servant? Ah! you were always independent -always, if I may say so, a host in yourself! May I call to-morrow morning and hear what you have settled with Mr. Bashwood?' "I said yes, and got away from him at last. In a quarter of an hour more I was back at my lodgings, and was informed by the servant that 'the elderly gentleman' was still waiting for me. "I have not got the heart or the patience I hardly know which-to waste many words on what passed between me and Bashwood. It was so easy, so degradingly easy, to pull the strings of the poor old puppet in any way I pleased! I met none of the difficulties which I should have been obliged to meet in the case of a younger man, or of a man less infatuated with admiration for me. I left the allusions to Miss Milroy in Armadale's letter, which had naturally puzzled him, to be explained at a future time. I never even troubled myself to invent a plausible reason for wishing him to meet Armadale at the terminus, and to entrap him by a stratagem into the doctor's Sanatorium. All that I found it necessary to do was to refer him to what I had written, in the first place, and to what I had afterward said to him when he came to answer my letter personally at the hotel. "You know already, Mr. Bashwood,' I said, 'that my marriage has not been a happy one. Draw your own conclusions from that, and don't press me to tell you whether the news of Mr. Armadale's rescue from the sea is or is not the welcome news that it ought to be to his wife!' That was enough to put his withered old face in a glow, and to set his withered old hopes growing again. I had only to add: 'If you will do what I ask you to do, no matter how incomprehensible and how mysterious my request may seem to be; and if you will accept my assurances that you shall run no risk yourself, and that you shall have the proper explanations at the proper time, you will have such a claim on my gratitude and my regard as no man living has ever had yet!' I had only to say these words, and to point them by a look and a stolen pressure of his hand, and I had him at my feet, blindly eager to obey me. If he could have seen what I thought of myself-but that doesn't matter: he saw nothing. own will and pleasure-if my Diary would only let me. But my idle pen has been busy enough to make its way to the end of the volume. I' have reached the last morsel of space left on the last page; and whether I like it or not, I must close the book this time for good and all when I close it to-night. "Good-by, my old friend and companion of many a miserable day! Having nothing else to be fond of, I half suspect myself of having been unreasonably fond of you. "What a fool I am!" THE END OF THE FIFTH BOOK. BOOK THE LAST. CHAPTER I. AT THE STATION. On the night of the second of December Mr. Bashwood took up his post of observation at the terminus of the South Eastern Railway for the first time. It was an earlier date, by six days, than the date which Allan had himself fixed for his return. But the doctor, taking counsel of his medical experience, had considered it just probable that "Mr. Armadale might be perverse enough, at his enviable age, to recover sooner than his medical advisers might have anticipated." For caution's sake, therefore, Mr. Bashwood was instructed to begin watching the arrival of the tidal trains on the day after he had received his employer's letter. From the second to the seventh of December the steward waited punctually on the platform, saw the trains come in, and satisfied himself, evening after evening, that the travelers were all strangers to him. From the second to the seventh of December Miss Gwilt (to return to the name under which she is best known in these pages) received his daily report, sometimes delivered personally, sometimes sent by letter. The doctor, to whom the reports were communicated, received them in his turn with unabated confidence in the precautions that had been adopted up to the morning of the eighth. On that date the irritation of continued suspense had produced a change for the worse in Miss Gwilt's variable temper, which was perceptible to every one about her, and which, strangely enough, was reflected by an equally marked change in the doctor's manner when he came to pay his usual visit. By a coincidence so remarkable that his enemies might have sus "Hours have passed since I sent him away (pledged to secrecy, possessed of his instructions, and provided with his time-table) to the hotel near the terminus, at which he is to stay till Armadale appears on the railway platform. The excitement of the earlier part of the even-pected it of not being a coincidence at all, the ing has all worn off, and the dull, numbed sensation has got me again. Are my energies wearing out, I wonder, just at the time when I most want them? Or is some foreshadowing of disaster creeping over me which I don't yet understand? "I might be in a humor to sit here for some time longer, thinking thoughts like these, and letting them