Armadale

himself. Allan, uneasy at his silence, doubly uneasy under certain recollections of the major's daughter which the conversation had called up, rose from the table and shortened the interview a little impatiently.

'Come! come!' he said, 'don't sit there looking unutterable things; don't make mountains out of mole-hills. You have such an old, old head, Midwinter, on those young shoulders of yours! Let's have done with all these pros and cons. Do you mean to tell me in plain words that it won't do to speak to the major?'

'I can't take the responsibility, Allan, of telling you that. To be plainer still, I can't feel confident of the soundness of any advice I may give you in—in our present position toward each other. All I am sure of is that I cannot possibly be wrong in entreating you to do two things.'

'What are they?'

'If you speak to Major Milroy, pray remember the caution I have given you! Pray think of what you say before you say it!'

'I'll think, never fear! What next?'

'Before you take any serious step in this matter, write and tell Mr. Brock. Will you promise me to do that?'

'With all my heart. Anything more?'

'Nothing more. I have said my last words.'

Allan led the way to the door. 'Come into my room,' he said, 'and I'll give you a cigar. The servants will be in here directly to clear away, and I want to go on talking about Miss Gwilt.'

'Don't wait for me,' said Midwinter; 'I'll follow you in a minute or two.'

He remained seated until Allan had closed the door, then rose, and took from a corner of the room, where it lay hidden behind one of the curtains, a knapsack ready packed for traveling. As he stood at the window thinking, with the knapsack in his hand, a strangely old, care-worn look stole over his face: he seemed to lose the last of his youth in an instant.

What the woman's quicker insight had discovered days since, the man's slower perception had only realized in the past night. The pang that had wrung him when he heard Allan's avowal had set the truth self-revealed before Midwinter for the first time. He had been conscious of looking at Miss Gwilt with new eyes and a new mind, on the next occasion when they met after the memorable interview in Major Milroy's garden; but he had never until now known the passion that she had roused in him for what it really was. Knowing it at last, feeling it consciously in full possession of him, he had the courage which no man with a happier experience of life would have possessed—the courage to recall what Allan had confided to him, and to look resolutely at the future through his own grateful remembrances of the past.

Steadfastly, through the sleepless hours of the night, he had bent his mind to the conviction that he must conquer the passion which had taken possession of him, for Allan's sake; and that the one way to conquer it was— to go. No after-doubt as to the sacrifice had troubled him when morning came; and no after-doubt troubled him now. The one question that kept him hesitating was the question of leaving Thorpe Ambrose. Though Mr. Brock's letter relieved him from all necessity of keeping watch in Norfolk for a woman who was known to be in Somersetshire; though the duties of the steward's office were duties which might be safely left in Mr. Bashwood's tried and trustworthy hands—still, admitting these considerations, his mind was not easy at the thought of leaving Allan, at a time when a crisis was approaching in Allan's life.

He slung the knapsack loosely over his shoulder and put the question to his conscience for the last time. 'Can you trust yourself to see her, day by day as you must see her—can you trust yourself to hear him talk of her, hour by hour, as you must hear him—if you stay in this house?' Again the answer came, as it had come all through the night. Again his heart warned him, in the very interests of the friendship that he held sacred, to go while the time was his own; to go before the woman who had possessed herself of his love had possessed herself of his power of self-sacrifice and his sense of gratitude as well.

He looked round the room mechanically before he turned to leave it. Every remembrance of the conversation that had just taken place between Allan and himself pointed to the same conclusion, and warned him, as his own conscience had warned him, to go.

Had he honestly mentioned any one of the objections which he, or any man, must have seen to Allan's attachment? Had he—as his knowledge of his friend's facile character bound him to do—warned Allan to distrust his own hasty impulses, and to test himself by time and absence, before he made sure that the happiness of his whole life was bound up in Miss Gwilt? No. The bare doubt whether, in speaking of these things, he could feel that he was speaking disinterestedly, had closed his lips, and would close his lips for the future, till the time for speaking had gone by. Was the right man to restrain Allan the man who would have given the world, if he had it, to stand in Allan's place? There was but one plain course of action that an honest man and a grateful man could follow in the position in which he stood. Far removed from all chance of seeing her, and from all chance of hearing of her—alone with his own faithful recollection of what he owed to his friend—he might hope to fight it down, as he had fought down the tears in his childhood under his gypsy master's stick; as he had fought down the misery of his lonely youth time in the country bookseller's shop. 'I must go,' he said, as he turned wearily from the window, 'before she comes to the house again. I must go before another hour is over my head.'

With that resolution he left the room; and, in leaving it, took the irrevocable step from Present to Future.

The rain was still falling. The sullen sky, all round the horizon, still lowered watery and dark, when Midwinter, equipped for traveling, appeared in Allan's room.

'Good heavens!' cried Allan, pointing to the knapsack, 'what does that mean?'

'Nothing very extraordinary,' said Midwinter. 'It only means—good-by.'

'Good-by!' repeated Allan, starting to his feet in astonishment.

Midwinter put him back gently into his chair, and drew a seat near to it for himself.

'When you noticed that I looked ill this morning,' he said, 'I told you that I had been thinking of a way to recover my health, and that I meant to speak to you about it later in the day. That latter time has come. I have been out of sorts, as the phrase is, for some time past. You have remarked it yourself, Allan, more than once; and, with your usual kindness, you have allowed it to excuse many things in my conduct which would have been otherwise unpardonable, even in your friendly eyes.'

'My dear fellow,' interposed Allan, 'you don't mean to say you are going out on a walking tour in this pouring rain!'