"Suddenly I can't say in how long or how there wasn't a cloud in the sky-and the wide short a time-the hum of voices ceased; the waters of the Bay were as smooth as the surface door opened; and Armadale showed himself on of a glass. the threshold, alone. "I wish you good-by,' he said, roughly. And I hope, when I am married, my wife may never cause Midwinter the disappointment that Midwinter's wife has caused me!' "He gave me an angry look, and made me an angry bow-and, turning sharply, left the room. "I saw the people in the street again! I saw the calm sea, and the masts of the shipping in the harbor where the yacht lay! I could think, I could breathe freely once more! The few words that saved me from Manuel-the words that might be Armadale's sentence of deathhad been spoken. The yacht was to sail without Midwinter, as well as without ME! "The sun sank; the short twilight came and went. I had some tea, and sat at the table thinking and dreaming over it. When I roused myself and went back to the window, the moon was up-but the quiet sea was as quiet as ever. "I was still looking out, when I saw Midwinter in the street below, coming back. I was composed enough by this time to remember his habits, and to guess that he had been trying to relieve the oppression on his mind by one of his long solitary walks. When I heard him go into his own room I was too prudent to disturb him again—I waited his pleasure, where I was. "Before long I heard his window opened, and I saw him, from my window, step into the balcony, and, after a look at the sea, hold up his hand to the air. I was too stupid, for the moment, to remember that he had once been a sailor, and to know what this meant. I waited, and wondered what would happen next. "My first feeling of exultation was almost maddening. But it was the feeling of a moment only. My heart sank in me again when I thought of Midwinter alone in the next room. "I went out into the passage to listen, and heard nothing. I tapped gently at his door, and got no answer. I opened the door, and looked in. He was sitting at the table, with his face hidden in his hands. I looked at him in silence—and saw the glistening of the tears as they trickled through his fingers. "Leave me,' he said, without moving his Then, on a sudden, I saw him start. The next hands. I must get over it by myself.' I "I went back into the sitting-room. Who can understand women?-we don't even understand ourselves. His sending me away from him in that manner cut me to the heart. don't believe the most harmless and most gentle woman living could have felt it more acutely than I felt it. And this, after what I have been doing this, after what I was thinking of, the moment before I went into his room! Who can account for it? Nobody-I, least of all! "Half an hour later his door opened, and I heard him hurrying down the stairs. I ran out without waiting to think, and asked if I might go with him. He neither stopped nor answered. I went back to the window, and saw him pass, walking rapidly away, with his back turned on Naples and the sea. "I can understand now that he might not have heard me. At the time I thought him inexcusably and brutally unkind to me. I put on my bonnet in a frenzy of rage with him; I sent out for a carriage, and I told the man to take me where he liked. He took me, as he took other strangers, to the Museum to see the statues and the pictures. I flounced from room to room, with my face in a flame, and the people all staring at me. I came to myself again, I don't know how. I returned to the carriage, and made the man drive me back in a violent hurry, I don't know why. I tossed off my cloak and bonnet, and sat down once more at the window. The sight of the sea cooled me. forgot Midwinter, and thought of Armadale and his yacht. There wasn't a breath of wind; I "He went in again; and, after an interval, moment he sank on his knees with his clasped "I looked out to the sea. A soft steady "The wind had come fair with the night; and the yacht had sailed on the trial cruise. CHAPTER III. THE DIARY ENDED. "London, November 19th.-I am alone again in the Great City; alone, for the first time, since our marriage. Nearly a week since I started on my homeward journey, leaving Midwinter behind me at Turin. "The days have been so full of events since the month began, and I have been so harassed, in mind and body both, for the greater part of the time, that my Diary has been wretchedly neglected. A few notes, written in such hurry and confusion that I can hardly understand them myself, are all that I possess to remind me of what has happened since the night when Armadale's yacht left Naples. Let me try if I can set this right without more loss of time-let me try if I can recall the circumstances in their | His instructions were inclosed in the letter; order as they have followed each other from the and he was requested to lose no time in leaving beginning of the month. Naples for his new post. "On the second of November-being then still at Naples-Midwinter received a hurried letter from Armadale, dated 'Messina.' 