m
which had formerly been Mrs. Armadale's, which was now (through his
interposition) habitually occupied by her son--the room with the
Statuette on the bracket, and the French windows opening to the ground,
which had once recalled to him the Second Vision of the Dream. The
Shadow of the Man, which Allan had seen standing opposite to him at the
long window; the view over a lawn and flower-garden; the pattering of
the rain against the glass; the stretching out of the Shadow's arm,
and the fall of the statue in fragments on the floor--these objects and
events of the visionary scene, so vividly present to his memory once,
were all superseded by later remembrances now, were all left to fade as
they might in the dim background of time. He could pass the room again
and again, alone and anxious, and never once think of the boat drifting
away in the moonlight, and the night's imprisonment on the Wrecked Ship!

Toward ten o'clock the well-remembered sound of Allan's voice became
suddenly audible in the direction of the stables. In a moment more he
was visible from the garden. His second morning's search for Neelie had
ended to all appearance in a second defeat of his object. The nosegay
was still in his hand; and he was resignedly making a present of it to
one of the coachman's children.

Midwinter impulsively took a step forward toward the stables, and
abruptly checked his further progress.

Conscious that his position toward his friend was altered already in
relation to Miss Gwilt, the first sight of Allan filled his mind with a
sudden distrust of the governess's influence over him, which was almost
a distrust of himself. He knew that he had set forth from the moors on
his return to Thorpe Ambrose with the resolution of acknowledging the
passion that had mastered him, and of insisting, if necessary, on a
second and a longer absence in the interests of the sacrifice which he
was bent on making to the happiness of his friend. What had become of
that resolution now? The discovery of Miss Gwilt's altered position,
and the declaration that she had voluntarily made of her indifference
to Allan, had scattered it to the winds. The first words with which
he would have met his friend, if nothing had happened to him on the
homeward way, were words already dismissed from his lips. He drew back
as he felt it, and struggled, with an instinctive loyalty toward Allan,
to free himself at the last moment from the influence of Miss Gwilt.

Ha