at starting. With all my heart said Alan, in his good-humoured way. I know lots of tunes, but the worst of it is, the words escape me. I wonder if I can remember one of Moore's melodies. My poor mother used to be fond of teaching me Moore's melodies when I was a boy. Whose melodies? asked Mrs. Pentecost. Moore's? Aha! I know Tom Moore by heart. Perhaps in that case you will be good enough to help me, ma'am, if my memory breaks down. Rejoined Alan. I'll take the easiest melody in the whole collection if you'll allow me. Everybody knows it. Evelyn's Bower. I'm familiar in a general sort of way with the national melodies of England, Scotland and Ireland, said pedgift junior. I'll accompany you, sir, with the greatest pleasure. This is the sort of thing, I think. He seated himself cross-legged on the roof of the cabin, and burst into a complicated musical improvisation wonderful to hear. A mixture of instrumental flourishes and groans, a jig corrected by a dirge, and a dirge enlivened by a jig. That's the sort of thing, said young pedgift, with his smile of supreme confidence. Fire away, sir! Mrs. Pentecost elevated her trumpet, and Alan elevated his voice. O weep for the hour when to Evelyn's Bower! He stopped. The accompaniment stopped. The audience waited. It's a most extraordinary thing, said Alan. I thought I had the next line on the tip of my tongue, and it seems to have escaped me. I'll begin again, if you have no objection. O weep for the hour when to Evelyn's Bower! The lord of the valley with false vows came, said Mrs. Pentecost. Thank you, ma'am, said Alan. Now I shall get on smoothly. O weep for the hour when to Evelyn's Bower! The lord of the valley with false vows came. The moon was shining bright. No! said Mrs. Pentecost. I beg your pardon, ma'am, remonstrated Alan. The moon was shining bright. That moon wasn't doing anything of the kind, said Mrs. Pentecost. Pedgift, Jr., for seeing a dispute, persevered, sought a voce with the accompaniment in the interests of harmony. More's own words, ma'am, said Alan, in my mother's copy of melodies. Your mother's copy was wrong, retorted Mrs. Pentecost. Didn't I tell you just now that I knew Tom Moore by heart? Pedgift, Jr.'s peacemaking concertina still flourished and groaned in the minor key. Well, what did the moon do? asked Alan, in despair. What the moon ought to have done, sir, or Tom Moore wouldn't have written it so? rejoined Mrs. Pentecost. The moon hid her light from the heaven that night, and wept behind her clouds or the maiden's shame. I wish that young man would leave off playing, added Mrs. Pentecost, venting her rising irritation on Gustus, Jr. I've had enough of him. He tickles my ears. Proud, I'm sure, ma'am, said the unblushing Pedgift. The whole science of music consists in tickling the ears. We seem to be drifting into a sort of argument, remarked Major Millroy placidly. Wouldn't it be better if Mr. Armadale went on with his song? Do go on, Mr. Armadale, added the Major's daughter. Do go on, Mr. Pedgift. One of them doesn't know the words, and the other doesn't know the music, said Mrs. Pentecost. Let them go on if they can. Sorry to disappoint you, ma'am, said Pedgift, Jr. I'm ready to go on myself to any extent. Now, Mr. Armadale. Alan opened his lips to take up the unfinished melody where he had last left it. Before he could utter a note, the curate suddenly rose with a ghastly face, and a hand pressed convulsively over the middle region of his waistcoat. What's the matter? cried the whole bolting-party in chorus. I am exceedingly unwell, said the reverend Samuel Pentecost. The boat was instantly in a state of confusion. Evelyn's bower expired on Alan's lips, and even the irrepressible concertina of Pedgift was silenced at last. The alarm proved to be quite needless. Mrs. Pentecost's son possessed a mother, and that mother had a bag. In two seconds the art of medicine occupied the place left vacant in the attention of the company by the art of music. Rub it gently, Sammy, said Mrs. Pentecost. I'll get out the bottles and give you a dose. It's his poor stomach, Major. Hold my trumpet, somebody, and stop the boat. You take that bottle neely, my dear, and you take this one, Mr. Armadale, and give them to me as I want them. Ah, poor dear, I know what's the matter with him. Want of power here, Major, cold, acid, and flabby. Ginger to warm him, soda to correct him, cell volatile to hold him up. There, Sammy, drink it before it settles, and then go and lie down, my dear, in that dog kennel of a place they call the cabin. No more music, added Mrs. Pentecost, shaking her forefinger at the proprietor of the concertina, unless it's a hymn, and that I don't object to. Nobody, appearing to be in a fit frame of mind for singing a hymn, the all-accomplished pedgift drew up on his store of local knowledge, and produced a new idea. The course of the boat was immediately changed under his direction. In a few minutes more the company found themselves in a little island creek, with a lonely cottage at the far end of it, and a perfect forest of reeds closing the view all round them. What do you say, ladies and gentlemen, to stepping on shore and seeing what a reed-cutter's cottage looks like? suggested young pedgift. We say yes, to be sure, answered Allen. I think our spirits have been a little dashed by Mr. Pentecost's illness, and Mrs. Pentecost's bag, he added, in a whisper to Miss Millroy, a change of this sort is the very thing we want to set us all going again. He and young pedgift handed Miss Millroy out of the boat. The major followed. Mrs. Pentecost sat immovable as the Egyptian sphinx, with her bag on her knees, mounting guard over Sammy in the cabin. We must keep the fun going, sir, said Allen, as he helped the major over the side of the boat. We haven't half done yet with the enjoyment of the day. His voice seconded his hearty belief in his own prediction to such good purpose that even Mrs. Pentecost heard him, and ominously shook her head. Ah! sighed the current's mother. If you were as old as I am, young gentleman, you wouldn't feel quite so sure of the enjoyment of the day. So, in rebuke of the rashness of youth, spoke the caution of age. The negative view is notoriously the safe view, all the world over, and the Pentecost philosophy is, as a necessary consequence, generally in the right. For more information or to volunteer, please visit libraryvox.org, recording by Nadine Gertboulez, Armadale by Wilkie Collins. Chapter 9 Fate or Chance It was close on six o'clock when Allen and his friends left the boat, and the evening influence was creeping already in its mystery and its stillness over the watery solitude of the broods. The shore in these wild regions was not like the shore elsewhere. Firm as it looked, the garden ground in front of the reed-cutter's cottage was floating ground that rose and fell and oozed into puddles under the pressure of the food. The boatman who guided the visitors warned them to keep to the path, and pointed through gaps in the reeds and pallets to grassy places, on which strangers would have walked confidently, where the crust of earth was not strong enough to bear the weight of a child over the unfathomed depth of slime and water beneath. The solitary cottage, built of plain-speeched black, stood on ground that had been steadied and strengthened by resting it on piles. That little wooden tower rose at one end of the roof, and served as a lookout post in the founding season. From this elevation the eye ranged far and wide over a wilderness of winding water and gnomes on marsh. If the reed-cutter had lost his boat, he would have been as completely isolated from all communication with town or village as if his place of a boat had been a light vessel instead of a cottage. Neither he nor his family complained of their solitude, or looked in any way the rougher or the worse for it. His wife received the visitors hospitably in a snuggled-in room, with a raft at ceiling and windows which looked like windows in a cabin on board ship. His wife's father told stories of the famous days when those muggles came up from the sea at night, rowing through the network of rivers with muffled oars till they gained the lonely roads, and sank their spirit casks in the water, far from the coast guard's reach. His wild little children played at height and seek with the visitors, and the visitors ranged in and out of the cottage and round and round the morsel of firm earth on which it stood, surprised and delighted by the novelty of all they saw. The one person who noticed the advance of the evening, the one person who thought of the flying time and the stationary pentecosts in the boat, was young pet-gift. That experienced pilot of the broods looked a scans at his watch and drew Alan aside at the first opportunity. I don't wish to hurry you, Mr. Armadale, said