"Armadale himself drove me to it the first time," she said.
"Manuel drove me to it the second time.--You cowardly scoundrel!
shall I let _you_ drive me to it for the third time, and the last?"She turned from the window, and looked thoughtfully at her widow's dress in the glass.
The hours of the day passed--and she decided nothing. The night came--and she hesitated still. The new morning dawned--and the terrible question was still unanswered.
By the early post there came a letter for her. It was Mr.
Bashwood's usual report. Again he had watched for Allan's arrival, and again in vain.
"I'll have more time!" she determined, passionately. "No man alive shall hurry me faster than I like!"At breakfast that morning (the morning of the 9th) the doctor was surprised in his study by a visit from Miss Gwilt.
"I want another day," she said, the moment the servant had closed the door on her.
The doctor looked at her before he answered, and saw the danger of driving her to extremities plainly expressed in her face.
"The time is getting on," he remonstrated, in his most persuasive manner. "For all we know to the contrary, Mr. Armadale may be here to-night.""I want another day!" she repeated, loudly and passionately.
"Granted!" said the doctor, looking nervously toward the door.
"Don't be too loud--the servants may hear you. Mind!" he added, "I depend on your honor not to press me for any further delay.""You had better depend on my despair," she said, and left him.
The doctor chipped the shell of his egg, and laughed softly.
"Quite right, my dear!" he thought. "I remember where your despair led you in past times; and I think I may trust it to lead you the same way now."At a quarter to eight o'clock that night Mr. Bashwood took up his post of observation, as usual, on the platform of the terminus at London Bridge. He was in the highest good spirits; he smiled and smirked in irrepressible exultation. The sense that he held in reserve a means of influence over Miss Gwilt, in virtue of his knowledge of her past career, had had no share in effecting the transformation that now appeared in him. It had upheld his courage in his forlorn life at Thorpe Ambrose, and it had given him that increased confidence of manner which Miss Gwilt herself had noticed; but, from the moment when he had regained his old place in her favor, it had vanished as a motive power in him, annihilated by the electric shock of her touch and her look. His vanity--the vanity which in men at his age is only despair in disguise--had now lifted him to the seventh heaven of fatuous happiness once more. He believed in her again as he believed in the smart new winter overcoat that he wore--as he believed in the dainty little cane (appropriate to the dawning dandyism of lads in their teens) that he flourished in his hand. He hummed! The worn-out old creature, who had not sung since his childhood, hummed, as he paced the platform, the few fragments he could remember of a worn-out old song.
The train was due as early as eight o'clock that night. At five minutes past the hour the whistle sounded. In less than five minutes more the passengers were getting out on the platform.
Following the instructions that had been given to him, Mr.
Bashwood made his way, as well as the crowd would let him, along the line of carriages, and, discovering no familiar face on that first investigation, joined the passengers for a second search among them in the custom-house waiting-room next.
He had looked round the room, and had satisfied himself that the persons occupying it were all strangers, when he heard a voice behind him, exclaiming: "Can that be Mr. Bashwood!" He turned in eager expectation, and found himself face to face with the last man under heaven whom he had expected to see.
The man was MIDWINTER.
