mething to write that I _must_ write; can you make
me hold a pen?'

"He might as well have asked me if I could perform a miracle. I could
only say No. 'If I dictate the words,' he went on, 'can you write what I
tell you to write?' Once more I could only say No I understand a
little English, but I can neither speak it nor write it. Mr. Armadale
understands French when it is spoken (as I speak it to him) slowly, but
he cannot express himself in that language; and of German he is totally
ignorant. In this difficulty, I said, what any one else in my situation
would have said: 'Why ask _me_? there is Mrs. Armadale at your service
in the next room.' Before I could get up from my chair to fetch her,
he stopped me--not by words, but by a look of horror which fixed me, by
main force of astonishment, in my place. 'Surely,' I said, 'your wife
is the fittest person to write for you as you desire?' 'The last person
under heaven!' he answered. 'What!' I said, 'you ask me, a foreigner
and a stranger, to write words at your dictation which you keep a secret
from your wife!' Conceive my astonishment when he answered me, without
a moment's hesitation, 'Yes!' I sat lost; I sat silent. 'If _you_
can't write English,' he said, 'find somebody who can.' I tried to
remonstrate. He burst into a dreadful moaning cry--a dumb entreaty, like
the entreaty of a dog. 'Hush! hush!' I said, 'I will find somebody.'
'To-day!' he broke out, 'before my speech fails me, like my hand.'
'To-day, in an hour's time.' He shut his eyes; he quieted himself
instantly. 'While I am waiting for you,' he said, 'let me see my little
boy.' He had shown no tenderness when he spoke of his wife, but I saw
the tears on his cheeks when he asked for his child. My profession, sir,
has not made me so hard a man as you might think; and my doctor's heart
was as heavy, when I went out to fetch the child, as if I had not been a
doctor at all. I am afraid you think this rather weak on my part?"

The doctor looked appealingly at Mr. Neal. He might as well have looked
at a rock in the Black Forest. Mr. Neal entirely declined to be drawn by
any doctor in Christendom out of the regions of plain fact.

"Go on," he said. "I presume you have not told me all that you have to
tell me, yet?"

"Surely you understand my object in coming here, now?" returned the
other.

"Your object is plain enough, at last. You invite me to connect myself
blindfold with a matter which is in the last degree s