Armadale's nervous peculiarity, to
disguise the taste of--never mind what! Another of the things I pride
myself on is that I never wander from my subject. What Midwinter said
next is what I ought to be writing about now."]

"He looked at me for a moment, as if he thought I had taken leave of
my senses. Then he came round to my side of the table and stood over me
again.

"'If nothing else will satisfy you that you are entirely misinterpreting
my motives,' he said, 'and that I haven't an idea of blaming _you_ in
the matter--read this.'

"He took a paper from the breast-pocket of his coat, and spread it open
under my eyes. It was the Narrative of Armadale's Dream.

"In an instant the whole weight on my mind was lifted off it. I felt
mistress of myself again--I understood him at last.

"'Do you know what this is?' he asked. 'Do you remember what I said to
you at Thorpe Ambrose about Allan's Dream? I told you then that two
out of the three Visions had already come true. I tell you now that the
third Vision has been fulfilled in this house to-night.'

"He turned over the leaves of the manuscript, and pointed to the lines
that he wished me to read.

"I read these, or nearly read these words, from the Narrative of the
Dream, as Midwinter had taken it down from Armadale's own lips:

"'The darkness opened for the third time, and showed me the Shadow of
the Man and the Shadow of the Woman together. The Man-Shade was the
nearest; the Woman-Shadow stood back. From where she stood, I heard
a sound like the pouring out of a liquid softly. I saw her touch the
Shadow of the Man with one hand, and give him a glass with the other.
He took the glass and handed it to me. At the moment when I put it to my
lips, a deadly faintness overcame me. When I recovered my senses again,
the Shadows had vanished, and the Vision was at an end.'

"For the moment, I was as completely staggered by this extraordinary
coincidence as Midwinter himself.

"He put one hand on the open narrative and laid the other heavily on my
arm.

"'_Now_ do you understand my motive in coming here?' he asked. '_Now_
do you see that the last hope I had to cling to was the hope that your
memory of the night's events might prove my memory to be wrong? _Now_
do you know why I won't help Allan? Why I won't sail with him? Why I am
plotting and lying, and making you plot and lie too, to keep my best and
dearest friend out of the house?'

"'Have you forgotten Mr. Brock's