"He came--in the strangest silent way, like a man walking in his sleep--he came and sat down by me. Either the night was very close, or I was by this time literally in a fever: I couldn't bear my bonnet on; I couldn't bear my gloves. The want to look at him, and see what his singular silence meant, and the impossibility of doing it in the darkening light, irritated my nerves, till I thought I should have screamed. I took his hand, to try if that would help me. It was burning hot; and it closed instantly on mine--you know how. Silence, after _that,_ was not to be thought of. The one safe way was to begin talking to him at once.
" 'Don't despise me,' I said. 'I am obliged to bring you to this lonely place; I should lose my character if we were seen together.'
"I waited a little. His hand warned me once more not to let the silence continue. I determined to _make_ him speak to me this time.
" 'You have interested me, and frightened me,' I went on. 'You have written me a very strange letter. I must know what it means.'
" 'It is too late to ask. _You_ have taken the way, and _I_ have taken the way, from which there is no turning back.' He made that strange answer in a tone that was quite new to me--a tone that made me even more uneasy than his silence had made me the moment before. 'Too late,' he repeated--'too late! There is only one question to ask me now.'
" 'What is it?'
"As I said the words, a sudden trembling passed from his hand to m ine, and told me instantly that I had better have held my tongue. Before I could move, before I could think, he had me in his arms. 'Ask me if I love you,' he whispered. At the same moment his head sank on my bosom; and some unutterable torture that was in him burst its way out, as it does with _us,_ in a passion of sobs and tears.
"My first impulse was the impulse of a fool. I was on the point of making our usual protest and defending myself in our usual way. Luckily or unluckily, I don't know which, I have lost the fine edge of the sensitiveness of youth; and I checked the first movement of my hands, and the first word on my lips. Oh, dear, how old I felt, while he was sobbing his heart out on my breast!
How I thought of the time when he might have possessed himself of my love! All he had possessed himself of now was--my waist.
"I wonder whether I pitied him? It doesn't matter if I did. At any rate, my hand lifted itself somehow, and my fingers twined themselves softly in his hair. Horrible recollections came back to me of other times, and made me shudder as I touched him. And yet I did it. What fools women are!
" 'I won't reproach you,' I said, gently. 'I won't say this is a cruel advantage to take of me, in such a position as mine. You are dreadfully agitated; I will let you wait a little and compose yourself.'
"Having got as far as that, I stopped to consider how I should put the questions to him that I was burning to ask. But I was too confused, I suppose, or perhaps too impatient to consider. I let out what was uppermost in my mind, in the words that came first.
" 'I don't believe you love me,' I said. 'You write strange things to me; you frighten me with mysteries. What did you mean by saying in your letter that it would be fatal to Mr. Armadale if you came back to me? What danger can there be to Mr.
Armadale--?'
"Before I could finish the question, he suddenly lifted his head and unclasped his arms. I had apparently touched some painful subject which recalled him to himself. Instead of my shrinking from _him,_ it was he who shrank from _me._ I felt offended with him; why, I don't know--but offended I was; and I thanked him with my bitterest emphasis for remembering what was due to me, _at last!_" 'Do you believe in Dreams?' he burst out, in the most strangely abrupt manner, without taking the slightest notice of what I had said to him. 'Tell me,' he went on, without allowing me time to answer, 'were you, or was any relation of yours, ever connected with Allan Armadale's father or mother? Were you, or was anybody belonging to you, ever in the island of Madeira? '
"Conceive my astonishment, if you can. I turned cold. In an instant I turned cold all over. He was plainly in the secret of what had happened when I was in Mrs. Armadale's service in Madeira--in all probability before he was born! That was startling enough of itself. And he had evidently some reason of his own for trying to connect _me_ with those events--which was more startling still.
" 'No,' I said, as soon as I could trust myself to speak. 'I know nothing of his father or mother.'
" 'And nothing of the island of Madeira?'
" 'Nothing of the island of Madeira.'
"He turned his head away, and began talking to himself.
" 'Strange!' he said. 'As certainly as I was in the Shadow's place at the window, _she_ was in the Shadow's place at the pool!'
"Under other circumstances, his extraordinary behavior might have alarmed me. But after his question about Madeira, there was some greater fear in me which kept all common alarm at a distance. Idon't think I ever determined on anything in my life as Idetermined on finding out how he had got his information, and who he really was. It was quite plain to me that I had roused some hidden feeling in him by my question about Armadale, which was as strong in its way as his feeling for _me._ What had become of my influence over him?
"I couldn't imagine what had become of it; but I could and did set to work to make him feel it again.
" 'Don't treat me cruelly,' I said; 'I didn't treat _you_ cruelly just now. Oh, Mr. Midwinter, it's so lonely, it's so dark--don't frighten me!'
" 'Frighten you!' He was close to me again in a moment. 'Frighten you!' He repeated the word with as much astonishment as if I had woke him from a dream, and charged him with something that he had said in his sleep.