find their way into words at their morning on which Miss Gwilt lost her patience proved to be also the morning on which the doctor lost his confidence for the first time. "No news, of course," he said, sitting down with a heavy sigh. "Well! well!" Miss Gwilt looked up at him irritably from her work. "You seem strangely depressed this morning," she said. "What are you afraid of now?" "The imputation of being afraid, madam," answered the doctor, solemnly, "is not an imputation to cast rashly on any man-even when he belongs to such an essentially peaceful profession as mine. I am not afraid. I am (as you more correctly put it in the first instance) strangely depressed. My nature is, as you know, naturally sanguine, and I only see today what, but for my habitual hopefulness, I might have seen, and ought to have seen, a week since." Miss Gwilt impatiently threw down her work. "If words cost money," she said, "the luxury of talking, doctor, would be rather an expensive luxury in your case!" "Which I might have seen, and ought to have seen," pursued the doctor, without taking the slightest notice of the interruption, "a week since. To put it plainly, I feel by no means so certain as I did that Mr. Armadale will consent without a struggle to the terms which it is my interest (and in a minor degree yours) to impose on him. Observe! I don't question our entrapping him successfully into the Sanatorium-I only doubt whether he will prove quite as manageable as I originally anticipated when we have got him there. Say," remarked the doctor, raising his eyes for the first time, and fixing them in steady inquiry on Miss Gwilt; "say that he is bold, obstinate, what you please; and that he holds out-holds out for weeks together, for months together, as men in similar situations to his have held out before him. What follows? The risk of keeping him forcibly in concealment-of suppressing him, if I may so express myself-increases at compound interest, and becomes Enormous! My house is, at this moment, virtually ready for patients. Patients may present themselves in a week's time. Patients may communicate with Mr. Armadale, or Mr. Armadale may communicate with patients. A note may be smuggled | out of the house and may reach the Commissioners in Lunacy. Even in the case of an unlicensed establishment like mine, those gentlemen--no! those chartered despots in a land of liberty-have only to apply to the Lord Chancellor for an order and to enter (by Heavens, to enter My Sanatorium!) and search it from top to bottom at a moment's notice! I don't wish to despond; I don't wish to alarm you; I don't pretend to say that the means we are taking to secure our own safety are any other than the best means at our disposal. All I ask you to do is to imagine the Commissioners in the house-and then to conceive the consequences. The consequences!" repeated the doctor, getting sternly on his feet, and taking up his hat as if he meant to leave the house. "Have you any thing more to say?" asked Miss Gwilt. "I think I understand you," she said, suddenly recovering her composure. "I beg your pardon," returned the doctor, with his hand to his ear. "What did you say?" "Nothing!" "Nothing?" "If you happened to catch another fly this morning," said Miss Gwilt, with a bitterly sarcastic emphasis on the words, "I might be capable of shocking you by another 'little joke.'" The doctor held up both hands, in polite deprecation, and looked as if he was beginning to recover his good-humor again. "Hard," he murmured gently, "not to have forgiven me that unlucky blunder of mine even yet!" "What else have you to say? I am waiting for you," said Miss Gwilt. She turned her chair to the window, scornfully, and took up her work again as she spoke. The doctor came behind her and put his hand on the back of her chair. "I have a question to ask, in the first place," he said; "and a measure of necessary precaution to suggest in the second. If you will honor me with your attention I will put the question first." "I am listening." "You know that Mr. Armadale is alive," pursued the doctor; "and you know that he is coming back to England. Why do you continue to wear your widow's dress?" She answered him without an instant's hesitation, steadily going on with her work. "Because I am of a sanguine disposition, like you," she said. "I mean to trust to the chapter of accidents to the very last. Mr. Armadale may die yet on his way home." "And suppose he gets home alive-what then?" "Then there is another chance still left." "What is it, pray?" "He may die in your Sanatorium." "Madam!" remarked the doctor, in the deep bass which he reserved for his outbursts of virtuous indignation. "Stop! you spoke of the chapter of accidents," he resumed, gliding back into his softer conversational tones. "Yes! yes! of course. I understand you this time. Even the healing art is at the mercy of accidents even My Sanatorium, otherwise the Fortress of Health, is liable at any day to be surprised by