第69章

"Wonderful! not a point missed anywhere from beginning to end! By Jupiter!" cried Allan, with the ready reverence of intense ignorance. "What a thing science is!""Not a point missed, as you say," remarked the doctor, complacently. "And yet I doubt if we have succeeded in convincing your friend.""You have _not_ convinced me," said Midwinter. "But I don't presume on that account to say that you are wrong."He spoke quietly, almost sadly. The terrible conviction of the supernatural origin of the dream, from which he had tried to escape, had possessed itself of him again. All his interest in the argument was at an end; all his sensitiveness to its irritating influences was gone. In the case of any other man, Mr.

Hawbury would have been mollified by such a concession as his adversary had now made to him; but he disliked Midwinter too cordially to leave him in the peaceable enjoyment of an opinion of his own.

"Do you admit," asked the doctor, more pugnaciously than ever, "that I have traced back every event of the dream to a waking impression which preceded it in Mr. Armadale's mind?""I have no wish to deny that you have done so," said Midwinter, resignedly.

"Have I identified the shadows with their living originals?""You have identified them to your own satisfaction, and to my friend's satisfaction. Not to mine.""Not to yours? Can _you_ identify them?"

"No. I can only wait till the living originals stand revealed in the future.""Spoken like an oracle, Mr. Midwinter! Have you any idea at present of who those living originals may be?""I have. I believe that coming events will identify the Shadow of the Woman with a person whom my friend has not met with yet; and the Shadow of the Man with myself."Allan attempted to speak. The doctor stopped him. "Let us clearly understand this," he said to Midwinter. "Leaving your own case out of the question for the moment, may I ask how a shadow, which has no distinguishing mark about it, is to be identified with a living woman whom your friend doesn't know?"Midwinter's color rose a little. He began to feel the lash of the doctor's logic.

"The landscape picture of the dream has its distinguishing marks," he replied; "and in that landscape the living woma n will appear when the living woman is first seen.""The same thing will happen, I suppose," pursued the doctor, "with the man-shadow which you persist in identifying with yourself. You will be associated in the future with a statue broken in your friend's presence, with a long window looking out on a garden, and with a shower of rain pattering against the glass? Do you say that?""I say that."

"And so again, I presume, with the next vision? You and the mysterious woman will be brought together in some place now unknown, and will present to Mr. Armadale some liquid yet unnamed, which will turn him faint?--Do you seriously tell me you believe this?""I seriously tell you I believe it."

"And, according to your view, these fulfillments of the dream will mark the progress of certain coming events, in which Mr.

Armadale's happiness, or Mr. Armadale's safety, will be dangerously involved?""That is my firm conviction."

The doctor rose, laid aside his moral dissecting-knife, considered for a moment, and took it up again.

"One last question," he said. "Have you any reason to give for going out of your way to adopt such a mystical view as this, when an unanswerably rational explanation of the dream lies straight before you?""No reason," replied Midwinter, "that I can give, either to you or to my friend."The doctor looked at his watch with the air of a man who is suddenly reminded that he has been wasting his time.

"We have no common ground to start from," he said; "and if we talk till doomsday, we should not agree. Excuse my leaving you rather abruptly. It is later than I thought; and my morning's batch of sick people are waiting for me in the surgery. I have convinced _your_ mind, Mr. Armadale, at any rate; so the time we have given to this discussion has not been altogether lost. Pray stop here, and smoke your cigar. I shall be at your service again in less than an hour." He nodded cordially to Allan, bowed formally to Midwinter, and quitted the room.

As soon as the doctor's back was turned, Allan left his place at the table, and appealed to his friend, with that irresistible heartiness of manner which had always found its way to Midwinter's sympathies, from the first day when they met at the Somersetshire inn.

"Now the sparring-match between you and the doctor is over," said Allan, "I have got two words to say on my side. Will you do something for my sake which you won't do for your own?"Midwinter's face brightened instantly. "I will do anything you ask me," he said.

"Very well. Will you let the subject of the dream drop out of our talk altogether from this time forth?""Yes, if you wish it."

"Will you go a step further? Will you leave off thinking about the dream?""It's hard to leave off thinking about it, Allan. But I will try.""That's a good fellow! Now give me that trumpery bit of paper, and let's tear it up, and have done with it."He tried to snatch the manuscript out of his friend's hand; but Midwinter was too quick for him, and kept it beyond his reach.

"Come! come!" pleaded Allan. "I've set my heart on lighting my cigar with it."Midwinter hesitated painfully. It was hard to resist Allan; but he did resist him. "I'll wait a little," he said, "before you light your cigar with it.""How long? Till to-morrow?"

"Longer."

"Till we leave the Isle of Man?"

"Longer."

"Hang it--give me a plain answer to a plain question! How long _will_ you wait?"Midwinter carefully restored the paper to its place in his pocketbook.

"I'll wait," he said, "till we get to Thorpe Ambrose."THE END OF THE FIRST BOOK.