A letter from Armadale to Midwinter, which Midwinter has just sent in to me. Here it is:
"'DEAR MID--I am too busy to come to-day. Get on with your work, for Heaven's sake! The new sailing-master is a man of ten thousand. He has got an Englishman whom he knows to serve as mate on board already; and he is positively certain of getting the crew together in three or four days' time. I am dying for a whiff of the sea, and so are you, or you are no sailor. The rigging is set up, the stores are coming on board, and we shall bend the sails to-morrow or next day. I never was in such spirits in my life. Remember me to your wife, and tell her she will be doing me a favor if she will come at once, and order everything she wants in the lady's cabin. Yours affectionately, A. A.'
"Under this was written, in Midwinter's hand: 'Remember what I told you. Write (it will break it to him more gently in that way), and beg him to accept your apologies, and to excuse you from sailing on the trial cruise.'
"I have written without a moment's loss of time. The sooner Manuel knows (which he is certain to do through Armadale) that the promise not to sail in the yacht is performed already, so far as I am concerned, the safer I shall feel.
"October 27th.--A letter from Armadale, in answer to mine. He is full of ceremonio us regrets at the loss of my company on the cruise; and he politely hopes that Midwinter may yet induce me to alter my mind. Wait a little, till he finds that Midwinter won't sail with him either!....
"October 30th.--Nothing new to record until to-day. To-day the change in our lives here has come at last!
"Armadale presented himself this morning, in his noisiest high spirits, to announce that the yacht was ready for sea, and to ask when Midwinter would be able to go on board. I told him to make the inquiry himself in Midwinter's room. He left me, with a last request that I would consider my refusal to sail with him. I answered by a last apology for persisting in my resolution, and then took a chair alone at the window to wait the event of the interview in the next room.
"My whole future depended now on what passed between Midwinter and his friend! Everything had gone smoothly up to this time. The one danger to dread was the danger of Midwinter's resolution, or rather of Midwinter's fatalism, giving way at the last moment. If he allowed himself to be persuaded into accompanying Armadale on the cruise, Manuel's exasperation against me would hesitate at nothing--he would remember that I had answered to him for Armadale's sailing from Naples alone; and he would be capable of exposing my whole past life to Midwinter before the vessel left the port. As I thought of this, and as the slow minutes followed each other, and nothing reached my ears but the hum of voices in the next room, my suspense became almost unendurable. It was vain to try and fix my attention on what was going on in the street. I sat looking mechanically out of the window, and seeing nothing.
"Suddenly--I can't say in how long or how short a time--the hum of voices ceased; the door opened; and Armadale showed himself on 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 words that saved me from Manuel--the words that might be Armadale's sentence of death--had been spoken. The yacht was to sail without Midwinter, as well as without me!
"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 hands. 'I must get over it by myself.'
"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. I 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 on 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 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. I forgot Midwinter, and thought of Armadale and his yacht. There wasn't a breath of wind; there wasn't a cloud in the sky; the wide waters of the Bay were as smooth as the surface of a glass.
"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.
"He went in again; and, after an interval, came out once more, and held up his hand as before to the air. This time he waited, leaning on the balcony rail, and looking out steadily, with all his attention absorbed by the sea.
"For a long, long time he never moved. Then, on a sudden, I saw him start. The next moment he sank on his knees, with his clasped hands resting on the balcony rail. 'God Almighty bless and keep you, Allan!' he said, fervently. 'Good-by, forever!'
"I looked out to the sea. A soft, steady breeze was blowing, and the rippled surface of the water was sparkling in the quiet moonlight. I looked again, and there passed slowly, between me and the track of the moon, a long black vessel with tall, shadowy, ghostlike sails, gliding smooth and noiseless through the water, like a snake.
"The wind had come fair with the night; and Armadale's yacht had sailed on the trial cruise.
CHAPTER III.
THE DIARY BROKEN OFF.
"London, November 19th.--I am alone again in the Great City; alone, for the first time since our marriage. Nearly a week since I started on my homeward journey, leaving Midwinter behind me at Turin.
"The days have been so full of events since the month began, and I have been so harassed, in mind and body both, for the greater part of the time, that my Diary has been wretchedly neglected. A few notes, written in such hurry and confusion that I can hardly understand them myself, are all that I possess to remind me of what has happened since the night when Armadale's yacht left Naples. Let me try if I can set this right without more loss or time; let me try if I can recall the circumstances in their order as they have followed each other from the beginning of the month.
"On the 3d of November--being then still at Naples--Midwinter received a hurried letter from Armadale, date 'Messina.' 'The weather,' he said, 'had been lovely, and the yacht had made one of the quickest passages on record. The crew were rather a rough set to look at; but Captain Manuel and his English mate' (the latter described as 'the best of good fellows') 'managed them admirably.' After this prosperous beginning, Armadale had arranged, as a matter of course, to prolong the cruise; and, at the sailing-master's suggestion, he had decided to visit some of the ports in the Adriatic, which the captain had described as full of character, and well worth seeing.