the strange name of Midwinter. Do you know the gentleman at all?"
asked the doctor, with a suspicious anxiety in his eyes, which strangely
belied the elaborate indifference of his tone.

"I know him to be an old friend of Mr. Armadale's," she said. "Does
he--?" Her voice failed her, and her eyes fell before the doctor's
steady scrutiny. She mastered the momentary weakness, and finished her
question. "Does he, too, stay here to-night?"

"Mr. Midwinter is a person of coarse manners and suspicious temper,"
rejoined the doctor, steadily watching her. "He was rude enough
to insist on staying here as soon as Mr. Armadale had accepted my
invitation."

He paused to note the effect of those words on her. Left utterly in the
dark by the caution with which she had avoided mentioning her husband's
assumed name to him at their first interview, the doctor's distrust of
her was necessarily of the vaguest kind. He had heard her voice
fail her--he had seen her color change. He suspected her of a mental
reservation on the subject of Midwinter--and of nothing more.

"Did you permit him to have his way?" she asked. "In your place, I
should have shown him the door."

The impenetrable composure of her tone warned the doctor that her
self-command was not to be further shaken that night. He resumed the
character of Mrs. Armadale's medical referee on the subject of Mr.
Armadale's mental health.

"If I had only had my own feelings to consult," he said, "I don't
disguise from you that I should (as you say) have shown Mr. Midwinter
the door. But on appealing to Mr. Armadale, I found he was himself
anxious not to be parted from his friend. Under those circumstances,
but one alternative was left--the alternative of humoring him again.
The responsibility of thwarting him--to say nothing," added the doctor,
drifting for a moment toward the truth, "of my natural apprehension,
with such a temper as his friend's, of a scandal and disturbance in the
house--was not to be thought of for a moment. Mr. Midwinter accordingly
remains here for the night; and occupies (I ought to say, insists on
occupying) the next room to Mr. Armadale. Advise me, my dear madam, in
this emergency," concluded the doctor, with his loudest emphasis. "What
rooms shall we put them in, on the first floor?"

"Put Mr. Armadale in Number Four."

"And his friend next to him, in Number Three?" said the doctor. "Well!
well! well! perhaps they _are_ the most comfortable rooms. I'll