Armadale

same moment their hands fell apart, and there was a pause of silence on either side. Midwinter was the first to speak again.

'Later in the evening,' he went on, 'Miss Gwilt explained herself. She told me two things. She declared that the man whom I had seen following her was a hired spy. I was surprised, but I could not dispute it. She told me next, Allan—what I believe with my whole heart and soul to be a falsehood which has been imposed on her as the truth —she told me that the spy was in your employment!'

Allan turned instantly from the window, and looked Midwinter full in the face again. 'I must explain myself this time,' he said, resolutely.

The ashy paleness peculiar to him in moments of strong emotion began to show itself on Midwinter's cheeks.

'More explanations!' he said, and drew back a step, with his eyes fixed in a sudden terror of inquiry on Allan's face.

'You don't know what I know, Midwinter. You don't know that what I have done has been done with a good reason. And what is more, I have not trusted to myself—I have had good advice.'

'Did you hear what I said just now?' asked Midwinter, incredulously. 'You can't—surely, you can't have been attending to me?'

'I haven't missed a word,' rejoined Allan. 'I tell you again, you don't know what I know of Miss Gwilt. She has threatened Miss Milroy. Miss Milroy is in danger while her governess stops in this neighborhood.'

Midwinter dismissed the major's daughter from the conversation with a contemptuous gesture of his hand.

'I don't want to hear about Miss, Milroy,' he said. 'Don't mix up Miss Milroy—Good God, Allan, am I to understand that the spy set to watch Miss Gwilt was doing his vile work with your approval?'

'Once for all, my dear fellow, will you, or will you not, let me explain?'

'Explain!' cried Midwinter, his eyes aflame, and his hot Creole blood rushing crimson into his face. 'Explain the employment of a spy? What! after having driven Miss Gwilt out of her situation by meddling with her private affairs, you meddle again by the vilest of all means—the means of a paid spy? You set a watch on the woman whom you yourself told me you loved, only a fortnight since—the woman you were thinking of as your wife! I don't believe it; I won't believe it. Is my head failing me? Is it Allan Armadale I am speaking to? Is it Allan Armadale's face looking at me? Stop! you are acting under some mistaken scruple. Some low fellow has crept into your confidence, and has done this in your name without telling you first.'

Allan controlled himself with admirable patience and admirable consideration for the temper of his friend. 'If you persist in refusing to hear me,' he said, 'I must wait as well as I can till my turn comes.'

'Tell me you are a stranger to the employment of that man, and I will hear you willingly.'

'Suppose there should be a necessity, that you know nothing about, for employing him?'

'I acknowledge no necessity for the cowardly persecution of a helpless woman.'

A momentary flush of irritation—momentary, and no more—passed over Allan's face. 'You mightn't think her quite so helpless,' he said, 'if you knew the truth.'

'Are you the man to tell me the truth?' retorted the other. 'You who have refused to hear her in her own defense! You who have closed the doors of this house against her!'

Allan still controlled himself, but the effort began at last to be visible.

'I know your temper is a hot one,' he said. 'But for all that, your violence quite takes me by surprise. I can't account for it, unless'—he hesitated a moment, and then finished the sentence in his usual frank, outspoken way —'unless you are sweet yourself on Miss Gwilt.'

Those last words heaped fuel on the fire. They stripped the truth instantly of all concealments and disguises, and laid it bare to view. Allan's instinct had guessed, and the guiding influence stood revealed of Midwinter's interest in Miss Gwilt.

'What right have you to say that?' he asked, with raised voice and threatening eyes.

'I told you,' said Allan, simply, 'when I thought I was sweet on her myself. Come! come! it's a little hard, I think, even if you are in love with her, to believe everything she tells you, and not to let me say a word. Is that the way you decide between us?'

'Yes, it is!' cried the other, infuriated by Allan's second allusion to Miss Gwilt. 'When I am asked to choose between the employer of a spy and the victim of a spy, I side with the victim!'

'Don't try me too hard, Midwinter, I have a temper to lose as well as you.'

He stopped, struggling with himself. The torture of passion in Midwinter's face, from which a less simple and less generous nature might have recoiled in horror, touched Allan suddenly with an artless distress, which, at that moment, was little less than sublime. He advanced, with his eyes moistening, and his hand held out. 'You asked me for my hand just now,' he said, 'and I gave it you. Will you remember old times, and give me yours, before it's too late?'

'No!' retorted Midwinter, furiously. 'I may meet Miss Gwilt again, and I may want my hand free to deal with your spy!'

He had drawn back along the wall as Allan advanced, until the bracket which supported the Statuette was before instead of behind him. In the madness of his passion he saw nothing but Allan's face confronting him. In the madness of his passion, he stretched out his right hand as he answered, and shook it threateningly in the air. It struck the forgotten projection of the bracket—and the next instant the Statuette lay in fragments on the floor.

The rain drove slanting over flower-bed and lawn, and pattered heavily against the glass; and the two Armadales stood by the window, as the two Shadows had stood in the Second Vision of the Dream, with the wreck of the image between them.

Allan stooped over the fragments of the little figure, and lifted them one by one from the floor.

'Leave me,' he said, without looking up, 'or we shall both repent it.'