od fellow!" he
exclaimed. "It was the very thing I was going to beg of you myself."

Midwinter beckoned to the steward. "Mr. Armadale is going to the
Sanitarium," he said, "and I mean to accompany him. Get a cab and come
with us."

He waited, to see whether Mr. Bashwood would comply. Having been
strictly ordered, when Allan did arrive, not to lose sight of him,
and having, in his own interests, Midwinter's unexpected appearance
to explain to Miss Gwilt, the steward had no choice but to comply.
In sullen submission he did as he had been told. The keys of Allan's
baggage was given to the foreign traveling servant whom he had brought
with him, and the man was instructed to wait his master's orders at
the terminus hotel. In a minute more the cab was on its way out of the
station--with Midwinter and Allan inside, and Mr. Bashwood by the driver
on the box.

* * * * *

Between eleven and twelve o'clock that night, Miss Gwilt, standing alone
at the window which lit the corridor of the Sanitarium on the second
floor, heard the roll of wheels coming toward her. The sound, gathering
rapidly in volume through the silence of the lonely neighborhood,
stopped at the iron gates. In another minute she saw the cab draw up
beneath her, at the house door.

The earlier night had been cloudy, but the sky was clearing now and the
moon was out. She opened the window to see and hear more clearly. By the
light of the moon she saw Allan get out of the cab, and turn round to
speak to some other person inside. The answering voice told her, before
he appeared in his turn, that Armadale's companion was her husband.

The same petrifying influence that had fallen on her at the interview
with him of the previous day fell on her now. She stood by the window,
white and still, and haggard and old--as she had stood when she first
faced him in her widow's weeds.

Mr. Bashwood, stealing up alone to the second floor to make his report,
knew, the instant he set eyes on her, that the report was needless.
"It's not my fault," was all he said, as she slowly turned her head and
looked at him. "They met together, and there was no parting them."

She drew a long breath, and motioned him to be silent. "Wait a little,"
she said; "I know all about it."

Turning from him at those words, she slowly paced the corridor to its
furthest end; turned, and slowly came back to him with frowning brow
and drooping head--with all the grace and beauty gone from her, but th