s. Either I knew nothing of Thorpe Ambrose--or the town gossip
is busy enough by this time with Mr. Armadale and Miss Gwilt.

"I had some difficulty with him for the first half-hour after we left
the station. The guard (delightful man! I felt so grateful to him!) had
shut us up together, in expectation of half a crown at the end of the
journey. Armadale was suspicious of me, and he showed it plainly. Little
by little I tamed my wild beast--partly by taking care to display no
curiosity about his journey to town, and partly by interesting him
on the subject of his friend Midwinter; dwelling especially on the
opportunity that now offered itself for a reconciliation between them.
I kept harping on this string till I set his tongue going, and made
him amuse me as a gentleman is bound to do when he has the honor of
escorting a lady on a long railway journey.

"What little mind he has was full, of course, of his own affairs and
Miss Milroy's. No words can express the clumsiness he showed in
trying to talk about himself, without taking me into his confidence or
mentioning Miss Milroy's name.

"He was going to London, he gravely informed me, on a matter of
indescribable interest to him. It was a secret for the present, but he
hoped to tell it me soon; it had made a great difference already in the
way in which he looked at the slanders spoken of him in Thorpe Ambrose;
he was too happy to care what the scandal-mongers said of him now, and
he should soon stop their mouths by appearing in a new character that
would surprise them all. So he blundered on, with the firm persuasion
that he was keeping me quite in the dark. It was hard not to laugh, when
I thought of my anonymous letter on its way to the major; but I managed
to control myself--though, I must own, with some difficulty. As the
time wore on, I began to feel a terrible excitement; the position was, I
think, a little too much for me. There I was, alone with him, talking in
the most innocent, easy, familiar manner, and having it in my mind all
the time to brush his life out of my way, when the moment comes, as I
might brush a stain off my gown. It made my blood leap, and my cheeks
flush. I caught myself laughing once or twice much louder than I ought;
and long before we got to London I thought it desirable to put my face
in hiding by pulling down my veil.

"There was no difficulty, on reaching the terminus, in getting him to
come in the cab with me to the hotel where Midwin