, and he leaves me to decide, after first
mentioning the time allowed him before his answer must be sent in. It
is the time, of course (if I agree to his going abroad), in which I must
marry him. But there is not a word about this in his letter. He asks for
nothing but a sight of my handwriting to help him through the interval
while we are separated from each other.

"That is the letter; not very long, but so prettily expressed.

"I think I can penetrate the secret of his fancy for going abroad. That
wild idea of putting the mountains and the seas between Armadale and
himself is still in his mind. As if either he or I could escape doing
what we are fated to do--supposing we really are fated--by putting a
few hundred or a few thousand miles between Armadale and ourselves! What
strange absurdity and inconsistency! And yet how I like him for being
absurd and inconsistent; for don't I see plainly that I am at the bottom
of it all? Who leads this clever man astray in spite of himself? Who
makes him too blind to see the contradiction in his own conduct, which
he would see plainly in the conduct of another person? How interested
I do feel in him! How dangerously near I am to shutting my eyes on the
past, and letting myself love him! Was Eve fonder of Adam than ever, I
wonder, after she had coaxed him into eating the apple? I should have
quite doted on him if I had been in her place. (Memorandum: To write
Midwinter a charming little letter on my side, with a kiss in it; and as
time is allowed him before he sends in his answer, to ask for time, too,
before I tell him whether I will or will not go abroad.)"

"Five o'clock.--A tiresome visit from my landlady; eager for a little
gossip, and full of news which she thinks will interest me.

"She is acquainted, I find, with Mrs. Milroy's late nurse; and she has
been seeing her friend off at the station this afternoon. They talked,
of course, of affairs at the cottage, and my name found its way into the
conversation. I am quite wrong, it seems, if the nurse's authority is to
be trusted, in believing Miss Milroy to be responsible for sending Mr.
Armadale to my reference in London. Miss Milroy really knew nothing
about it, and it all originated in her mother's mad jealousy of me. The
present wretched state of things at the cottage is due entirely to the
same cause. Mrs. Milroy is firmly persuaded that my remaining at Thorpe
Ambrose is referable to my having some private means of comm