'The weather,' he said, 'had been lovely, and the yacht had made one of the quickest passages on record. The crew were rather a rough set to look at; but Captain Manuel and his English mate' (the latter described as 'the best of good fellows') 'managed them admirably.' After this prosperous beginning Armadale had arranged, as a matter of course, to prolong the cruise; and, at the sailing-master's suggestion, he had decided to visit some of the ports in the Adriatic, which the captain had described as full of character, and well worth seeing. "A postscript followed, explaining that Armadale had written in a hurry to catch the steamer to Naples, and that he had opened his letter again, before sending it off, to add something that he had forgotten. On the day be fore the yacht sailed he had been at the banker's to get a few hundreds in gold,' and he believed he had left his cigar-case there. It was an old friend of his, and he begged that Midwinter would oblige him by endeavoring to recover it, and keeping it for him till they met again. "This was the substance of the letter. "I thought over it carefully when Midwinter had left me alone again after reading it. My idea was then (and is still) that Manuel had not persuaded Armadale to cruise in a sea like the Adriatic, so much less frequented by ships than the Mediterranean, for nothing. The terms, too, in which the trifling loss of the cigar-case was mentioned, struck me as being equally suggestive of what was coming. I concluded that Armadale's circular notes had not been transformed into those few hundreds in gold' through any forethought or business-knowledge of his own. Manuel's influence, I suspected, had been exerted in this matter also-and once more not without reason. At intervals, through the wakeful night, these considerations came back again and again to me; and time after time they pointed obstinately (so far as my next movements were concerned) in one and the same way-the way back to England. "How to get there, and especially how to get there unaccompanied by Midwinter, was more than I had wit enough to discover that night. I tried and tried to meet the difficulty, and fell asleep exhausted toward the morning without having met it. "Some hours later, as soon as I was dressed, Midwinter came in with news received by that morning's post from his employers in London. The proprietors of the newspaper had received from the editor so favorable a report of his correspondence from Naples, that they had determined on advancing him to a place of greater responsibility and greater emolument at Turin. "On hearing this I relieved his mind, before he could put the question, of all anxiety about my willingness to remove. Turin had the great attraction, in my eyes, of being on the road to England. I assured him at once that I was ready to travel as soon as he pleased. "He thanked me for suiting myself to his plans, with more of his old gentleness and kindness than I had seen in him for some time past. The good news from Armadale on the previous day seemed to have raised him a little from the dull despair in which he had been sunk since the sailing of the yacht. And now, the prospect of advancement in his profession, and, more than that, the prospect of leaving the fatal place in which the third Vision of the Dream had come true, had (as he owned himself) additionally cheered and relieved him. He asked, before he went away to make the arrangements for our journey, whether I expected to hear from my 'family' in England, and whether he should give instructions for the forwarding of my letters with his own to the poste restante at Turin. I instantly thanked him and accepted the offer. His proposal had suggested to me, the moment he made it, that my fictitious family circumstances' might be turned to good account once more as a reason for unexpectedly summoning me from Italy to England. "On the eighth of the month we were installed at Turin. "On the 14th, Midwinter-being then very busy-asked if I would save him a loss of time by applying at the poste restante for any letters which might have followed us from Naples. I had been waiting for the opportunity he now offered me; and I determined to snatch at it without allowing myself time to hesitate. There were no letters at the poste restante for either of us. But when he put the question on my return, I told him that there had been a letter for me with alarming news from 'home.' My mother' was dangerously ill; and I was entreated to lose no time in hurrying back to England to see her. "It seems quite unaccountable-now that I am away from him-but it is none the less true that I could not, even yet, tell him a downright premeditated falsehood without a sense of shrinking and shame, which other people would think, and which I think myself, utterly inconsistent with such a character as mine. Inconsistent or not I felt it. And what is stranger-perhaps, I ought to say, madder-still, if he had persisted in his first resolution to accompany me himself to England, rather than allow me to travel alone, I firmly believe I should have turned my back on temptation for the second time, and have lulled myself to rest once more in the old dream of living out my life happy and harmless in my husband's love. "Am I deceiving myself in this? It doesn't matter-I dare say I am. Never mind what might have happened. What did happen is the | ple, when I went in to make inquiries, were all only thing of any importance now. strangers to me. They showed, however, no "It ended in Midwinter's letting me persuade hesitation in giving me Mrs. Oldershaw's adhim that I was old enough to take care of my-dress when I asked for it-from which I infer self on the journey to England, and that he owed that the little difficulty' which forced her to be it to the newspaper people, who had trusted their in hiding in August last is at an