Death. Just so! just so!" said the doctor, conceding the questions with the utmost impartiality. There is the chapter of accidents, I admit-if you choose to trust to it. Mind! I say emphatically, if you choose to trust to it." There was another moment of silence-silence so profound that nothing was audible in the room but the rapid click of Miss Gwilt's needle "Have you any remarks," rejoined the doctor, through her work. "to offer on your side?" He stood hat in hand, waiting. For a full minute the two looked at each other in silence. Miss Gwilt spoke first. "Go on," she said; "you haven't done yet." "True!" said the doctor. Having put my question, I have my measure of precaution to impress on you next. You will see, my dear madam, that I am not disposed to trust to the chapter of accidents on my side. Reflection has convinced me that you and I are not (locally speaking) so conveniently situated as we might be, in case of emergency Cabs are, as yet, rare in this rapidly-improving neighborhood. I am a quarter of an hour's walk from you; you are a quarter of an hour's walk from me. I know nothing of Mr. Armadale's character; you know it well. It might be necessary-vitally necessary to appeal to your superior knowledge of him at a moment's notice. And how am I to do that unless we are within easy reach of each other, under the same roof? For both our interests, I beg to invite you, my dear madam, to become for a limited period an inmate of My Sanatorium." Miss Gwilt's rapid needle suddenly stopped. "I understand you," she said again, as quietly as before. "I beg your pardon," said the doctor, with another attack of deafness, and with his hand once more at his ear. She laughed to herself-a low, terrible laugh, which startled even the doctor into taking his hand off the back of her chair. "An inmate of your Sanatorium?" she repeated. "You consult appearances in every thing else do you propose to consult appearances in receiving me into your house?" "Most assuredly!" replied the doctor, with enthusiasm. "I am surprised at your asking me the question! Did you ever know a man of the highest eminence in my profession who set appearances at defiance? If you honor me by accepting my invitation, you enter My Sanatorium-" "In what character ?" "In the most unimpeachable of all possible characters," replied the doctor. "In the character of a Patient." "When do you want my answer?" "Can you decide to-day?" "No." "To-morrow?" "Yes. Have you any thing more left to say?" Nothing more." 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, Yes or No. 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 said to herself, passionately. "No man alive shall hurry me faster than I like!" At breakfast that morning (the morning of the ninth) the doctor was surprised in his study at the Sanatorium 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 loudthe 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. "I re 66 'Quite right, my dear!" he said. member 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 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 influ "Leave me then. I don't keep up appear-ence over Miss Gwilt, in virtue of his knowl ances. I wish to be alone-and I say so. morning." Good "Oh, the sex! the sex!" said the doctor, with his excellent temper in perfect working order again. "So delightfully impulsive! so charmingly reckless of what they say, or how they say it! Oh, woman, in our hours of ease, coy, diffident, and hard to please!' There! there there! Good-morning!" Miss Gwilt rose and looked after him from the window, when the street-door had closed and he had left the house. "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?" edge of her past career, had had no share in effecting the transformation that now appeared in him. It had upheld him in his forlorn life at Thorpe-Ambrose, and it had given him that increased confidence of manner which Miss Gwilt herself had noticed; but it had vanished as a motive power in him from the moment that had restored him to Miss Gwilt's favor-it had vanished, 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 over-coat 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- my eye toward the Capitol building, and saw the worn-out old creature who had not sung that the flag raised to indicate that they were since his childhood-hummed, as he paced the in session had by mistake been put up that day platform, the few fragments he could remember bottom upward, and was in fact "Union down," of a worn-out old song. the signal of distress. Superstitious minds might have read in this apparent omen the coming doom of the Confederacy; but few, if any, took that view. 