Armadale.

BOOK THE FOURTH.

CHAPTER XIV.

MISS GWILT'S DIARY.

LL Saints' Terrace, New Road, London, July 28th, Monday night. I can hardly hold my head up, I am so tired. But, in my situation, I dare not trust anything to memory. Before I go to bed, I must write my customary record of the events of the day.

"So far, the turn of luck in my favour (it was long enough before it took the turn!) seems likely to continue. I succeeded in forcing Armadale - the brute required nothing short of forcing!-to leave ThorpeAmbrose for London, alone in the same carriage with me, before all the people in the station. There was a full attendance of dealers in small scandal, all staring hard at us, and all evidently drawing their own conclusions. Either I knew nothing of Thorpe-Ambrose-or the towngossip is busy enough by this time with Mr. Armadale and Miss Gwilt.

N.THOMAS.

I had some difficulty with him for the first half-hour after we left the station. The guard (delightful man! I felt so grateful to him!) had shu' us up together in expectation of half-a-crown at the end of the journey Armadale was suspicious of me, and he showed it plainly. Little by little I tamed my wild beast-partly by taking care to display no curiosity about his journey to town, and partly by interesting him on the subject of his friend Midwinter; dwelling especially on the opportunity that now offered itself for a reconciliation between them. I kept harping on this string till I set his tongue going, and made him amuse me as a gentleman is bound

to do when he has the honour of escorting a lady on a long railway journey.

"What little mind he has was full, of course, of his own affairs and Miss Milroy's. No words can express the clumsiness he showed in trying to talk about himself, without taking me into his confidence or mentioning Miss Milroy's name. He was going to London, he gravely informed me, on a matter of indescribable interest to him. It was a secret for the present, but he hoped to tell it me soon; it had made a great difference already in the way in which he looked at the slanders spoken of him in Thorpe-Ambrose; he was too happy to care what the scandal-mongers said of him now, and he should soon stop their mouths by appearing in a new character that would surprise them all. So he blundered on, with the firm persuasion that he was keeping me quite in the dark. It was hard not to laugh, when I thought of my anonymous letter on its way to the major; but I managed to control myself—though, I must own, with some difficulty. As the time wore on, I began to feel a terrible excitement: the position was, I think, a little too much for me. There I was, alone

with him, talking in the most innocent, easy, familiar manner, and having it in my mind all the time, to brush his life out of my way, when the moment comes, as I might brush a stain off my gown. It made my blood leap, and my cheeks flush. I caught myself laughing once or twice much louder than I ought-and long before we got to London I thought it desirable to put my face in hiding by pulling down my veil.

"There was no difficulty, on reaching the terminus, in getting him to come in the cab with me to the hotel where Midwinter is staying. He was all eagerness to be reconciled with his dear friend-principally, I have no doubt, because he wants the dear friend to lend a helping hand to the elopement. The real difficulty lay, of course, with Midwinter. My sudden journey to London had allowed me no opportunity of writing to combat his superstitious conviction that he and his former friend are better apart. I thought it wise to leave Armadale in the cab at the door, and to go into the hotel by myself to pave the way for him.

Fortunately, Midwinter had not gone out. His delight at seeing me some days sooner than he had hoped, had something infectious in it, I suppose. Pooh! I may own the truth to my own diary! There was a moment when I forgot everything in the world but our two selves as completely as he did. I felt as if I was back in my 'teens — until I

remembered the lout in the cab at the door. And then I was five-andthirty again in an instant.

"His face altered when he heard who was below, and what it was I wanted of him-he looked, not angry but distressed. He yielded, however, before long, not to my reasons, for I gave him none, but to my entreaties. His old fondness for his friend might possibly have had some share in persuading him against his will-but my own opinion is that he acted entirely under the influence of his fondness for Me.

I waited in the sitting-room while he went down to the door; so I