Armadale

'As I said the words, a sudden trembling passed from his hand to mine, and told me instantly that I had better have held my tongue. Before I could move, before I could think, he had me in his arms. 'Ask me if I love you,' he whispered. At the same moment his head sank on my bosom; and some unutterable torture that was in him burst its way out, as it does with us, in a passion of sobs and tears.

'My first impulse was the impulse of a fool. I was on the point of making our usual protest and defending myself in our usual way. Luckily or unluckily, I don't know which, I have lost the fine edge of the sensitiveness of youth; and I checked the first movement of my hands, and the first word on my lips. Oh, dear, how old I felt, while he was sobbing his heart out on my breast! How I thought of the time when he might have possessed himself of my love! All he had possessed himself of now was—my waist.

'I wonder whether I pitied him? It doesn't matter if I did. At any rate, my hand lifted itself somehow, and my fingers twined themselves softly in his hair. Horrible recollections came back to me of other times, and made me shudder as I touched him. And yet I did it. What fools women are!

''I won't reproach you,' I said, gently. 'I won't say this is a cruel advantage to take of me, in such a position as mine. You are dreadfully agitated; I will let you wait a little and compose yourself.'

'Having got as far as that, I stopped to consider how I should put the questions to him that I was burning to ask. But I was too confused, I suppose, or perhaps too impatient to consider. I let out what was uppermost in my mind, in the words that came first.

''I don't believe you love me,' I said. 'You write strange things to me; you frighten me with mysteries. What did you mean by saying in your letter that it would be fatal to Mr. Armadale if you came back to me? What danger can there be to Mr. Armadale—?'

'Before I could finish the question, he suddenly lifted his head and unclasped his arms. I had apparently touched some painful subject which recalled him to himself. Instead of my shrinking from him, it was he who shrank from me. I felt offended with him; why, I don't know—but offended I was; and I thanked him with my bitterest emphasis for remembering what was due to me, at last!

''Do you believe in Dreams?' he burst out, in the most strangely abrupt manner, without taking the slightest notice of what I had said to him. 'Tell me,' he went on, without allowing me time to answer, 'were you, or was any relation of yours, ever connected with Allan Armadale's father or mother? Were you, or was anybody belonging to you, ever in the island of Madeira?'

'Conceive my astonishment, if you can. I turned cold. In an instant I turned cold all over. He was plainly in the secret of what had happened when I was in Mrs. Armadale's service in Madeira—in all probability before he was born! That was startling enough of itself. And he had evidently some reason of his own for trying to connect me with those events—which was more startling still.

''No,' I said, as soon as I could trust myself to speak. 'I know nothing of his father or mother.'

''And nothing of the island of Madeira?'

''Nothing of the island of Madeira.'

'He turned his head away, and began talking to himself.

''Strange!' he said. 'As certainly as I was in the Shadow's place at the window, she was in the Shadow's place at the pool!'

'Under other circumstances, his extraordinary behavior might have alarmed me. But after his question about Madeira, there was some greater fear in me which kept all common alarm at a distance. I don't think I ever determined on anything in my life as I determined on finding out how he had got his information, and who he really was. It was quite plain to me that I had roused some hidden feeling in him by my question about Armadale, which was as strong in its way as his feeling for me. What had become of my influence over him?

'I couldn't imagine what had become of it; but I could and did set to work to make him feel it again.

''Don't treat me cruelly,' I said; 'I didn't treat you cruelly just now. Oh, Mr. Midwinter, it's so lonely, it's so dark—don't frighten me!'

''Frighten you!' He was close to me again in a moment. 'Frighten you!' He repeated the word with as much astonishment as if I had woke him from a dream, and charged him with something that he had said in his sleep.

'It was on the tip of my tongue, finding how I had surprised him, to take him while he was off his guard, and to ask why my question about Armadale had produced such a change in his behavior to me. But after what had happened already, I was afraid to risk returning to the subject too soon. Something or other—what they call an instinct, I dare say—warned me to let Armadale alone for the present, and to talk to him first about himself. As I told you in one of my early letters, I had noticed signs and tokens in his manner and appearance which convinced me, young as he was, that he had done something or suffered something out of the common in his past life. I had asked myself more and more suspiciously every time I saw him whether he was what he appeared to be; and first and foremost among my other doubts was a doubt whether he was passing among us by his real name. Having secrets to keep about my own past life, and having gone myself in other days by more than one assumed name, I suppose I am all the readier to suspect other people when I find something mysterious about them. Any way, having the suspicion in my mind, I determined to startle him, as he had startled me, by an unexpected question on my side—a question about his name.

'While I was thinking, he was thinking; and, as it soon appeared, of what I had just said to him. 'I am so grieved to have frightened you,' he whispered, with that gentleness and humility which we all so heartily despise in a man when he speaks to other women, and which we all so dearly like when he speaks to ourselves. 'I hardly know what I have been saying,' he went on; 'my mind is miserably disturbed. Pray forgive me, if you can; I am not myself to-night.'

''I am not angry,' I said; 'I have nothing to forgive. We are both imprudent; we are both unhappy.' I laid my head on his shoulder. 'Do you really love me?' I asked him, softly, in a whisper.

'His arm stole round me again; and I felt the quick beat of his heart get quicker and quicker. 'If you only knew!' he whispered back; 'if you only knew—' He could say no more. I felt his face bending toward mine, and dropped my head lower, and stopped him in the very act of kissing me.

''No,' I said; 'I am only a woman who has taken your fancy. You are treating me as if I was your promised wife.'