end, so far as interests in his hands, not to leave Turin just as she is concerned. As for the doctor the people he was established there. He didn't suffer at at the shop either were, or pretended to be, quite taking leave of me as he suffered when he saw unable to tell me what had become of him. the last of his friend. I saw that, and set down the anxiety he expressed that I should write to him at its proper value. I have quite got over my weakness for him at last. No man who really loved me would have put what he owed to a pack of newspaper people before what he owed to his wife. I hate him for letting me convince him! I believe he was glad to get rid of me. I believe he has seen some woman whom he likes at Turin. Well, let him follow his new fancy, if he pleases! I shall be the widow of Mr. Armadale of Thorpe-Ambrose before long-and what will his likes or dislikes matter to me then? "The events on the journey were not worth mentioning, and my arrival in London stands recorded already on the top of the new page. "As for to-day, the one thing of any importance that I have done, since I got to the cheap and quiet hotel at which I am now staying, was to send for the landlord and ask him to help me to a sight of the back numbers of the Times newspaper. He has politely offered to accompany me himself to-morrow morning to some place in the City where all the papers are kept, as he calls it, in file. Till to-morrow, then, I must control my impatience for news of Armadale as well as I can. And so good-night to the pretty reflection of myself that appears in these pages! "November 20th.-Not a word of news yet either in the obituary column or in any other part of the paper. I looked carefully through each number in succession, dating from the day when Armadale's letter was written at Messina, to this present 20th of the month-and I am certain, whatever may have happened, that nothing is known in England as yet. Patience! The newspaper is to meet me at the breakfasttable every morning till further notice-and any day now may show me what I most want to see. "I don't know whether it was the sight of the place at Pimlico that sickened me, or whether it was my own perversity, or what. But now that I had got Mrs. Oldershaw's address, I felt as if she was the very last person in the world that I wanted to see. I took a cab and told the man to drive to the street she lived in, and then told him to drive the other way. We passed a piano-forte-maker's. I went in and talked to the man, and got permission to try his instruments, and played myself into a more reasonable state of mind, and went back to the hotel. I hardly know what is the matter with me-unless it is that I am getting more impatient every hour for information about Armadale. When will the future look a little less dark, I wonder? To-morrow is Saturday. Will to-morrow's newspaper lift the veil? "November 22d.-Saturday's newspaper has lifted the veil! Words are vain to express the panic of astonishment in which I write. I never once anticipated it-I can't believe it or realize it now it has happened. The winds and waves themselves have turned my accomplices! The yacht has foundered at sea, and every soul on board has perished! "Here is the account cut out of this morning's newspaper: "DISASTER AT SEA.-Intelligence has reached the Royal Yacht Squadron and the insurers, which leaves no reasonable doubt, we regret to say, of the total loss, on the fifth of the present month, of the yacht Dorothea, with every soul on board. The particulars are as follow: At Speranza, bound from Venice to Marsala for orders, endaylight, on the morning of the sixth, the Italian brig countered some floating objects off Cape Spartivento (at the southernmost extremity of Italy) which attracted the curiosity of the people of the brig. The previous day had been marked by one of the most severe of the sudden and violent storms, peculiar to these southern seas, which has been remembered for years. The Speranza herself having been in danger while the gale lasted, the captain and crew concluded that they were on the traces of a wreck, and a boat was lowered for the purpose of examining the objects in the water. A hen-coop, some broken spars, and fragments of shattered plank were the first evidences discovered of the terrible disaster that had happened. of the lighter articles of cabin furniture, wrenched and shattered, were found next. And, lastly, a memento of melancholy interest turned up, in the shape of a life-buoy, with a corked bottle attached to it. These latter objects, with the relics of cabin-furniture, were brought on board the Speranza. On the buoy the name of the vessel was painted as follows: "Dorothea, R.Y.S." (meaning Royal Yacht Squadron). The bottle, on being uncorked, contained a sheet of note-paper, on which the following lines "There were changes since I had seen the were hurriedly traced in pencil: "Off Cape Spartivento; place during my former stay in London. The two days out from Messina. Nov. 5th, 4 P.M." (being the doctor's side of the house was still empty. hour at which the log of the Italian brig showed the storm But to have been at its height). "Both our boats are stove in the shop was being brightened up for the occu- by the sea. The rudder is gone, and we have sprung a pation of a milliner and dress-maker. The peo-leak astern, which is more than we can stop. The Lord "November 21st.