we will talk of common things. I'll take out
the woman of the house, and her children. We will go and see something.
There is a show of some kind in the town--I'll treat them to it. I'm not
such an ill-natured woman when I try; and the landlady has really been
kind to me. Surely I might occupy my mind a little in seeing her and her
children enjoying themselves.

"A minute since, I shut up these leaves as I said I would; and now I
have opened them again, I don't know why. I think my brain is turned.
I feel as if something was lost out of my mind; I feel as if I ought to
find it here.

"I have found it! _Midwinter!!!_

"Is it possible that I can have been thinking of the reasons For and
Against, for an hour past--writing Midwinter's name over and over
again--speculating seriously on marrying him--and all the time not once
remembering that, even with every other impediment removed, _he_ alone,
when the time came, would be an insurmountable obstacle in my way? Has
the effort to face the consideration of Armadale's death absorbed me to
_that_ degree? I suppose it has. I can't account for such extraordinary
forgetfulness on my part in any other way.

"Shall I stop and think it out, as I have thought out all the rest?
Shall I ask myself if the obstacle of Midwinter would, after all, when
the time came, be the unmanageable obstacle that it looks at present?
No! What need is there to think of it? I have made up my mind to get the
better of the temptation. I have made up my mind to give my landlady
and her children a treat; I have made up my mind to close my Diary. And
closed it shall be.

"Six o'clock.--The landlady's gossip is unendurable; the landlady's
children distract me. I have left them to run back here before post time
and write a line to Mrs. Oldershaw.

"The dread that I shall sink under the temptation has grown stronger and
stronger on me. I have determined to put it beyond my power to have my
own way and follow my own will. Mother Oldershaw shall be the salvation
of me for the first time since I have known her. If I can't pay my note
of hand, she threatens me with an arrest. Well, she _shall_ arrest me.
In the state my mind is in now, the best thing that can happen to me is
to be taken away from Thorpe Ambrose, whether I like it or not. I will
write and say that I am to be found here I will write and tell her, in
so many words, that the best service she can render me is to lock me up."

"Seven o'clock.--The