The Project Gutenberg EBook of Armadale, by Wilkie Collins

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Title: Armadale

Author: Wilkie Collins

Posting Date: September 21, 2008 [EBook #1895]
Release Date: September, 1999

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARMADALE ***

Produced by James Rusk

ARMADALE

By Wilkie Collins

TO

JOHN FORSTER.

In acknowledgment of the services which he has rendered to the cause of
literature by his "Life of Goldsmith;" and in affectionate remembrance
of a friendship which is associated with some of the happiest years of
my life.

Readers in general--on whose friendly reception experience has given me
some reason to rely--will, I venture to hope, appreciate whatever merit
there may be in this story without any prefatory pleading for it on my
part. They will, I think, see that it has not been hastily meditated or
idly wrought out. They will judge it accordingly, and I ask no more.

Readers in particular will, I have some reason to suppose, be here
and there disturbed, perhaps even offended, by finding that "Armadale"
oversteps, in more than one direction, the narrow limits within which
they are disposed to restrict the development of modern fiction--if they
can.

Nothing that I could say to these persons here would help me with them
as Time will help me if my work lasts. I am not afraid of my design
being permanently misunderstood, provided the execution has done it any
sort of justice. Estimated by the clap-trap morality of the present day,
this may be a very daring book. Judged by the Christian morality which
is of all time, it is only a book that is daring enough to speak the
truth.

LONDON, April, 1866.

ARMADALE.

PROLOGUE.

I. THE TRAVELERS.

It was the opening of the season of eighteen hundred and thirty-two, at
the Baths of Wildbad.

The evening shadows were beginning to gather over the quiet little
German town, and the diligence was expected every minute. Before the
door of the principal inn, waiting the arrival of the first visitors
of the year, were assembled the three notable personages of Wildbad,
accompanied by their wiv