-No news again. I wrote to Midwinter to-day to keep up appearances. "When the letter was done I fell into wretchedly low spirits-I can't imagine why-and felt such a longing for a little company, that, in despair of knowing where else to go, I actually went to Pimlico on the chance that Mother Oldershaw might have returned to her old quarters. Some help us all-we are sinking. (Signed) John Mitchenden, Thorpe-Ambrose, if I had really married him. mate." On reaching Marsala the captain of the brig made Name and Surname'-Allan Armadale. Age' his report to the British consul, and left the objects discovered in that gentleman's charge. Inquiry at Messina twenty-one, instead of twenty-two, which might showed that the ill-fated vessel had arrived there from easily pass for a mistake. 'Condition'-BachNaples. At the latter port it was ascertained that the elor. 'Rank or Profession'-Gentleman. 'ResDorothea had been hired from the owner's agent by an idence at the time of Marriage'-Frant's Hotel, English gentleman, Mr. Armadale, of Thorpe-Ambrose, Norfolk. Whether Mr. Armadale had any friends on Darley Street. 'Father's Name and Surname board with him has not been clearly discovered. But-Allan Armadale. 'Rank or Profession of there is unhappily no doubt that the ill-fated gentleman Father'-Gentleman. Every particular (except himself sailed in the yacht from Naples, and that he was the year's difference in their two ages) which also on board of the vessel when she left Mersina.' "Such is the story of the wreck, as the newspaper tells it in the plainest and fewest words. My head is in a whirl; my confusion is so great that I think of fifty different things in trying to think of one. I must wait a day more or less is of no consequence now-I must wait till I can face my new position without feeling bewildered by it. "November 23d, Eight in the Morning.-The night has helped me. I rose an hour ago, and saw my way clearly to the first step that I must take under present circumstances. "It is of the utmost importance to me to know what is doing at Thorpe-Ambrose; and it would be the height of rashness, while I am quite in the dark in this matter, to venture there myself. The only other alternative is to write to somebody on the spot for news; and the only person I can write to is-Bashwood. which I shall not neglect; and I have succeeded in providing myself with the advice and assistance of which I stand in need. "I have just finished the letter. It is headed "Three o'clock.-My prospects have changed 'private and confidential,' and signed 'Lydia again since I made my last entry. I have reArmadale.' There is nothing in it to compro-ceived a warning to be careful in the future, mise me, if the old fool is mortally offended by my treatment of him, and if he spitefully shows my letter to other people. But I don't believe he will do this. A man at his age forgives a "After vainly trying to think of some better woman any thing, if the woman only encourages person to apply to in the difficulty which emhim. I have requested him, as a personal fa- barrassed me, I made a virtue of necessity, and vor, to keep our correspondence for the present set forth to surprise Mrs. Oldershaw by a visit strictly private. I have hinted that my married from her darling Lydia! On the way to the life with my deceased husband has not been a house I carefully considered what I should say, happy one; and that I feel the injudiciousness with a view to getting the help I wanted, of of having married a young man. In the post-course without trusting any secrets of importance script I go farther still and venture boldly on out of my own possession. As the event turned these comforting words-'I can explain, dear out I might have saved myself the trouble of arMr. Bashwood, what may have seemed false and ranging my conversation before I knocked at the deceitful in my conduct toward you, when you door. give me a personal opportunity.' If he was on the right side of sixty I should feel doubtful of results, but he is on the wrong side of sixty, and I believe he will give me my personal opportu-phasis that I had committed the impropriety of nity. "A sour and solemn old maid-servant admitted me into the house. When I asked for her mistress I was reminded with the bitterest em calling on a Sunday. Mrs. Oldershaw was at home, solely in consequence of being too unwell to go to church! The servant thought it very unlikely that she would see me. I thought it "Ten o'clock.-I have been looking over the copy of my marriage-certificate, with which I took care to provide myself on the wedding-highly probable, on the contrary, that she would day; and I have discovered, to my inexpressible dismay, an obstacle to my appearance in the character of Armadale's widow, which I now see for the first time. "That description of Midwinter (under his own name) which the certificate presents, answered in every important particular to what would have been the description of Armadale of honor me with an interview in her own interests if I sent in my name as 'Miss Gwilt'—and the event proved that I was right. After being kept waiting some minutes (during which the old wretch was no doubt composing her conversation beforehand, just like me!) I was shown into the drawing-room. "There sat mother Jezebel, with the air of a woman resting on the high-road to heaven, | same house is what puzzles me," says my hus dressed in a slate-colored gown, with gray mittens on her hands, a severely simple cap on her head, and a volume of sermons on her lap. She turned