what happened, in that case
as well as in the other? Why agitate myself by writing it down? I don't
know! Why do I keep a diary at all? Why did the clever thief the other
day (in the English newspaper) keep the very thing to convict him in
the shape of a record of everything he stole? Why are we not perfectly
reasonable in all that we do? Why am I not always on my guard and never
inconsistent with myself, like a wicked character in a novel? Why? why?
why?

"I don't care why! I must write down what happened between Midwinter
and me to-night, _because_ I must. There's a reason that nobody can
answer--myself included."

* * * * * * *

"It was half-past eleven. Armadale had gone. I had put on my
dressing-gown, and had just sat down to arrange my hair for the night,
when I was surprised by a knock at the door, and Midwinter came in.

"He was frightfully pale. His eyes looked at me with a terrible despair
in them. He never answered when I expressed my surprise at his coming
in so much sooner than usual; he wouldn't even tell me, when I asked the
question, if he was ill. Pointing peremptorily to the chair from which
I had risen on his entering the room, he told me to sit down again; and
then, after a moment, added these words: 'I have something serious to
say to you.'

"I thought of what I had done--or, no, of what I had tried to do--in
that interval between half-past ten and half-past eleven, which I have
left unnoticed in my diary--and the deadly sickness of terror, which
I never felt at the time, came upon me now. I sat down again, as I had
been told, without speaking to Midwinter, and without looking at him.

"He took a turn up and down the room, and then came and stood over me.

"'If Allan comes here to-morrow,' he began, 'and if you see him--'

"His voice faltered, and he said no more. There was some dreadful grief
at his heart that was trying to master him. But there are times when his
will is a will of iron. He took another turn in the room, and crushed it
down. He came back, and stood over me again.

"'When Allan comes here to-morrow,' he resumed, 'let him come into my
room, if he wants to see me. I shall tell him that I find it impossible
to finish the work I now have on hand as soon as I had hoped, and that
he must, therefore, arrange to find a crew for the yacht without any
assistance on my part. If he comes, in his disappointment, to appeal to
you, give him no hope of my being free in time to help him i