pet-gift junior, but the time is getting on and there's a lady in the case. A lady? repeated Alan. Yes, sir, rejoined young pet-gift. A lady from London, connected, if you'll allow me to jug your memory, with a bunny-chase and white harness. Good heavens, the governess! cried Alan. Why, we have forgotten all about her. Don't be alarmed, sir, there's plenty of time if we only get into the boat again. This is how it stands, Mr. Armadale. We settled, if you remember, to have the GPC team-making at the next brood to this. Herlmere? Certainly, said Alan. Herlmere is the place where my friend Midwender has promised to come and meet us. Herlmere is where the governess will be, sir, if your coachman follows my directions, first with young pet-gift. We have got nearly an hour's punting to do along the twists and turns of the narrow waters, which they call the sounds here, between this and Herlmere. And according to my calculations we must get on board again in five minutes, if we are to be in time to meet the governess and to meet your friend. We mustn't miss my friend on any account, said Alan, or the governess either, of course. I'll tell the Major. Major Mirroy was at that moment preparing to mount the wooden-watch tower of the cottage to see the view. The ever-useful pet-gift volunteered to go up with him and rattle off all the necessary local explanations in half the time which the read-cutter would occupy in describing his own neighbourhood to a stranger. Alan remained standing in front of the cottage, more quiet and more thoughtful than usual. His interview with young pet-gift had brought his absent friend to his memory for the first time since the picnic party had started. He was surprised that mid-winter, so much in his thoughts on all other occasions, should have been so long out of his thoughts now. Something troubled him, like a sense of self-reproach, as his mind reverted to the faithful friend at home toiling hard over the Stuart's books in his interests and for his sake. Dear old fellow, thought Alan, I shall be so glad to see him at the mere. The day's pleasure won't be complete till he joins us. Should I be right or wrong, Mr. Armadale, if I guess that you were thinking of somebody, as the voice softly behind him, Alan turned and found the Major's daughter at his side. Ms. Mirroy, not unmindful of a certain tender interview which had taken place behind the carriage, had noticed her and Myra standing thirdfully by himself and had determined on giving him another opportunity while her father and young pet-gift were at the top of the watchtower. You know everything, said Alan, smiling. I was thinking of somebody. Ms. Mirroy stole a glance at him, a glance of dental encouragement. There could be but one human creature in Mr. Armadale's mind after what had passed between them that morning. It would be only an act of mercy to take him back again at once to the interrupted conversation of a few hours since on the subject of names. I have been thinking of somebody, too. She said, half inviting, half repelling, the calming of owl. If I tell you the first letter of my somebody's name, will you tell me the first letter of yours? I will tell you anything you like. I will tell you anything you like. Rejoined Alan with the utmost enthusiasm. She still shrank coquettishly from the very subject that she wanted to approach. Tell me your letter first, she said, in low tones, looking away from him. Alan laughed. M, he said, is my first letter. She started a little. Strange that he should be thinking of her by her surname instead of her Christian name, but it mattered little as long as he was thinking of her. What is your letter? asked Alan. She blushed and smiled. Hey, if you will have it, she answered, in a reluctant little whisper. She stole another look at him and luxuriously protracted her enjoyment of the coming of owl once more. How many syllables is the name in? she asked, drawing patterns shiny on the ground with the end of the parasol. No man with the slightest knowledge of the sex would have been rash enough in Alan's position to tell her the truth. Alan, who knew nothing whatever of woman's natures and who told the truth right and left in all mortal emergencies, answered as if he had been under examination in a court of justice. It's a name in three syllables, he said. Miss Mirror's downcast eyes flashed up at him like lightning. Three, she repeated in the blankest astonishment. Alan was too inveterately straightforward to take the warning even now. I'm not strong at my spelling, I know, he said, with his light-hearted laugh, but I don't think I'm wrong in calling Midwinter his name in three syllables. I was thinking of my friend, but never mind my thoughts. Tell me who A is, tell me whom you are thinking of. Of the first letter of the alphabet Mr. Armadale, and I beg positively to inform you of nothing more. With that annihilating answer the major starter put up a parasol and walked back by herself to the boat. Alan stood petrified with amazement. If Miss Mirror had actually boxed his ears and there is no denying that she had privately longed to devote her hand to that purpose, he could hardly have felt more bewildered than he felt now. What on earth have I done? He asked himself helplessly as the major and young pet gift joined him and the three walked down together to the water side. I wonder what she'll say to me next. She said absolutely nothing. She never so much as looked at Alan when he took his place in the boat. There she sat, with her eyes and her complexion both much brighter than usual, taking the deepest interest in the current's progress toward recovery, in the state of Mrs. Bentcroft's spirits, in pet gift junior for whom she ostentatiously made room enough to let him sit beside her, in the sanary and the readcutter's cottage, in everybody and everything but Alan. Whom she would have married with the greatest pleasure five minutes since. I'll never forgive him, thought the major's daughter, to be thinking of that ill-bred wretch when I was thinking of him and to make me all but confess it before I found him out. Thank heaven, Mr. Pet Gift is in the boot. In this frame of mind Miss Neely applied herself forthwith to the fascination of Pet Gift and the disconfiture of Alan. Oh, Mr. Pet Gift, how extremely clever and kind of you to think of showing us that sweet cottage. Lonely, Mr. Armadale? I don't think it's lonely at all. I should like of all things to live there. What would this picnic have been without you, Mr. Pet Gift? You can't think how I have enjoyed it since we got into the boot. Cool, Mr. Armadale? What can you possibly mean by saying it's cool? It's the warmest evening we've had this summer. And the music, Mr. Pet Gift, how nice it was of you to bring you concertina. I wonder if I could accompany you on the piano? I would so like to try. Oh yes, Mr. Armadale, no doubt you're meant to do something musical, too. And I dare say you sing very well when you know the words. But to tell you the truth, I always did and always shall hate Morse melodies. Thus, with merciless dexterity of manipulation, did Miss Mirroy work the sharpest female weapon of offense, the tongue? And thus she would have used it for some time longer if Alan had only shown the necessary jealousy or if Pet Gift had only afforded the necessary encouragement. But at first fortune had decreed that she should select for her victims two men essentially unassailable under existing circumstances. Alan was too innocent of all knowledge of female subtleties and susceptibilities to understand anything except that the charming needy was unreasonably out of temper with him without the slightest cause. The wary Pet Gift, as became one of the quick-witted youth of the present generation, submitted to female influence, with his eye fixed immovably all the time on his own interests. Many a young man of the past generation who was no fool has sacrificed everything for love. Not one young man in ten thousand of the present generation, except the fools, has sacrificed a half penny. The daughters of Eve still inherit their mother's merits and commit their mother's faults. But the sons of Adam in these latter days are men who would have handed the famous apple back with a bow and a thanks no it might get me into a scrape. When Alan, surprised and disappointed, moved away out of Miss Mirroy's reach to the forward part of the boat, Pet Gift junior rose and followed him. He was a very nice girl, thought this rudely sensible young man. But the client's a client, and I'm sorry to inform you, Miss, it won't do. He set himself at once to rouse Alan's spirits by diverting his attention to a new subject. There was to be a regatta that owed him on one of the boats, and his client's opinion as a old man might be valuable to the committee. Something new I should