"I like
the poor fellow, and I won't give him up," concluded Allan, bringing his
clinched fist down with a thump on the rectory table. "Don't be afraid
of my vexing my mother; I'll leave you to speak to her, Mr. Brock, at
your own time and in your own way; and I'll just say this much more
by way of bringing the thing to an end. Here is the address safe in my
pocket-book, and here am I, standing firm for once on a resolution of my
own. I'll give you and my mother time to reconsider this; and, when the
time is up, if my friend Midwinter doesn't come to _me_, I'll go to my
friend Midwinter."

So the matter rested for the present; and such was the result of turning
the castaway usher adrift in the world again.

-------------

A month passed, and brought in the new year--'51. Overleaping that short
lapse of time, Mr. Brock paused, with a heavy heart, at the next
event; to his mind the one mournful, the one memorable event of the
series--Mrs. Armadale's death.

The first warning of the affliction that was near at hand had followed
close on the usher's departure in December, and had arisen out of a
circumstance which dwelt painfully on the rector's memory from that time
forth.

But three days after Midwinter had left for London, Mr. Brock was
accosted in the village by a neatly dressed woman, wearing a gown and
bonnet of black silk and a red Paisley shawl, who was a total stranger
to him, and who inquired the way to Mrs. Armadale's house. She put the
question without raising the thick black veil that hung over her face.
Mr. Brock, in giving her the necessary directions, observed that she
was a remarkably elegant and graceful woman, and looked after her as she
bowed and left him, wondering who Mrs. Armadale's visitor could possibly
be.

A quarter of an hour later the lady, still veiled as before, passed Mr.
Brock again close to the inn. She entered the house, and spoke to the
landlady. Seeing the landlord shortly afterward hurrying round to the
stables, Mr. Brock asked him if the lady was going away. Yes; she had
come from the railway in the omnibus, but she was going back again more
creditably in a carriage of her own hiring, supplied by the inn.

The rector proceeded on his walk, rather surprised to find his thoughts
running inquisitively on a woman who was a stranger to him. When he
got home again, he found the village surgeon waiting his return with an
urgent message from Allan's mother. About an hour since, the su