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. Occasionally expressions were heard from individuals indicative that their confidence and hope were failing them. One very intelligent and well known gentleman so entirely lost heart that it became a matter of common remark and somewhat of merriment. But the most discouraging person I encountered was a member of the State Legislature of high standing, who had evidently "given up." Meeting with him at a He had looked round the room, and had sat-friend's one evening, his conversation was almost isfied 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! THE FALL OF RICHMOND. No 【OTWITHSTANDING the current representations as to the privations and hardships of the denizens of the Confederate capital, life in Richmond during the war was not altogether one of discomforts. As to material wants, almost every thing for their supply, not only as to necessaries but luxuries, could be had, if one only had the money, and fortunately Confederate notes were almost as abundant as "leaves in Vallambrosa." True, the war rested like a heavy incubus upon the heart; but even that in time we became used to; and there never was the terror and apprehension for the safety of the city which outsiders probably supposed. General Lee and his army were between us and danger; and that was enough to quiet all fears. So that we could hear the thunder of battle so near that it seemed almost in the city, and still move on in our usual occupations without much uneasiness as to how it would terminate. entirely on that subject. Among other things he stated, substantially, that General Lee had been before a Committee of the Senate, I think the previous November, and had stated that he could hold out if he could be reinforced with some twenty thousand fresh troops; that in February -three months after-before that or a similar committee, General Lee had stated that if he had fifty thousand reinforcements he could maintain his ground; but that he had neither received the fifty thousand nor the twenty thou sand, but had lost by sickness and desertion; so that the inference was irresistible that he could not hold his ground. Such statements were discouraging; but perhaps the impression made on most of the auditors was simply that that man was no longer loyal to the cause. Rumors had, it is true, been coming from the army that the men were losing heart; that patient and enduring as they had shown themselves, there was a limit even to their powers; that they could not suffer on, and starve on, and fight on, year after year interminably, and that, too, without the prospect of any increment of fresh material to meet the constantly accumulating and overwhelming forces they were called to confront. There was, indeed, but too much truth and force in what they said; and one could not help feeling that such a struggle could not be protracted very much longer-especially, too, in view of the constantly increasing scarcity of food, and the equally alarming failure of the fa Indeed there was even an amount of gayety which seemed altogether untimely. Expens-cilities of transportation. ive parties, balls, private theatricals, and other amusements abounded. Richmond never was gayer than during the winter of 1864-65; so much so, indeed, that the clergymen of the various denominations felt called upon to remonstrate from the pulpit; while the more religious portion of the population were stimulated, by way of counteracting the evil tendencies and of averting the judgments of Heaven, to be still more attentive on the daily prayer meetings, which often filled the largest churches, and seemed characterized by great devoutness and fervor. The spring of 1865 found things much in this condition. One day, not long before the Confederate Congress adjourned, I happened to cast Still, we had been enabled to hold out so far against what might have been regarded as impossibilities; and we hoped it might continue to be so. The first Sabbath in April, 1865, dawned upon us in this state of things. It was a bright, pleasant day.. The churches were full-as they generally were-and the ministers gave their people such truth as they considered most appropriate. At the church which I attended the text and sermon seemed almost prophetic. The words of Scripture were, "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter;" and the object of the discourse was to render the hearers resigned and contented under even the most mysterious and unwelcome allotments of Providence. The sermon over, the congregation joined in the | his telling us that the tobacco warehouses had Doxology to Old Hundred, accompanied by the been burned to prevent the tobacco from falling grand notes of the organ, and then reverently into the Federal hands, we knew that Petersdispersed. That was the last service ever to be burg was gone. held there under the Confederate Government. As I was passing out through the vestibule two friends came up, and said they wondered what could be going on; that there must be something of unusual importance; that the President and some of the other high functionaries had been sent for out of church; and that there was evidently some exciting news. On leaving the church-door I saw a bank officer meet another one for whom he appeared to have