the cover of the casing. For a moment
she stood looking at it, with the key in her hand. On a sudden, her lost
color came back. On a sudden, its natural animation returned, for the
first time that day, to her face. She turned and hurried breathlessly
upstairs to her room on the second floor. With eager hands she snatched
her cloak out of the wardrobe, and took her bonnet from the box. "I'm
not in prison!" she burst out, impetuously. "I've got the use of my
limbs! I can go--no matter where, as long as I am out of this house!"

With her cloak on her shoulders, with her bonnet in her hand, she
crossed the room to the door. A moment more--and she would have been out
in the passage. In that moment the remembrance flashed back on her of
the husband whom she had denied to his face. She stopped instantly, and
threw the cloak and bonnet from her on the bed. "No!" she said; "the
gulf is dug between us--the worst is done!"

There was a knock at the door. The doctor's voice outside politely
reminded her that it was six o'clock.

She opened the door, and stopped him on his way downstairs.

"What time is the train due to-night?" she asked, in a whisper.

"At ten," answered the doctor, in a voice which all the world might
hear, and welcome.

"What room is Mr. Armadale to have when he comes?"

"What room would you like him to have?"

"Number Four."

The doctor kept up appearances to the very last.

"Number Four let it be," he said, graciously. "Provided, of course, that
Number Four is unoccupied at the time."

* * * * *

The evening wore on, and the night came.

At a few minutes before ten, Mr. Bashwood was again at his post, once
more on the watch for the coming of the tidal train.

The inspector on duty, who knew him by sight, and who had personally
ascertained that his regular attendance at the terminus implied no
designs on the purses and portmanteaus of the passengers, noticed two
new circumstances in connection with Mr. Bashwood that night. In the
first place, instead of exhibiting his customary cheerfulness, he looked
anxious and depressed. In the second place, while he was watching for
the train, he was to all appearance being watched in his turn, by a
slim, dark, undersized man, who had left his luggage (marked with the
name of Midwinter) at the custom-house department the evening before,
and who had returned to have it examined about half an hour since.

What had brought Midwinter to the terminus? And why w