ARMADALE.

BY WILKIE COLLINS, AUTHOR OF "NO NAME," "THE WOMAN IN WHITE," ETC.

The inquiry about Allan, though it would naturally have suggested itself to any one in Mid-head. His eyes glared as if he had suddenly winter's position at that moment, added to Mr. Bashwood's confusion. Not knowing how else to extricate himself from the critical position in which he was placed he took refuge in simple denial.

"I know nothing about Mr. Armadale-oh | dear, no, Sir, I know nothing about Mr. Armadale," he answered, with needless eagerness and hurry. "Welcome back to England, Sir," he | went on, changing the subject in his nervously talkative manner. "I didn't know you had been abroad. It's so long since we have had the pleasure-since I have had the pleasure-ter's face. The name in which he had secretly Have you enjoyed yourself, Sir, in foreign parts? Such different manners from oursyes, yes, yes-such different manners from ours! Do you make a long stay in England, now you have come back?"

"No, Sir-on my word of honor, on my sacred word of honor, you are mistaken-you are indeed! I said Mr. Armadale-how could I say any thing else? Please to let me go, SirI'm pressed for time. I do assure you I'm dreadfully pressed for time!"

For a moment longer Midwinter maintained his hold, and in that moment he decided what to do.

of the platform. In an instant Midwinter had crossed, and had passed through the long row of vehicles, so as to skirt it on the side farthest from the platform. He entered the second cab by the left-hand door the moment after Mr. Bashwood had entered the first cab by the righthand door. "Double your fare, whatever it is," he said to the driver, "if you keep the cab before you in view, and follow it wherever it goes." In a minute more both vehicles were on their way out of the station.

The clerk sat in his sentry-box at the gate, taking down the destinations of the cabs as they passed. Midwinter heard the man who was driving him call out "Hampstead!" as he went by the clerk's window.

"Why did you say 'Hampstead?" he asked, when they had left the station. "Because the man before me said 'Hampstead,' Sir," answered the driver.

Over and over again, on the wearisome journey to the northwestern suburb, Midwinter asked if the cab was still in sight. Over and over again the man answered, "Right in front of us."

It was between nine and ten o'clock when the driver pulled up his horses at last. Midwinter got out and saw the cab before them waiting at a house-door. As soon as he had satisfied himself that the driver was the man whom Mr.

He had accurately stated his motive for returning to England as proceeding from anxiety about his wife-anxiety naturally caused (after the regular receipt of a letter from her every other, or every third day) by the sudden cessation of the correspondence between them on her side for a whole week. The first vaguely-terrible suspicion of some other reason for her silence than the reason of accident or of illness, to which he had hitherto attributed it, had struck through him like a sudden chill the instant he heard the steward associate the name of 66 Mrs. Armadale" with the idea of his wife. Little irregularities in her correspondence with him, which he had thus far only thought strange, now came back on his mind and proclaimed themselves to be suspicious as well. He had hitherto believed the reasons she had given for referring him, when he answered her letters, to no more definite address than an address at a post-office. Now he suspected her reasons of being excuses for the first time. He had hith-Bashwood had hired he paid the promised reerto resolved, on reaching London, to inquire at the only place he knew of at which a clew to her could be found-the address she had given him as the address at which "her mother" lived. Now (with a motive which he was afraid to define even to himself, but which was strong enough to overbear every other consideration in his mind), he determined, before all things, to solve the mystery of Mr. Bashwood's familiarity with a secret, which was a marriage-secret between himself and his wife. Any direct appeal to a man of the steward's disposition, in the steward's present state of mind, would be evidently useless. The weapon of deception was, in this case, a weapon literally forced into Midwinter's hands. He let go of Mr. Bashwood's arm and accepted Mr. Bashwood's explanation.

"I beg your pardon," he said, "I have no doubt you are right. Pray attribute my rudeness to over-anxiety and over-fatigue. I wish you good-evening."

But

The station was by this time almost a solitude; the passengers by the train being assembled at the examination of their luggage in the custom-house waiting-room. It was no easy matter ostensibly to take leave of Mr. Bashwood and really to keep him in view. Midwinter's early life with his gipsy master had been of a nature to practice him in such stratagems as he was now compelled to adopt. He walked away toward the waiting-room by the line of empty carriages, opened the door of one of them as if to look after something that he had left behind, and detected Mr. Bashwood making for the cab-rank on the opposite side

ward and dismissed his own cab.

He took a turn backward and forward before the door. The vaguely terrible suspicion which had risen in his mind at the terminus had forced itself by this time into a definite form which was abhorrent to him. Without the shadow of an assignable reason for it he found himself blindly distrusting his wife's fidelity, and blindly suspecting Mr. Bashwood of serving her in the capacity of gobetween. In sheer horror of his own morbid fancy he determined to take down the number of the house and the name of the street in which it stood; and then, in justice to his wife, to return at once to the address which she had given him as the address at which her mother lived. He had taken out his pocketbook, and was on his way to the corner of the street, when he observed the man who had driven Mr. Bashwood looking at him with an expression of inquisitive surprise. The idea of questioning the cab-driver while he had the opportunity instantly occurred to him. He took a half-crown from his pocket and put it into the man's ready hand.

"Has the gentleman whom you drove from the station gone into that house ?" he asked. "Yes, Sir."

"Did you hear him inquire for any body when the door was opened?"

"He asked for a lady, Sir-Mrs.-" The man hesitated. "It wasn't a common name, Sir; I should know it again if I heard it." "Was it Midwinter?"" "No, Sir." "Armadale ?'"

"Mrs. Armadale?" suggested the little old near the fire-place, trembling and watching him. lady, with a smile.

