time would have induced him to mix himself up in
the matter at all. He would honestly confess that he had exhausted his
own resources, and the resources of other persons whom he described as
his 'backers,' in the purchase and completion of the Sanitarium. Under
those circumstances, six hundred pounds in prospect was an object
to him. For that sum he would run the serious risk of advising and
assisting me. Not a farthing less would tempt him; and there he left it,
with his best and friendliest wishes, in my hands!

"It ended in the only way in which it could end. I had no choice but to
accept the terms, and to let the doctor settle things on the spot as he
pleased. The arrangement once made between us, I must do him the justice
to say that he showed no disposition to let the grass grow under his
feet. He called briskly for pen, ink and paper, and suggested opening
the campaign at Thorpe Ambrose by to-night's post.

"We agreed on a form of letter which I wrote, and which he copied on the
spot. I entered into no particulars at starting. I simply asserted that
I was the widow of the deceased Mr. Armadale; that I had been privately
married to him; that I had returned to England on his sailing in the
yacht from Naples; and that I begged to inclose a copy of my marriage
certificate, as a matter of form with which I presumed it was customary
to comply. The letter was addressed to 'The Representatives of the late
Allan Armadale, Esq., Thorpe Ambrose, Norfolk.' And the doctor himself
carried it away, and put it in the post.

"I am not so excited and so impatient for results as I expected to be,
now that the first step is taken. The thought of Midwinter haunts me
like a ghost. I have been writing to him again--as before, to keep
up appearances. It will be my last letter, I think. My courage feels
shaken, my spirits get depressed, when my thoughts go back to Turin.
I am no more capable of facing the consideration of Midwinter at this
moment than I was in the by-gone time, The day of reckoning with him,
once distant and doubtful, is a day that may come to me now, I know
not how soon. And here I am, trusting myself blindly to the chapter of
Accidents still!"

"November 25th.--At two o'clock to-day the doctor called again by
appointment. He has been to his lawyers (of course without taking them
into our confidence) to put the case simply of proving my marriage.
The result confirms what he has already told me. The pivot on which