these pages, and live my life over again
when I was plotting and planning, and finding a new excitement to occupy
me in every new hour of the day.

"He might have looked at me, though he _was_ so busy with his
writing.--He might have said, 'How nicely you are dressed this morning!'
He might have remembered--never mind what! All he remembers is the
newspaper."

"Twelve o'clock.--I have been reading and thinking; and, thanks to my
Diary, I have got through an hour.

"What a time it was--what a life it was, at Thorpe Ambrose! I wonder I
kept my senses. It makes my heart beat, it makes my face flush, only to
read about it now!

"The rain still falls, and the journalist still scribbles. I don't want
to think the thoughts of that past time over again. And yet, what else
can I do?

"Supposing--I only say supposing--I felt now, as I felt when I traveled
to London with Armadale; and when I saw my way to his life as plainly as
I saw the man himself all through the journey...?

"I'll go and look out of the window. I'll go and count the people as
they pass by.

"A funeral has gone by, with the penitents in their black hoods, and the
wax torches sputtering in the wet, and the little bell ringing, and the
priests droning their monotonous chant. A pleasant sight to meet me at
the window! I shall go back to my Diary.

"Supposing I was not the altered woman I am--I only say, supposing--how
would the Grand Risk that I once thought of running look now? I have
married Midwinter in the name that is really his own. And by doing that
I have taken the first of those three steps which were once to lead me,
through Armadale's life, to the fortune and the station of Armadale's
widow. No matter how innocent my intentions might have been on the
wedding-day--and they _were_ innocent--this is one of the unalterable
results of the marriage. Well, having taken the first step, then,
whether I would or no, how--supposing I meant to take the second step,
which I don't--how would present circumstances stand toward me? Would
they warn me to draw back, I wonder? or would they encourage me to go
on?

"It will interest me to calculate the chances; and I can easily tear the
leaf out, and destroy it, if the prospect looks too encouraging.

"We are living here (for economy's sake) far away from the expensive
English quarter, in a suburb of the city, on the Portici side. We
have made no traveling acquaintances among our own country people. Our
pove