Thus far the reader had advanced with no interruption to disturb
him. But at the last words the tones of another voice, low and
broken, mingled with his own.
"Was she a fair woman," asked the voice, "or dark, like me?"
Mr. Neal paused, and looked up. The doctor was still at the bed
head, with his fingers mechanically on the patient's pulse. The
child, missing his midday sleep, was beginning to play languidly
with his new toy. The father's eyes were watching him with a rapt
and ceaseless attention. But one great change was visible in
the listeners since the narrative had begun. Mrs. Armadale had
dropped her hold of her husband's hand, and sat with her face
steadily turned away from him The hot African blood burned red
in her dusky cheeks as she obstinately repeated the question:
"Was she a fair woman, or dark, like me?"
"Fair," said her husband, without looking at her.
Her hands, lying clasped together in her lap, wrung each other
hard--she said no more. Mr. Neal's overhanging eyebrows lowered
ominously as he returned to the narrative. He had incurred his
own severe displeasure--he had caught himself in the act of
secretly pitying her.
"I have said"--the letter proceeded--"that Ingleby was admitted
to my closest confidence. I was sorry to leave him; and I was
distressed by his evident surprise and mortification when he
heard that I was going away. In my own justification, I showed
him the letter and the likeness, and told him the truth. His
interest in the portrait seemed to be hardly inferior to my own.
He asked me about Miss Blanchard's family and Miss Blanchard's
fortune with the sympathy of a true friend; and he strengthened
my regard for him, and my belief in him, by putting himself out
of the question, and by generously encouraging me to persist in
my new purpose. When we parted, I was in high health and spirits.
Before we met again the next day, I was suddenly struck by an
illness which threatened both my reason and my life.
"I have no proof against Ingleby. There was more than one woman
on the island whom I had wronged beyond all forgiveness, and
whose vengeance might well have reached me at that time. I can
accuse nobody. I can only say that my life was saved by my old
black nurse; and that the woman afterward acknowledged having
used the known negro antidote to a known negro poison in those
parts. When my first days of convalescence came, the ship in
which my passage had been taken had long since sailed. When
I asked for Ingleby, he was gone. Proofs of his unpardonable
misconduct in his situation were placed before me, which not even
my partiality for him could resist. He had been turned out of
the office in the first days of my illness, and nothing more was
known of him but that he had left the island.
"All through my sufferings the portrait had been under my pillow.
All through my convalescence it was my one consolation when I
remembered the past, and my one encouragement when I thought of
the future. No words can describe the hold that first fancy had
now taken of me--with time and solitude and suffering to help it.
My mother, with all her interest in the match, was startled by
the unexpected success of her own project. She had written to
tell Mr. Blanchard of my illness, but had received no reply. She
now offered to write again, if I would promise not to leave her
before my recovery was complete. My impatience acknowledged no
restraint. Another ship in port gave me another chance of leaving
for Madeira. Another examination of Mr. Blanchard's letter of
invitation assured me that I should find him still in the island,
if I seized my opportunity on the spot. In defiance of my
mother's entreaties, I insisted on taking my passage in the
second ship--and this time, when the ship sailed, I was on board.
"The change did me good; the sea-air made a man of me again.
After an unusually rapid voyage, I found myself at the end of
my pilgrimage. On a fine, still evening which I can never forget,
I stood alone on the shore, with her likeness in my bosom, and
saw the white walls of the house where I knew that she lived.
"I strolled round the outer limits of the grounds to compose
myself before I went in. Venturing through a gate and a
shrubbery, I looked into the garden, and saw a lady there,
loitering alone on the lawn. She turned her face toward me--and I
beheld the original of my portrait, the fulfillment of my dream!
It is useless, and worse than useless, to write of it now. Let me
only say that every promise which the likeness had made to my
fancy the living woman kept to my eyes in the moment when they
first looked on her. Let me say this--and no more.