"October 26th.--Warnings already of the coming ordeal. A letter from Armadale to Midwinter, which Midwinter has just sent in to me. Here it is:
" 'DEAR MID--I am too busy to come to-day. Get on with your work, for Heaven's sake! The new sailing-master is a man of ten thousand. He has got an Englishman whom he knows to serve as mate on board already; and he is positively certain of getting the crew together in three or four days' time. I am dying for a whiff of the sea, and so are you, or you are no sailor. The rigging is set up, the stores are coming on board, and we shall bend the sails to-morrow or next day. I never was in such spirits in my life. Remember me to your wife, and tell her she will be doing me a favor if she will come at once, and order everything she wants in the lady's cabin. Yours affectionately, A. A.'
"Under this was written, in Midwinter's hand: 'Remember what Itold you. Write (it will break it to him more gently in that way), and beg him to accept your apologies, and to excuse you from sailing on the trial cruise.'
"I have written without a moment's loss of time. The sooner Manuel knows (which he is certain to do through Armadale) that the promise not to sail in the yacht is performed already, so far as I am concerned, the safer I shall feel.
"October 27th.--A letter from Armadale, in answer to mine. He is full of ceremonio us regrets at the loss of my company on the cruise; and he politely hopes that Midwinter may yet induce me to alter my mind. Wait a little, till he finds that Midwinter won't sail with him either! . . . .
"October 30th.--Nothing new to record until to-day. To-day the change in our lives here has come at last!
"Armadale presented himself this morning, in his noisiest high spirits, to announce that the yacht was ready for sea, and to ask when Midwinter would be able to go on board. I told him to make the inquiry himself in Midwinter's room. He left me, with a last request that I would consider my refusal to sail with him. Ianswered by a last apology for persisting in my resolution, and then took a chair alone at the window to wait the event of the interview in the next room.
"My whole future depended now on what passed between Midwinter and his friend! Everything had gone smoothly up to this time. The one danger to dread was the danger of Midwinter's resolution, or rather of Midwinter's fatalism, giving way at the last moment. If he allowed himself to be persuaded into accompanying Armadale on the cruise, Manuel's exasperation against me would hesitate at nothing--he would remember that I had answered to him for Armadale's sailing from Naples alone; and he would be capable of exposing my whole past life to Midwinter before the vessel left the port. As I thought of this, and as the slow minutes followed each other, and nothing reached my ears but the hum of voices in the next room, my suspense became almost unendurable. It was vain to try and fix my attention on what was going on in the street. Isat looking mechanically out of the window, and seeing nothing.
"Suddenly--I can't say in how long or how short a time--the hum of voices ceased; the door opened; and Armadale showed himself on the threshold, alone.
" 'I wish you good-by,' he said, roughly. 'And I hope, when I am married, my wife may never cause Midwinter the disappointment that Midwinter's wife has caused _me!_'
"He gave me an angry look, and made me an angry bow, and, turning sharply, left the room.
"I saw the people in the street again! I saw the calm sea, and the masts of the shipping in the harbor where the yacht lay! Icould think, I could breathe freely once more! The words that saved me from Manuel--the words that might be Armadale's sentence of death--had been spoken. The yacht was to sail without Midwinter, as well as without Me!
