inquiring
expression of a man who was trying to read my thoughts. His eyes fell
guiltily when they met mine, and he shrank away to his chair. Believing,
as he did, that I was really married to Armadale, was he trying to
discover whether the news of Armadale's rescue from the sea was good
news or bad news in my estimation? It was no time then for entering into
explanations with him. The first thing to be done was to communicate
instantly with the doctor. I called Bashwood back to me and gave him my
hand.

"'You have done me a service,' I said, 'which makes us closer friends
than ever. I shall say more about this, and about other matters of some
interest to both of us, later in the day. I want you now to lend me Mr.
Armadale's letter (which I promise to bring back) and to wait here till
I return. Will you do that for me, Mr. Bashwood?'

"He would do anything I asked him, he said. I went into the bedroom and
put on my bonnet and shawl.

"'Let me be quite sure of the facts before I leave you,' I resumed, when
I was ready to go out. 'You have not shown this letter to anybody but
me?'

"'Not a living soul has seen it but our two selves.'

"'What have you done with the note inclosed to Miss Milroy?'

"He produced it from his pocket. I ran it over rapidly--saw that there
was nothing in it of the slightest importance--and put it in the fire
on the spot. That done, I left Bashwood in the sitting-room, and went to
the Sanitarium, with Armadale's letter in my hand.

"The doctor had gone out, and the servant was unable to say positively
at what time he would be back. I went into his study, and wrote a line
preparing him for the news I had brought with me, which I sealed up,
with Armadale's letter, in an envelope, to await his return. Having told
the servant I would call again in an hour, I left the place.

"It was useless to go back to my lodgings and speak to Bashwood, until I
knew first what the doctor meant to do. I walked about the neighborhood,
up and down new streets and crescents and squares, with a kind of dull,
numbed feeling in me, which prevented, not only all voluntary exercise
of thought, but all sensation of bodily fatigue. I remembered the same
feeling overpowering me, years ago, on the morning when the people of
the prison came to take me into court to be tried for my life. All that
frightful scene came back again to my mind in the strangest manner, as
if it had been a scene in which some other person had f