think to you, sir, in a setting match on fresh water? He said in his most ingratiatory manner. And Alan, instantly interested, answered, quite new, do tell me about it. As for the rest of the party at the other end of the boat, they were in a fair way to confirm Mrs. Bentkost's doubt whether the hilarity of the picnic would last the day out. Poor Nini's natural feeling of irritation under the disappointment which Alan's awkwardness had inflicted on her was now exasperated into silent and settled resentment by her own keen sense of humiliation and defeat. The major had relapsed into his originally dreamy, absent manner. His mind was turning monotonously with the wheels of his clock. The curate still secluded his indigestion from public view in the innermost recesses of the cabin, and the curate's mother, with a second dose ready at a moment's notice, sat on guard at the door. Women of Mrs. Bentkost's age and character generally enjoy their own bedspirits. This, sighed the old lady, wagging her head with a smile of sour satisfaction. Is what you call today's pleasure, is it? Ha, what fools we all were to leave our comfortable homes. Meanwhile, the boat floated smoothly along the windings of the watery labyrinth which lay between the two broods. The view on either side was now limited to nothing but interminable rows of reeds. Not a sound was heard far or near, not so much as a glimpse of cultivated or inhabited land appeared anywhere. A trifle dreary hear abouts, Mr. Armadale, said the ever-gearful, pet gift. But we are just out of it now. Look ahead, sir. Here we are, at Hurlemere. The reeds opened back on the right hand and the left, and the boat glided suddenly into the wide circle of the pool. Round the nearer half of the circle, the eternal reed still fridged the margin of the water. Round the further half the land appeared again, here rolling back from the pool in desolated sandhills, there rising above it in a sweep of grassy shore. At one point the ground was occupied by a plantation, and at another by the outbuildings of a lonely old red brick house with a strip of by-road near that skirted the garden wall and ended at the pool. The sun was sinking in the clear heaven, and the water, where the sun's reflection failed to tinge it, was beginning to look black and cold. The solitude that had been soothing, the silence that had felt like an enchantment on the other brood, in the day's vigorous prime, was a solitude that sat in here, a silence that struck cold in the stillness and melancholy of the day's decline. The course of the boat was directed across the meadow to a creek in the grassy shore. One or two of the little flat-bottomed ponds peculiar to the broods lay in the creek, and the reed-curders to whom the ponds belonged, surprised at the appearance of strangers, came out, staring silently, from behind an angle of the old garden wall. Not another sign of life was visible anywhere. No punishes had been seen by the reed-curders. No stranger, either man or woman, had approached the shores of her near that day. Young pet-gift took another look at his watch and addressed himself to Miss Melroy. You may or may not see the governess when you get back to Thorpe Ambrose, he said, but as the time stands now, you won't see her here. You know best, Mr. Armadale, he added, turning to Alan, whether your friend is to be dependent on to keep his appointment? I am certain he is to be dependent on, replied Alan, looking about him, in unconcealed disappointment at midwinter's absence. Very good, pursued pet-gift junior. If we light the fire for our gypsy tea-making on the open ground there, your friend may find us out, sir, by the smoke. That's the Indian dodge for picking up a last man on the prairie, Miss Melroy, and it's pretty nearly wild enough, isn't it, to be a prairie here. There are some temptations, principally those of the smaller kind, which it is not in the defensive capacity of female human nature to resist. The temptation to direct the whole force of her influence as the one young lady of the party, toward the instant overthrow of Alan's arrangement for meeting his friend, was too much for the major's daughter. She turned on the smiling pet-gift with the look which owed to have overwhelmed him. But whoever overwhelmed the solicitor? I think it's the most lonely, dreary, hideous place I ever saw in my life, said Miss Neely. If you insist on making, see here, Mr. Pet-gift, don't make any for me. No, I shall stop in the boat, and, though I am absolutely dying with thirst, I shall touch nothing till we get back again to the other brood. The major opened his lips to remonstrate. To his daughter's infinite delight, Miss Pen-coast rose from her seat before he could say a word, and, after surveying the whole landward prospect and seeing nothing in the shape of a vehicle anywhere, asked indignantly whether they were going all the way back again to the place where they had left the carriages in the middle of the day. On ascertaining that this was, in fact, the arrangement proposed, and that, from the nature of the country, the carriages could not have been ordered round to Hermia without, in the first instance, sending them the whole of the way back to Thorbenbrose, Miss Pen-coast, speaking in her son's interests, instantly declared that no earthly power should induce her to be out on the water after dark. Call me a boat? cried the old lady in great agitation. Wherever there's water, there's a night mist, and wherever there's a night mist, my son Samuel Katch is called. Don't talk to me about your moonlight and your tea-making. You're all mad. Hi, you two men there? cried Miss Pen-coast, hailing the silent reed-cutters on shore. Sixpence a piece for you if you'll take me and my son back in your boat. Before young pet-gift could interfere, Alan himself settled the difficulty this time, with perfect patience and good temper. I can't thank Miss Pen-coast of your going back in any boat but the boat you have come out in, he said. There is not the least need, as you and Miss Merrodon like the place, for anybody to go on shore here but me. I must go on shore. My friend mid-winter never broke his promise to me yet, and I can't consent to leave her me as long as there is a chance of his keeping his appointment. But there's not the least reason in the world why I should stand in the way on that account. You have the major and Mr. Pet-gift to take care of you, and you can get back to the carriages before dark if you go at once. I will wait here and give my friend half an hour more, and then I can follow you in one of the reed-cutters' boats. That's the most sensible thing, Mr. Armadale, you've said today. remarked Miss Pen-coast, seating herself again in a violent hurry. Tell them to be quick, cried the old lady, shaking her fist at the boatman. Tell them to be quick. Alan gave the necessary directions and stepped on shore. The wary Pet-gift, sticking fast to his client, tried to follow. We can't leave you here alone, sir, he said, protesting eagerly in a whisper. Let the major take care of the ladies, and let me keep you company at the mere. No, no, said Alan, pressing him back. They're all in no spirits on board. If you want to be of service to me, stop like a good fellow where you are, and do your best to keep the thing going. He waved his hand, and the man pushed the boat off from the shore. The others all waved their hands in return, except the major's daughter, who sat apart from the rest, with her face hidden under her parasol. The tears stood thick in Neely's eyes. Her last angry feeling against Alan died out, and her heart went back to him penitently the moment he left the boat. How good he is to us all, she thought, and what a wretch I am. She got up with every generous impulse in her nature, urging her to make atonement to him. She got up, reckless of appearances, and looked after him with eager eyes and flushed cheeks as he stood alone on the shore. Don't be long, Mr. Armadane, she said, with a desperate disregard of what the rest of the company thought of her. The boat was already far out in the water, and with all Neely's resolution the words were spoken in a faint little voice, which failed to reach Alan's ears. The one sound he heard, as the boat gained the opposite extremity of the mere, and disappeared slowly among the reeds, was the sound of the concertina. The indefatigable pedgift was keeping things going, evidently under the auspices of Mrs. Benkost, by performing a sacred melody. Left by himself, Alan lit a cigar, and took a turn backward and forward on the shore. She might have said a word to me at parting, he thought. I've done everything for the best, I have as good as told her how far never I am, and this is the way she treats me. He stopped and stood looking absently at the sinking sun. And the fast-darkening