up the whites of her eyes devoutly at the sight of me, and the first words she said were 'Oh, Lydia! Lydia! why are you not at church?" " TOM LODOWNE. band, doubtfully, sitting at his desk about to write his will. And I hope you are not impatient here; though it is the fashion of these days to commence our stories where the ladies do their dresses-in the middle, for to understand the will you must understand our diffculty, which was in the shape of the property itself-our old homestead, grown up out of the log-cabin in which we settled first, husband and I. We had added on here and there, as we HERE is of a necessity, among a people needed, and there is a history for every bush T constituted like ours, much private-ever-and tree. I have seen the place coming to to what it is like a third child, and as well pall a plant up by the roots as take me out of that middle room, in which I danced my sturdy boys on my knee; while, for them, Jack has settled Dix with his boys in the other half, and either would as cheerfully sign his own death-warrant as a bill of sale. the-breakfast-table, one-man, or-woman-power -discussion of the leading topics of the day; scores of admirable speeches that will never be reported; hosts of telling arguments that will never be heard, even through a People's Col-down with his boys in one half of the house, and umn; and finding myself much in need of advice about the reconstruction of my family, with which I am as busy as Uncle Sam himself, I have been induced to hope that some individual to whom Fate has denied the public car, or button-hole, rather than suffocate will bring his effervescing wisdom to my assistance. To do that, however, you must first understand the conditions of my husband's will. "None of you will sell out, and how will you divide what can't be split?" says my husband, flourishing his pen and staring hard at the Constitution of the United States, framed, and hanging up over his desk (he was a great admirer of the Constitution was my husband); whew, brightening with an idea: "Look here!" said he, suddenly. "If that little piece of paper can keep law and order among millions of families better than it was ever kept before, why won't something like it keep order in ours?" And as wherever my husband saw a nail down came his hammer on it, no sooner said than done. There was the will, bequeathing the middle room to me; and to the boys and their heirs each his own half of the house; and each was to do in his own part what he chosepaint, varnish, scrub, alter, furnish, any thing we liked, unless it interfered or injured some of the rest; but when it came to general repairs and purchases in which the whole house was concerned, and such things These were peculiar; in fact, we are a peculiar family. Since I talk of my husband's will, you see, of course, that I am a widow, and my two boys, Jack and Dix, are alike only in virtue of that family resemblance that may exist between a great rock and a great tree. Dix is our gentleman; Jack is our worker. Living as we do without neighbors, somebody is needed for the carpentering, blacksmithing, and such things, and Jack does it. Is there a fence to be mended?-there is Jack, with saw and hammer; a horse to be shod?—there's Jack again. Does any body want any thing, from a churn to a top?-they go to Jack. If I say, "Fish for dinner," Jack tucks his trowsers into his boots and starts off with his line; and when his father set his heart on a boat Jack never rested till he had made him one-and a trim one it was, too! Always contriving, inventing, experimenting, was Jack; studying in off hours, and reading up; kept open house, he did, in his head, for all new ideas, and was forever trying to see how they would work; and had rough hands, and smelled regularly of tar, paint, oil, chemicals, earth, and fish—except on Sundays. For Dix, what he set store by was an old, worm-eaten chest in our attic, with a tarnished court suit or two, a signet bearing a coat of arms, and a sword. Some old stories we have beside, in the family, of the suits and sword, and a hot temper that, I suppose, got my ever-so-many-times- So there is the will. For the trouble, like great-grandfather into scrapes as readily as it most family troubles, it is hard to say where it does Dix, who wears the signet, looks every began. There was the difference between the inch the grandee in the velvet and embroidery, two boys. Then Jack was amazingly fond of me; and loves the old traditions, and lives by them. Dix did his duty, but he would have liked me Fine boys, both of them! but I hope you see better if I had cared more for the old finery in that it was hardly in reason to be expected that the chest. Speeches were made in one room both would pull at the same idea. and carried to the other. Jack's boys called "And how these two will ever get on in the Dix's boys "Molly Coddles ;" Dix's boys called "It will never do to leave that to you alone. old lady," says my husband, "or you would soon be badgered to death between them; but there is brother Phil and brother Dan. They put up here once a year, you know, when they are driving across country. I have spoken to the boys about it, and Dix he chose Phil, and Jack he's taken Dan; and you three are to decide between you what is for the general good, and the boys have bound themselves to abide by it, and I call that living according to the Constitution, in more senses than one!" says my husband, with his cheery laugh. |