rty is against us; Midwinter's shyness is against us; and (with
the women) my personal appearance is against us. The men from whom my
husband gets his information for the newspaper meet him at the cafe, and
never come here. I discourage his bringing any strangers to see me; for,
though years have passed since I was last at Naples, I cannot be sure
that some of the many people I once knew in this place may not be living
still. The moral of all this is (as the children's storybooks say), that
not a single witness has come to this house who could declare, if any
after-inquiry took place in England, that Midwinter and I had been
living here as man and wife. So much for present circumstances as they
affect me.

"Armadale next. Has any unforeseen accident led him to communicate with
Thorpe Ambrose? Has he broken the conditions which the major imposed
on him, and asserted himself in the character of Miss Milroy's promised
husband since I saw him last?

"Nothing of the sort has taken place. No unforeseen accident has altered
his position--his tempting position--toward myself. I know all that
has happened to him since he left England, through the letters which he
writes to Midwinter, and which Midwinter shows to me.

"He has been wrecked, to begin with. His trumpery little yacht has
actually tried to drown him, after all, and has failed! It happened (as
Midwinter warned him it might happen with so small a vessel) in a sudden
storm. They were blown ashore on the coast of Portugal. The yacht went
to pieces, but the lives, and papers, and so on, were saved. The men
have been sent back to Bristol, with recommendations from their master
which have already got them employment on board an outward-bound ship.
And the master himself is on his way here, after stopping first at
Lisbon, and next at Gibraltar, and trying ineffectually in both places
to supply himself with another vessel. His third attempt is to be made
at Naples, where there is an English yacht 'laid up,' as they call it,
to be had for sale or hire. He has had no occasion to write home since
the wreck; for he took away from Coutts's the whole of the large sum
of money lodged there for him, in circular notes. And he has felt no
inclination to go back to England himself; for, with Mr. Brock dead,
Miss Milroy at school, and Midwinter here, he has not a living creature
in whom he is interested to welcome him if he returned. To see us, and
to see the new yacht, are the only two