waters of the mere. Some inscrutable influence in the scene forced its way stealthily into his mind, and diverted his thoughts from Miss Mirra to his absent friend. He started, and looked about him. The reed-cutters had gone back to their retreat behind the angle of the wall. Not the living creature was visible. Not a sound rose anywhere along that very shore. Even Alan's spirits began to get depressed. It was nearly an hour after the time when midwinter had promised to be at Hermia. He had himself arranged to walk to the pool, with a stable boy from Thorpe Ambrose as his guide, by lanes and footpath which shortened the distance by the road. The boy knew the country well, and midwinter was habitually punctual at all his appointments. Had anything gone wrong at Thorpe Ambrose? Had some accident happened on the way? Determined to remain no longer doubting and idling by himself, Alan made up his mind to walk inland from the mere on the chance of meeting his friend. He went round at once to the angle in the wall, and asked one of the reed-cutters to show him the footpath to Thorpe Ambrose. The man led him away from the road, and pointed to a barely perceptible break in the outer trees of the plantation. After posing for one more useless look around him, Alan turned his back on the mere and made for the trees. For a few paces, the path ran straight through the plantation. Then it took a certain turn, and the water and the open country became both lost to view. Alan steadily followed the grassy track before him, seeing nothing and hearing nothing, until he came to another winding of the path. Turning in the new direction, he saw dimly a human figure sitting alone at the foot of one of the trees. Two steps nearer were enough to make the figure familiar to him. Midwinter, he exclaimed in astonishment. This is not the place where I was to meet you. What are you waiting for here? Midwinter rose without answering. The evening dimness among the trees, which obscured his face, made his silence doubly perplexing. Alan went on eagerly questioning him. Did you come here by yourself? He asked. I thought the boy was to guide you. This time Midwinter answered. When we got as far as these trees, he said, I sent the boy back. He told me I was close to the place and couldn't miss it. What made you stop here when he left you? Rated Alan. Why didn't you walk on? Don't despise me, answered the other. I had no courage. Not the courage? repeated Alan. He paused a moment. Oh, I know, he resumed, putting his hand gaily on Midwinter's shoulder. You're still shy of the mere noise. What nonsense when I told you myself that your piece was made at the cottage! I wasn't thinking, Alan, of your friends at the cottage. The truth is, I'm hardly myself today. I am ill and unnerved. Trifles dulled me. He stopped and shrank away under the anxious scrutiny of Alan's eyes. If you will have it, he passed out abruptly. The aura of that night on board the break has gotten me again. There's a dreadful oppression on my head. There's a dreadful sinking at my heart. I am afraid of something happening to us if we don't part before the day is out. I can't break my promise to you. For God's sake, release me from it and let me go back. Remonstrance to anyone who knew Midwinter was plainly useless at that moment. Alan humoured him. Come out of this dark, airless place, he said, and we will talk about it. The water and the open sky are within a stone through of us. I hate the wood in the evening. It even gives me the horrors. You have been working too hard over those two hot sparks. Come and breathe freely in the blessed open air. Midwinter stopped, considered for a moment, and suddenly submitted. You're right, he said, and I'm wrong as usual. I'm wasting time and distressing you to no purpose. What folly to ask you to let me go back. Suppose you had said yes? Well, asked Alan. Well, repeated Midwinter. Something would have happened at the first step to stop me, that's all. Come on. They walked together in silence on the way to the Mere. At the last turn in the path, Alan's cigar went out. While he stopped to light it again, Midwinter walked around before him and was the first to come inside of the open rail. Alan had just kindled the match, went to his surprise, his friend came back to him round the turn in the path. There was light enough to show objects more clearly in this part of the quotation. The match, as Midwinter faced him, dropped on the instant from Alan's head. Good God! he cried, starting back. You look as you looked on both the rack. Midwinter held up his hand for silence. He spoke with his wild eyes riveted on Alan's face, with his wide lips closed at Alan's ear. You remember how he looked? He answered in a whisper. Do you remember what I said when you and the doctor were talking of the dream? I have forgotten the dream, said Alan. As he made that answer, Midwinter took his hand and led him round the last turn in the path. Do you remember it now? he asked and pointed to the Mere. The sun was sinking in the cloudless westward heaven. The waters of the Mere lay beneath, tinned red by the dying light. The open country stretched away, darkening drarily already on the right hand and the left. And on the near margin of the pool, where all had been solitude before, there now stood, fronting the sunset, the figure of a woman. The two armadayas stood together in silence and looked at the lonely figure and the dreary view. Midwinter was the first to speak. Your own eyes have seen it, he said. Now look at your own words. He opened the narrative of the dream and held it under Alan's eyes. His finger pointed to the lines which recorded the first vision. His voice, sinking lower and lower, repeated the words. The sense came to me of being left alone in the darkness. I waited. The darkness opened and showed me the vision, as in a picture, of a brood lonely pool surrounded by open ground. Above the further margin of the pool, I saw the cloudless western sky, red with the light of sunset. On the near margin of the pool, there stood the shadow of a woman. He seized and let the hand which held the manuscript drop to his side. The other hand pointed to the lonely figure, standing with its back turned on them, fronting the setting sun. There, he said, stands the living woman in the shadow's place. There speaks the first of the dream warnings to you and to me. Let the future time find a still together, and the second figure that stands in the shadow's place will be mine. Even Alan was silenced by the terrible certainty of conviction with which he spoke. In the paths that followed, the figure at the pool moved and walked slowly away round the margin of the shore. Alan stepped out beyond the last of the trees and gained a wider view of the open ground. The first object that met his eyes was the pony chaise from Thor Bambros. He turned back to midwinter with a laugh of relief. What nonsense have you been talking, he said, and what nonsense have I been listening to? It's the governor's at last. Midwinter made no reply. Alan took him by the arm and tried to lead him on. He released himself suddenly and seized Alan with both hands, holding him back from the figure at the pool, as he had held him back from the cabin door on the deck of the temperature. Once again, the effort was in vain. Once again, Alan broke away as easily as he had broken away in the past time. One of us must speak to her, he said, and if you want, I will. He had only advanced a few steps toward the mirror, when he heard, or thought he heard, a voice faintly calling after him, once and once only, the word farewell. He stopped with a feeling of uneasy surprise and looked round. Was that you, midwinter? he asked. There was no answer. After hesitating a moment more, Alan returned to the plantation. Midwinter was gone. He looked back at the pool, doubtful in the new emergency what to do next. The lonely figure had altered its course in the interval. It had turned and was advancing toward the trees. Alan had been evidently either heard or seen. It was impossible to leave a woman unbefriended in that helpless position and in that solitary place. For the second time Alan went out from the trees to meet her. As he came within sight of her face, he stopped in ungovernable astonishment. The sudden revelation of her beauty, as she smiled and looked at him incurringly, suspended the movement in his limbs and the words on his lips. A vague doubt beset him whether it was the governess after all. He roused himself and, advancing a few paces, mentioned his name. May I ask, he added, if I have the pleasure. The lady met him easily and gracefully halfway. Major Mioroi's governess, she said, misquilled. End of chapter, recording by Nadine Kertboulé Book the second, chapter 10 of Armadale. