e, when I am married,
my wife may never cause Midwinter the disappointment that Midwinter's
wife has caused _me_!'

"He gave me an angry look, and made me an angry bow, and, turning
sharply, left the room.

"I saw the people in the street again! I saw the calm sea, and the masts
of the shipping in the harbor where the yacht lay! I could think, I
could breathe freely once more! The words that saved me from Manuel--the
words that might be Armadale's sentence of death--had been spoken. The
yacht was to sail without Midwinter, as well as without me!

"My first feeling of exultation was almost maddening. But it was the
feeling of a moment only. My heart sank in me again when I thought of
Midwinter alone in the next room.

"I went out into the passage to listen, and heard nothing. I tapped
gently at his door, and got no answer. I opened the door and looked in.
He was sitting at the table, with his face hidden in his hands. I looked
at him in silence, and saw the glistening of the tears as they trickled
through his fingers.

"'Leave me,' he said, without moving his hands. 'I must get over it by
myself.'

"I went back into the sitting-room. Who can understand women? we don't
even understand ourselves. His sending me away from him in that manner
cut me to the heart. I don't believe the most harmless and most gentle
woman living could have felt it more acutely than I felt it. And this,
after what I have been doing! this, after what I was thinking of, the
moment before I went into his room! Who can account for it? Nobody--I
least of all!

"Half an hour later his door opened, and I heard him hurrying down the
stairs. I ran on without waiting to think, and asked if I might go with
him. He neither stopped nor answered. I went back to the window, and saw
him pass, walking rapidly away, with his back turned on Naples and the
sea.

"I can understand now that he might not have heard me. At the time I
thought him inexcusably and brutally unkind to me. I put on my bonnet,
in a frenzy of rage with him; I sent out for a carriage, and told the
man to take me where he liked. He took me, as he took other strangers,
to the Museum to see the statues and the pictures. I flounced from room
to room, with my face in a flame, and the people all staring at me. I
came to myself again, I don't know how. I returned to the carriage,
and made the man drive me back in a violent hurry, I don't know why. I
tossed off my cloak and bonnet, and sat dow