all his
writing, and got up with his head aching, and his spirits miserably
depressed. When he is in this state, his favorite remedy is to return
to his old vagabond habits, and go roaming away by himself nobody knows
where. He went through the form this morning (knowing I had no riding
habit) of offering to hire a little broken-kneed brute of a pony for me,
in case I wished to accompany him! I preferred remaining at home. I will
have a handsome horse and a handsome habit, or I won't ride at all.
He went away, without attempting to persuade me to change my mind. I
wouldn't have changed it, of course; but he might have tried to persuade
me all the same.

"I can open the piano in his absence--that is one comfort. And I am in
a fine humor for playing--that is another. There is a sonata of
Beethoven's (I forget the number), which always suggests to me the agony
of lost spirits in a place of torment. Come, my fingers and thumbs, and
take me among the lost spirits this morning!"

"October 13th.--Our windows look out on the sea. At noon to-day we saw
a steamer coming in, with the English flag flying. Midwinter has gone to
the port, on the chance that this may be the vessel from Gibraltar, with
Armadale on board.

"Two o'clock.--It is the vessel from Gibraltar. Armadale has added one
more to the long list of his blunders: he has kept his engagement to
join us at Naples.

"How will it end _now_?

"Who knows?"

"October 16th.--Two days missed out of my Diary! I can hardly tell why,
unless it is that Armadale irritates me beyond all endurance. The mere
sight of him takes me back to Thorpe Ambrose. I fancy I must have been
afraid of what I might write about him, in the course of the last two
days, if I indulged myself in the dangerous luxury of opening these
pages.

"This morning I am afraid of nothing, and I take up my pen again
accordingly.

"Is there any limit, I wonder, to the brutish stupidity of some men?
I thought I had discovered Armadale's limit when I was his neighbor in
Norfolk; but my later experience at Naples shows me that I was wrong. He
is perpetually in and out of this house (crossing over to us in a boat
from the hotel at Santa Lucia, where he sleeps); and he has exactly two
subjects of conversation--the yacht for sale in the harbor here, and
Miss Milroy. Yes! he selects ME as the _confidante_ of his devoted
attachment to the major's daughter! 'It's so nice to talk to a woman
about it!' That is all