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Nadine Kertboulé. Armadale by Wilkie Collins 10. The house made space. All was quiet at Thorbenbrus. The hall was solitary. The rooms were dark. The servants, waiting for the supper hour in the garden at the back of the house, looked up at the clear heaven and the rising moon, and agreed that there was little prospect of the return of the picnic party until later in the night. The general opinion, led by the high authority of the cook, predicted that they might all sit down to supper without the least fear of being disturbed by the bell. Having arrived at this conclusion, the servants assembled round the table, and exactly at the moment when they sat down, the bell rang. The footman, wandering, went upstairs to open the door, and found to his astonishment, midwinter waiting alone at the threshold, and look in, in the servant's opinion, miserably ill. He asked for a light, and, saying he wanted nothing else, withdrew at once to his room. The footman went back to his fellow servants, and reported that something had certainly happened to his master's friend. On entering his room, midwinter closed the door, and hurriedly filled the bag with the necessaries for travelling. This done, he took from a locked drawer, and placed in the breast pocket of his coat some little presents which Alan had given him, a cigar case, a purse, and a set of studs in plain gold. Having possessed himself of these memorials, he snatched up the bag and laid his hand on the door. There, for the first time, he passed. There, the headlong haste of all his actions thus far certainly ceased, and the heart despair in his face began to soften. He waited, with the door in his hand. Up to that moment he had been conscious of one motive that animated him, but one purpose that he was resolute to achieve. For Alan's sake, he had said to himself, when he looked back toward the fatal landscape, and saw his friend leaving him to meet the woman at the pool. For Alan's sake, he had said again, when he crossed the open country beyond the wood, and so afar, in the great twilight, the long line of embankment and the distant glimmer of the railway lamps beckoning him away already to the iron road. It was only when he now passed before he closed the door behind him, it was only when his own impetuous rapidity of action came for the first time to a check, that the nobler nature of the man rose in protest against the superstitious despair which was hurrying him from all that he held dear. His conviction of the terrible necessity of leaving Alan, for Alan's good, had not been shaken for an instant, since he had seen the first vision of the dream realized on the shores of the Mir. But now, for the first time, his own heart rose against him in unanswerable rebuke. Go if you must and will, but remember the time when you were ill and he sat by your bedside, friendless, and he opened his heart to you, and write, if you fear to speak, write and ask him to forgive you, before you leave him forever. The half-open door closed against softly. Midwinter sat down at the writing table and took up the pen. He tried again and again, and yet again, to write the farewell words. He tried till the floor all round him was littered with torn sheets of paper. Turned from them which way he would, the old time still came back and faced him reproachfully. The spacious bedchamber in which he sat narrowed in spite of him, to the sick usher's garret at the west country inn. The kind hand that had once padded him on the shoulder touched him again. The kind voice that had cheered him spoke unchangeably in the old friendly tones. He flung his arms on the table and dropped his head on them in tearless despair. The parting words that his tongue was powerless to utter, his pen was powerless to write. Mercilessly in earnest, his superstition pointed to him to go while the time was his own. Mercilessly in earnest, his love for Alan held him back till the farewell plea for pardon and pity was written. He rose with a sudden resolution and rang for the servant. When Mr. Armadale returns, he said, ask him to excuse my coming downstairs and say that I am trying to get to sleep. He locked the door and put out the light and sat down alone in the darkness. The night will keep us apart, he said, and time may help me to write. I may go in the early morning. I may go while. The thought died in him uncompleted, and the sharp agony of the struggle forced to his lips the first cry of suffering that had escaped him yet. He waited in the darkness. As the time stalled on, his senses remained mechanically awake, but his mind began to sink slowly under the heavy strain that had now been made on it for some hours past. A dull vacancy possessed him. He made no attempt to kindle the light and write once more. He never started. He never moved to the open window when the first sound of approaching wheels broke in on the silence of the night. He heard the carriages draw up at the door. He heard the horses champing their bits. He heard the voices of Alan and young Petgift on the steps, and still he sat quiet in the darkness, and still no interest was aroused in him by the sounds that reached his ear from outside. The voices remained audible after the carriages had been driven away. The two young men were evidently lingering on the steps before they took leave of each other. Every word they said reached midwinter through the open window. Their one subject of conversation was the new governess. Alan's voice was loud in her praise. He had never passed such an hour of delight in his life, as the hour he had spent with Miss Guild in the boat on the way from Herlmere to the picnic party waiting at the other brood. Agreeing on his side, with all that his clients said in praise of the charming stranger, young Petgift appeared to treat the subject when it fell into his hands from a different point of view. Miss Guild's attractions had not so entirely absorbed his attention as to prevent him from noticing the impression which the new governess had produced on her employer and her pupil. There's a screw loose somewhere, sir, in major Mirroy's family, said the voice of young Petgift. Did you notice how the major and his daughter looked when Miss Guild made her excuses for being late at the mere? You don't remember? Do you remember what Miss Guild said? Something about Mrs. Mirroy, wasn't it? Alan rejoined. Young Petgift's voice dropped mysteriously a note lower. Miss Guild reached the cottage this afternoon, sir, at the time when I told you she would reach it, and she would have joined us at the time I told you she would come, but for Mrs. Mirroy. Mrs. Mirroy sent for her upstairs as soon as she entered the house and kept her upstairs who could have hour and more. That was Miss Guild's excuse, Mr. Armadale, for being late at the mere. Well, and what then? You seem to forget, sir, what the whole neighborhood has heard about Mrs. Mirroy ever since the major first settled among us. We have all been told, on the doctor's own authority, that she is too great a sufferer to see strangers. Isn't it a little odd that she should have certainly turned out well enough to see Miss Guild, in her husband's absence, the moment Miss Guild entered the house? Not a bit of it. Of course she was anxious to make acquaintance with her daughter's governess. Likely enough, Mr. Armadale. But the major and Miss nearly don't see it in that light at any rate. I had my eye on them both when the governess told them that Mrs. Mirroy had sent for her. If ever I saw a girl look thoroughly frightened, Miss Mirroy was that girl. And, if I may be allowed in the strictest confidence to label a girl an soldier, I should say that the major himself was much in the same condition. Take my word for it, sir. There's something wrong upstairs in that pretty cottage of yours, and Miss Guild is mixed up in it already. There was a minute of silence. When the voices were next heard by Midwinter, they were further away from the house. Alan was probably accompanying young Petgift a few steps on his way back. After a while, Alan's voice was audible once more under the portico, making inquiries after his friend, answered by the servant's voice giving Midwinter's message. This brief interruption over, the silence was not broken again till the time came for shutting up the house. The servant's footsteps passing to and through, the clang of closing door, the barking of a disturbed dog in the stable yard, these sounds warned Midwinter it was getting late. He rose mechanically to candle the light. But his head was giddy, his hand trembled. He laid aside the matchbox and returned to his chair. The conversation between Alan and young Petgift had ceased to occupy his attention the instant he ceased to hear it. And now again, the sense that the precious time was fading him became a lost sense as soon as the house's