the man who had been tricked out of
his wife to blame for shutting the cabin door, and leaving the man who
had tricked him to drown in the wreck? Yes; the woman wasn't worth it.

"What am I sure of that really concerns myself?

"I am sure of one very important thing. I am sure that Midwinter--I
must call him by his ugly false name, or I may confuse the two Armadales
before I have done--I am sure that Midwinter is perfectly ignorant that
I and the little imp of twelve years old who waited on Mrs. Armadale in
Madeira, and copied the letters that were supposed to arrive from the
West Indies, are one and the same. There are not many girls of twelve
who could have imitated a man's handwriting, and held their tongues
about it afterward, as I did; but that doesn't matter now. What does
matter is that Midwinter's belief in the Dream is Midwinter's only
reason for trying to connect me with Allan Armadale, by associating
me with Allan Armadale's father and mother. I asked him if he actually
thought me old enough to have known either of them. And he said No, poor
fellow, in the most innocent, bewildered way. Would he say No if he saw
me now? Shall I turn to the glass and see if I look my five-and-thirty
years? or shall I go on writing? I will go on writing.

"There is one thing more that haunts me almost as obstinately as the
Names.

"I wonder whether I am right in relying on Midwinter's superstition (as
I do) to help me in keeping him at arms-length. After having let the
excitement of the moment hurry me into saying more than I need have
said, he is certain to press me; he is certain to come back, with a
man's hateful selfishness and impatience in such things, to the question
of marrying me. Will the Dream help me to check him? After alternately
believing and disbelieving in it, he has got, by his own confession,
to believing in it again. Can I say I believe in it, too? I have better
reasons for doing so than he knows of. I am not only the person who
helped Mrs. Armadale's marriage by helping her to impose on her own
father: I am the woman who tried to drown herself; the woman who started
the series of accidents which put young Armadale in possession of his
fortune; the woman who has come Thorpe Ambrose to marry him for his
fortune, now he has got it; and more extraordinary still, the woman who
stood in the Shadow's place at the pool! These may be coincidences,
but they are strange coincidences. I declare I begin to fancy that