"I once did you a service," he said; "and you once told me you were not an ungrateful man. Are you grateful enough to answer me

The girl led the way to the drawing-room | if I ask you something?"

wall of the room, and looked at the woman who | Mr. Bashwood was the only person present who had slept on his bosom, and who had denied him to his face.

noticed that she was overcome. He led her to the opposite end of the room, where there was an easy-chair-leaving the landlady to hand the restoratives to the surgeon as they were wanted. "Are you going to wait here till he recov

Mr. Bashwood stole, panic-stricken, to her side. "Go in there!" he whispered, trying to draw her toward the folding-doors which led into the next room. "For God's sake be quick!ers ?" whispered the steward, looking toward the He'll kill you!"

She put the old man back with her hand. She looked at him with a sudden irradiation of her blank face. She answered him with lips that struggled slowly into a frightful smile.

"Let him kill me," she said.

As the words passed her lips he sprang forward from the wall with a cry that rang through the house. The frenzy of a maddened man flashed at her from his glassy eyes, and clutched at her in his threatening hands. He came on till he was within arm's-length of her, and suddenly stood still. The black flush died out of his face in the instant when he stopped. His eyelids fell, his outstretched hands wavered and sank helpless. He dropped as the dead drop. He lay as the dead lie, in the arms of the wife who had denied him.

sofa, and trembling as he looked.

The question roused her to a sense of her position-to a knowledge of the merciless necessities which that position now forced her to confront. With a heavy sigh she looked toward the sofa, considered with herself for a moment, and answered Mr. Bashwood's inquiry by a question on her side.

"Is the cab that brought you here from the railway still at the door?" "Yes."

"Drive at once to the gates of the Sanatorium, and wait there till I join you."

Mr. Bashwood hesitated. She lifted her eyes to his, and, with a look, sent him out of the room.

"The gentleman is coming to, ma'am," said the landlady, as the steward closed the door. "He has just breathed again."

She bowed in mute reply, rose, and considered with herself once more-looked toward the sofa for the second time-then passed through the folding-doors into her own room.

She knelt on the floor and rested his head on her knee. She caught the arm of the steward hurrying to help her with a hand that closed round it like a vice. "Go for a doctor," she said, "and keep the people of the house away till he comes." There was that in her eye, After a short lapse of time the surgeon drew there was that in her voice which would have back from the sofa, and motioned to the landwarned any man living to obey her in silence. | lady to stand aside. The bodily recovery of the In silence Mr. Bashwood submitted, and hur-patient was assured. There was nothing to be ried out of the room. done now but to wait, and let his mind slowly recall its sense of what had happened.

"Where is she?" were the first words he said to the surgeon and the landlady anxiously watch

The instant she was alone she raised him from her knee. With both arms clasped round him the miserable woman lifted his lifeless face to hers, and rocked him on her bosom in aning him. agony of tenderness beyond all relief in tears, in a passion of remorse beyond all expression in words. In silence she held him to her breast; in silence she devoured his forehead, his cheeks, his lips with kisses. Not a sound escaped her till she heard the trampling footsteps outside hurrying up the stairs. Then a low moan burst from her lips as she looked her last at him, and lowered his head again to her knee, before the strangers came in.

The landlady knocked at the folding-doors, and received no answer. She went in, and found the room empty. A sheet of note-paper was on the dressing-table, with the doctor's fee placed on it. The paper contained these lines, evidently written in great agitation or in great haste: "It is impossible for me to remain here to-night after what has happened. I will return to-morrow to take away my luggage, and to pay what I owe you."

"Where is she?" Midwinter asked again, when the landlady returned alone to the drawing-room.

"Gone, Sir."

"I don't believe it!"

The landlady and the steward were the first persons whom she saw when the door was opened. The medical man (a surgeon living in the street) followed. The horror and the beauty of her face as she looked up at him absorbed the surgeon's attention for the moment, to the exclusion of every thing else. She had to beckon to him, she had to point to the senseless man, before she could claim his attention for his pa-lieve that?" tient and divert it from herself.

"Is he dead?" she asked.

The surgeon carried Midwinter to the sofa, and ordered the windows to be opened. "It is a fainting fit," he said; "nothing more."

At that answer her strength failed her for the first time. She drew a deep breath of relief, and leaned on the chimney-piece for support.

The old lady's color rose. "If you know her handwriting, Sir," she answered, handing him the sheet of note-paper, "perhaps you may be

He looked at the paper. "I beg your pardon, ma'am," he said, as he handed it back. "I beg your pardon, with all my heart."

There was something in his face as he spoke those words which more than soothed the old lady's irritation-it touched her with a sudden pity for the man who had offended her. "I am afraid there is some dreadful trouble, Sir, at the

"Think what you like of me,” she said, keep-carved wood, curiously out of harmony, as an ing her thick black veil down over her face, "but don't speak to me to-night. Drive back to your hotel as if nothing had happened. Meet the tidal train to-morrow as usual, and come to me afterward at the Sanatorium. Go without a word, and I shall believe there is one man in the world who really loves me. Stay and ask questions, and I shall bid you good-by at once and forever!"

object, with the unornamented utilitarian aspect of the place generally. On either side of the cabinet two speaking-tubes were inserted in the wall, communicating with the upper regions of the house, and labeled respectively, "Resident Dispenser," and "Head Nurse." Into the second of these tubes the doctor spoke on entering the room. An elderly woman appeared, took her orders for preparing Mrs. Armadale's bedchamber, courtesied, and retired.

Left alone again in the Dispensary, the doctor unlocked the centre compartment of the She opened the iron gate and walked slowly cabinet, and disclosed a collection of bottles in