noises which had awakened it had passed away. His energies of body and mind were both alike worn out. He waited with a stolid resignation for the trouble that was to come to him with the coming day. An interval passed and the silence was once more disturbed by voices outside, the voices of a man and a woman this time. The first few words exchanged between them indicated plainly enough a meeting of the clandestine kind, and revealed the man as one of the servants at Thorpe Ambrose and the woman as one of the servants at the cottage. Here again after the first greetings were over, the subject of the new governess became the all-absorbing subject of conversation. The major servant was brimful of four bootings inspired solely by Miss Guild's good looks, which she pulled out irrepressibly on her sweetheart, try as he might to divert her to other topics. Sooner or later, let him mark her words, there would be an awful upset at the cottage. Her master, it might be mentioned in confidence, led a dreadful life with her mistress. The major was the best of men, he hadn't a thought in his heart beyond his daughter and his everlasting clock, but only let a nice-looking woman come near the place, and Mrs. Mirroy was jealous of her. Raging jealous, like a woman possessed, on that miserable sick bed of hers. If Miss Guild, who was certainly good-looking in spite of her hideous hair, didn't blow the fire into a flame before many days more were over the heads, the mistress was the mistress no longer, but somebody else. Whatever happened, the fault this time would lie at the door of the major's mother. The old lady and the mistress had had a dreadful quarrel two years since, and the old lady had gone away in a fury, telling her son before all the servants that, if he had a spark of spirit in him, he would never submit to his wife's temper as he did. It would be too much, perhaps, to accuse the major's mother of purposely picking out a handsome governess despite the major's wife. But it might be safely said that the old lady was the last person in the world to humor the mistress' jealousy by declining to engage a capable and respectable governess for her granddaughter because that governess happened to be blessed with good looks. How it was all to end, except that it was certain to end badly, no human creature could say. Things were looking as black already as things well could. Miss Nealy was crying after the day's pleasure, which was one bad sign. The mistress had found fault with nobody, which was another. The master had wished her good night through the door, which was a third, and the governess had locked herself up in her room, which was the worst sign of all, for it looked as if she distrusted the servants. Thus the stream of the woman's gossip ran on, and thus it reached me, midwinter's ears, through the window, till the clock in the stable yard struck, and stopped the talking. When the last vibrations of the bell had died away, the voices were not audible again, and the silence was broken no more. Another interval passed, and midwinter made a new effort to rouse himself. This time he kindled the light without hesitation, and took the pen in hand. He wrote at the first trial with a certain facility of expression which, surprising him as he went on, ended in rousing in him some vague suspicion of himself. He left the table and bathed his head and face in water, and came back to read what he had written. The language was barely intelligible, sentences were left unfinished, words were misplaced one for the other. Every line recorded the protest of the wary brain against the merciless will that had forced it into action. Midwinter tore up the sheet of paper as he had torn up the other sheets before it, and, sinking under the struggle at last, laid his wary head on the pillow. Almost on the instant exhaustion overcame him, and before he could put the light out he fell asleep. He was roused by a noise at the door. The sunlight was pouring into the room, candle had burned down into the socket, and the servant was waiting outside with a letter which had come for him by the morning's post. I ventured to disturb you, sir, said the man, when Midwinter opened the door, because the letter is marked immediate, and I didn't know but it might be of some consequence. Midwinter thanked him and looked at the letter. It was of some consequence. The handwriting was Mr. Brox. He paused to collect his faculties. The torn sheets of paper on the floor recalled to him in the moment the position in which he stood. He locked the door again, in the fear that Alan might rise earlier than usual and come in to make inquiries. Then, feeling strangely little interest in anything that the rector could write to him now, he opened Mr. Brox's letter and read these lines. Tuesday. My dear Midwinter, it is sometimes best to tell bad news plainly in few words. Let me tell mine at once in one sentence. My precautions have all been defeated, the woman has escaped me. This misfortune, for it is nothing less, happened yesterday, Monday. Between eleven and twelve in the forenoon of that day, the business which originally brought me to London, obliged me to go to Doctor's Commons, and to leave myself and Robert to watch the house opposite our lodging until my return. About an hour and a half after my departure, he observed an empty cab drawn up at the door of the house. Boxes and bags made their appearance first. They were followed by the woman herself in the dress I had first seen her in. Having previously secured a cab, Robert traced her to the terminus of a northwestern railway, saw her pass through the ticket office, kept her in view till she reached the platform, and there, in the crowd and confusion caused by the starting of a large mixed drain, lost her. I must do him the justice to say that he at once took the right course in this emergency. Instead of wasting time in searching for her on the platform, he looked along the line of carriages, and he positively declares that he failed to see her in any one of them. He admits at the same time that his search conducted between two o'clock when he lost sight of her and ten minutes past when the train started was, in the confusion of the moment, necessarily an imperfect one. But this latter circumstance, in my opinion, matters little. I as firmly disbelieve in the woman's actual departure by that train as if I had searched every one of the carriages myself, and you, I have no doubt, will entirely agree with me. You now know how the disaster happened. Let us not waste time in words in lamenting it. The evil is done, and you and I together must find the way to remediate. What I have accomplished already, on my side, may be told in two words. Any hesitation I might have previously felt at trusting this delicate business in strangers' hands was at an end the moment I heard Robert's news. I went back at once to the city and placed the whole matter confidentially before my lawyers. The conference was a long one, and while I left the office it was past the post hour, or I should have written to you on Monday instead of writing today. My interview with the lawyers was not very encouraging. They warned me plainly that serious difficulties stand in the way of our recovering in the last trace. But they have promised to do their best, and we have decided on the course to be taken, accepting one point on which we totally differ. I must tell you what this difference is. For, while business keeps me away from Thorpe Ambrose, you are the only person whom I can trust to put my convictions to the test. The lawyers are of opinion, then, that the woman has been aware from the first that I was watching her, that there is consequently no present hope of her being rush enough to appear personally at Thorpe Ambrose, that any mischief she may have it in contemplation to do will be done in the first instance by deputy, and that the only wise cause for Alan's friends and guardians to take is to wait passively till events enlighten them. My own idea is diametrically opposed to this. After what has happened at the railway, I cannot deny that the woman must have discovered that I was watching her. But she has no reason to suppose that she has not succeeded in deceiving me, and I firmly believe she is bold enough to take us by surprise, and to win our force away into Alan's confidence before we are prepared to prevent her. You, a new only, while I am detained in London, can decide whether I am right or wrong, and you can do it in this way. A certain at once whether any woman who is a stranger in the neighborhood has appeared since Monday last at or near Thorpe Ambrose. If any such person has been observed, and nobody escapes observation in the country, take the first opportunity you can get of seeing her and ask yourself if her face does or does not answer certain