been in search, and as I passed them I heard a few words indicative of trouble. Just then espying a young man whose connection with the Government ought to make him acquainted with any important intelligence, I asked him what it was that was producing such a ferment. He replied that he was not at liberty to communicate what he knew, but that there had been terrible fighting near Petersburg. "Favorable or unfavorable ?" "So far as we have heard not favorable." Then, in a subdued voice, he added, "I'll tell you that I shouldn't be surprised if we are all away from here before twenty-four hours." This was news indeed! No wonder the President hurried out of church, and no wonder bank officers held solemn council. About nine o'clock in the evening, the young man already referred to not having got off as soon as he had expected, came in and told my relative, who was anxious to get to his family up the country, that his only chance was to go to the dépôt immediately, that the last Confederate trains would leave in the course of the night, and that to-morrow all intercourse would be cut off. Being better acquainted than my friend, and knowing he would encounter difficulties, I went with him to the dépôt. Arrived there, we encountered a file of soldiers obstructing the entrance, and the officer in command positively refusing admittance to any one who had not a pass from the Secretary of War. But that condition was an impossibility. Finding the Secretary of War, under such circumstances, would indeed be "like hunting a needle in a hay-stack." There was no other way, therefore, than just to stand our ground, hoping that something might "turn up." Numerous were the arrivals while we stood there, multitudinous the applications, appeals, and remonstrances, but all to no purpose. The man of the "stars" was inexorable. The Argus-eyed In the course of an hour or two one of the trains moved off.. "There goes the President and his Cabinet." And sure enough they were gone; and that was the last of the Confederate Government in its capital. sentinels must have a little relaxed their vigilance after this, for my friend, who had been on a reconnoissance, soon came back with the report that he had found a place where we could flank the guards and get into the dépôt. This we accomplished. But here a new difficulty had to be encountered. We could find no ad Returning to the house of the friends with whom I was sojourning, and believing that there need be and could be no longer any secrecy about such events, I mentioned at the dinner-table what had been told me. The ladies were greatly agitated and distressed-apprehending violence from the dreaded "Yankees," and also lamenting the separation which the withdrawal of the Confederate army would make between them and their young relatives who were in it. In a moment the deep pall of un-mittance into the cars. There were numerous certainty and gloom was cast over every thing. What scenes that day or the next would disclose, who could tell? trains-all, I believe, rough box cars-waiting their turn to go. One after another of them we applied to, but in vain. One was the TreasBefore we had arisen from dinner one of the ury Department, another the Quarter-Master's young gentlemen of the family connected with Department, another the Telegraph Departa government bureau came in, with a counte- ment, and so on. Most of them contained lanance indicative of serious work, asking that dies as well as gentlemen. "Can't we get in his trunk might be gotten, and adding that they here?" "No! Impossible! we're crowded to were to be off at six o'clock that evening-that suffocation." Passing on to another: "Won't the city was to be evacuated! This was the you just let one gentleman in here? His home signal for every one of our little company to be and family are up the country, and he is anxon the move to save what he could. Silver-ious to get to them." "No, no! we're too full ware was quickly collected for hiding; watches were gathered up to be sent away; spoons and forks likewise; and every preparation, practicable in the short time and amidst the excitement and confusion, made for the speedily anticipated pillage. In the course of the afternoon a relative of the writer came over from Petersburg, bringing us the first definite news of the breaking of the Confederate lines, and the disaster General Lee's army had experienced. Of the full extent of it, however, he was not aware. From already. This car is marked for 14,500 pounds, and we have 18,000 in it now. We'll break down before we get five miles." We were about giving up in despair, when there hove in sight a man with a lantern, escorting two gentlemen, whom he evidently intended to put into one of the cars. "Now," said I to my friend, "be on the alert, and when he pushes those two up I'll push you immediately following, as if one of the party." We did so, and succeeded. They found out the ruse, it is true, and I heard them berating my friend as an in |