plain questions which I am now about to write down for you. You may depend on my accuracy. I saw the woman unveiled on more than one occasion, and the last time threw an excellent glass. One, is her hair light brown and apparently not very plentiful? Two, is her forehead high, narrow, and sloping backward from the brow? Three, are her eyebrows very faintly marked, and are her eyes small and nearer dark than light? Either gray or hazel, I have not seen her close enough to be certain which. Four, is her nose aquiline? Five, are her lips thin, and is the upper lip long? Six, does her complexion look like an originally fair complexion which has deteriorated into a dull, sickly painless? Seven, and lastly, has she a retreating chin, and is there on the left side of it a mark of some kind, a mole or a scar, I can't say which? I add nothing about her expression, for you may see her under circumstances which may partially alter it as seen by me. Test her by her features, which no circumstances can change. If there is a stranger in the neighborhood, and if her face answers my seven questions, you have found the woman. Go instantly in that case to the nearest lawyer, and pledge my name and credit for whatever expenses may be incurred in keeping her under inspection night and day. Having done this, take the speediest means of communicating with me, and whether my business is finished or not, I will start for Norfolk by the first train. Always your friend, Desimus Brock. Hardened by the fatalist conviction that now possessed him, midwinter read the rector's confession of defeat from the first line to the last, without the slightest betrayal either of interest or surprise. The one part of the letter at which he looked back was the closing part of it. I owe much to Mr. Brock's kindness, he thought, and I shall never see Mr. Brock again. It is useless and hopeless, but he asks me to do it, and it shall be done. A moment's look at her will be enough, a moment's look at her with his letter in my hand, and a line to tell him that the woman is here. Again he stood hesitating at the half-open door, again the cruel necessity of writing his farewell to Alan stopped him and stared him in the face. He looked aside doubtingly at the rector's letter. I will write the two together, he said. One may help the other. His face flushed deep as the words escaped him. He was conscious of doing what he had not done yet, of voluntarily putting off the evil hour of making Mr. Brock the pretext for gaining the last respite left, the respite of time. The only sound that reached him through the open door was the sound of Alan staring noisily in the next room. He stepped at once into the empty corridor and, meeting no one on the stairs, made his way out of the house. The dread that his resolution to leave Alan might fail him if he saw Alan again was as vividly present to his mind in the morning as it had been all through the night. He drew a deep breath of relief as he descended the house steps, relief at having escaped the friendly greeting of the morning from the one human creature whom he loved. He entered the shrubbery with Mr. Brock's letter in his hand and took the nearest way that led to the Major's cottage. Not the slightest recollection was in his mind of the talk which had found its way to his ears during the night. His one reason for determining to see the woman was the reason which the rector had put in his mind. The one remembrance that now guided him to the place in which he lived was the remembrance of Alan's exclamation when he first identified the governess with the figure at the pool. Arrived at the gate of the cottage, he stopped. The thought struck him that he might defeat his own object if he looked at the rector's questions in the woman's presence. Her suspicions would be probably roused in the first instance by his asking to see her as he had determined to ask with or without an excuse and the appearance of the letter in his hand might confirm them. She might defeat him by instantly leaving the room. Determined to fix the description in his mind first and then to confront her, he opened the letter and, turning away slowly by the side of the house, read the seven questions which he felt absolutely assured beforehand the woman's face would answer. In the morning, quiet of the park, slight noises travelled far. A slight noise disturbed midwinter over the letter. He looked up and found himself on the brink of a brood grassy trench, having the park on one side and the high laurel hedge of an enclosure on the other. The enclosure evidently surrounded the back garden of the cottage and the trench was intended to protect it from being damaged by the cattle grazing in the park. Listening carefully as the slight sound which had disturbed him grew fainter, he recognized in it the rustling of women's dresses. A few paces ahead, the trench was crossed by a bridge, closed by a wicked gate, which connected the garden with the park. He passed through the gate, crossed the bridge and, opening a door at the other end, found himself in a summer house thickly covered with creepers and commanding a full view of the garden from end to end. He looked and saw the figures of two ladies walking slowly away from him toward the cottage. The shorter of the two failed to occupy his attention for an instant. He never stopped to think whether she was or was not the major's daughter. His eyes were riveted on the other figure, the figure that moved over the garden walk with the long, lightly falling dress and the easy seductive grace. There, presented exactly as he had seen her once already, there with her back again turned on him, was the woman at the pool. There was a chance that they might take another turn in the garden, a turn back toward the summer house. On that chance midwinter waited. No consciousness of the intrusion that he was committing had stopped him at the door of the summer house and no consciousness of it troubled him even now. Every finer sensibility in his nature, sinking under the cruel laceration of the past night, had ceased to feel. The dark resolution to do what he had come to do was the one animating influence left alive in him. He acted, he even looked, as the most dulled man living might have acted and looked in his place. He was self-possessed enough in the interval of expectation before governess and pupil reached the end of the walk to open Mr. Brock's letter and to fortify his memory by a last look at the paragraph which described her face. He was still absorbed over the description when he heard the smooth rustle of the dresses traveling toward him again. Standing in the shadow of the summer house, he waited while she lessened the distance between them. With her written portrait vividly impressed on his mind and with the clear light of the morning to help him, his eyes questioned her as she came on and these were the answers that her face gave him back. The hair in the rector's description was light brown and not plentiful. This woman's hair, superbly luxuriant in its growth, was of the one unpardonably remarkable shade of color which the prejudice of the northern nations never entirely forgives. It was red. The forehead in the rector's description was high, narrow, and sloping backward from the brow. The eyebrows were faintly marked and the eyes small and in color either gray or hazel. This woman's forehead was low, upright, and brood toward the temples. Her eyebrows, at once strongly and delicately marked, were a shade darker than her hair. Her eyes, large, bright, and well opened, were of that purely blue color, without a tinge in it of gray or green, so often presented to her admiration in pictures and books, so rarely met with in the living face. The nose in the rector's description was aquiline. The line of this woman's nose bent neither outward nor inward. It was the straight, delicately molded nose with the short upper lip beneath of the ancient statues and busts. The lips in the rector's description were thin and the upper lip long. The complexion was of a dull, sickly painless. The chin retreating and the mark of a mole or scar on the left side of it. This woman's lips were full, rich, and sensual. Her complexion was the lovely complexion which accompanies such hair as hers, so delicately bright in its rosier tints, so warmly and softly white in its gentler gradations of color on the forehead and the neck. Her chin, round and dimpled, was pure of the slightest blemish in every part of it and perfectly in line with her forehead to the end. Nearer and nearer and fairer and fairer she came in the glow of the morning light, the most startling, the most unanswerable contradiction that I could see or mine conceive to the description in the rector's letter. Both governess and pupil were close to the summer house before they looked that way and noticed midwinter standing inside. The governess saw him first. A friend of yours, Miss Mirroy, she asked quietly without starting or betraying any sign of surprise, nearly recognized him instantly. Prejudice against midwinter by his conduct when his friend had introduced him at the cottage, she now fairly detested him as the unlucky first cause of her misunderstanding with Allyn at the picnic. Her face flushed and she drew back from the summer house with an expression of merciless surprise. He is a friend of Mr. Armadeles, she replied sharply. I don't know what he wants or why he's here. A friend of Mr. Armadeles, the governess's face lighted up with a suddenly roused interest as she repeated the words. She returned midwinter's look, still steadily fixed on her, with equal steadiness on her side. For my part, pursued nearly, resenting midwinter's insensibility to her presence on the scene, I think it a great liberty to treat Papa's garden as if it were the open park. The governess turned round and gently interposed. My dear Miss Mirroy, she remonstrated, there are certain distinctions to be observed. These gentlemen is a friend of Mr. Armadeles. You could hardly express yourself more strongly if he was a perfect stranger. I expressed my opinion, retorted neely, chaffing under the satirically indulgent tone in which the governess addressed her. It's a matter of taste, Miss Gueld, and taste stiffer. She turned away petulantly and walked back by herself to the cottage. She is very young, said Miss Gueld, appealing with a smile to midwinter's forbearance. And, as you must see for yourself, sir, she is a spoiled child. She passed, showed for an instant only her surprise at midwinter's strange silence and strange persistency in keeping his eyes still fixed on her, then set herself with a charming grace and readiness to help him out of the false position in which he stood. As you have extended your walk thus far, she resumed, perhaps you will kindly favor me on your return by taking a message to your friend. Mr. Armadeles has been so good as to invite me to see the Thorpe Ambrose Gardens this morning. Will you say that Major Milroy permits me to accept the invitation in company with Miss Milroy between 10 and 11 o'clock? For a moment her eyes rested with a renewed look of interest on midwinter's face. She waited, still in vain, for an answering word from him, smiled as if his extraordinary silence amused rather than angered her and followed her pupil back to the cottage. It was only when the last strays of her had disappeared that midwinter roused himself and attempted to realize the position in which he stood. The revelation of her beauty was in no respect answerable for the breathless astonishment which had held him spellbound up to this moment. The one clear impression she had produced on him thus far began and ended with his discovery of the astounding contradiction that her face offered in one feature after another, to the description in Mr. Brock's letter. All beyond this was vague and misty, the dim consciousness of a tall, elegant woman and of kind words modestly and gracefully spoken to him and nothing more. He advanced a few steps into the garden without knowing why, stopped, cleansing hither and thither like a man lost, recognized the summer house by an effort, as if years had elapsed since he had seen it, and made his way out again at last into the park. Even here he wandered first in one direction, then in another. His mind was still reeling under the shock that had fallen on it. His perceptions were all confused. Something kept him mechanically in action, walking eagerly without a motive, walking in unit wear. A far less sensitively organized man might have been overwhelmed, as he was overwhelmed now, by the immense, the instantaneous revulsion of feeling which the event of the last few minutes had rode in his mind. At the memorable instant when he had opened the door of the summer house, no confusing influence troubled his faculties. In all that related to his position toward his friend, he had reached an absolutely definite conclusion by an absolutely definite process of thought. The whole strength of the motive which had driven him into the resolution to part from Alan, rooted itself in the belief that he had seen at Hermia the fatal fulfillment of the first vision of the dream. And this belief, in its turn, rested necessarily on the conviction that the woman who was the one survivor of the tragedy in Madeira, must be also inevitably the woman whom he had seen standing in the shadows place and the poor. Firm in that persuasion, he had himself compared the object of his distrust and of the Rector's distrust with the description written by the Rector himself. A description carefully mined by a man entirely trustworthy, and his own eyes had informed him that the woman whom he had seen at the Mere, and the woman whom Mr. Brock had identified in London, were not one, but two. In the place of the dream shadow there had stood, on the evidence of the Rector's letter, not the instrument of the fatality, but a stranger. No such doubts as might have troubled a less superstitious man were started in his mind by the discovery that had now opened on him. It never occurred to him to ask himself whether a stranger might not be the appointed instrument of the fatality, now when the letter had persuaded him that a stranger had been revealed as the figure in the dream landscape. No such idea entered or could enter his mind. The one woman whom his superstition dreaded was the woman who had entwined herself with the lives of the two Armaday's in the first generation, and with the fortunes of the two Armaday's in the second, who was at once the marked object of his father's deathbed warning, and the first cause of the fatmini calamities which had opened Alan's way to the Thorpe Ambrose estate, the woman, in a word, whom he would have known instinctively, but for Mr. Brock's letter, to be the woman whom he had now actually seen. Looking at events as they had just happened, under the influence of the misapprehension into which the Rector had innocently misled him, his mind saw and seized its new conclusion instantaneously, acting precisely as it had acted in the pastime of his interview with Mr. Brock at the Isle of Man. Exactly as he had once declared it to be an all-sufficient refutation of the idea of the fatality that he had never met with the temperature in any of his voyages at sea, so he now seized on the similarly derived conclusion that the whole claim of the dream to a supernatural origin stood self-refuted by the disclosure of a stranger in the shadows place. Once started from this point, once encouraged to let his love for Alan influence him undividedly again, his mind hurried along the whole resulting chain of thought at lightning speed. If the dream was proved to be no longer a warning from the other world, it followed inevitably that accident and not fate had led the way to the night on the wreck, and that all the events which had happened since Alan and he had parted from Mr. Brock were events in themselves harmless, which his superstition had distorted from their proper shape. In less than a moment his mobile imagination had taken him back to the morning at Castletown when he had revealed to the Rector the secret of his name. When he had declared to the Rector, with his father's letter before his eyes, the better faith that was in him. Now once more he felt his heart holding firmly by the bond of brotherhood between Alan and himself. Now once more he could say with the eager sincerity of the old time, if the thought of leaving him breaks my heart, the thought of leaving him is wrong. As that nobler conviction possessed itself again of his mind, quieting the tumult, clearing the confusion within him, the house at Thorpe Ambrose, with Alan on the steps, waiting, looking for him, opened on his eyes through the trees. A sense of illimitable relief lifted his eager spirit high above the cares and doubts and fears that had oppressed it so long, and showed him once more the better and brighter future of his early dreams. His eyes filled with tears and he pressed the Rector's letter in his wild, passionate way to his lips as he looked at Alan through the vista of the trees. But for this small soul of paper, he thought, my life might have been one long sorrow to me and my father's crime might have parted us forever. Such was the result of the stratagem which had shown the housemaid's face to Mr. Brock as the face of Miss Gueld. And so, by shaking Midwinter's trust in his own superstition, in the one case in which that superstition pointed to the truth, did Mother Aldershawe's cunning triumph over difficulties and dangers which had never been contemplated by Mother Aldershawe herself. End of chapter, recording by Nadine Cadbure.