"We were mustered on deck, and addressed by the sailing-master as
soon as he came on board again. He had Mr. Blanchard's orders to
go back at once to the timber-ship and to search for the missing
man. We were bound to do this for his sake, and for the sake
of his wife, whose reason was despaired of by the doctors if
something was not done to quiet her. We might be almost sure of
finding the vessel still afloat, for her ladling of timber would
keep her above water as long as her hull held together. If the
man was on board--living or dead--he must be found and brought
back. And if the weather continued to be moderate, there was no
reason why the men, with proper assistance, should not bring the
ship back, too, and (their master being quite willing) earn their
share of the salvage with the officers of the yacht.
"Upon this the crew gave three cheers, and set to work forthwith
to get the schooner to sea again. I was the only one of them who
drew back from the enterprise. I told them the storm had upset
me--I was ill, and wanted rest. They all looked me in the face as
I passed through them on my way out of the yacht, but not a man
of them spoke to me.
"I waited through that day at a tavern on the port for the first
news from the wreck. It was brought toward night-fall by one
of the pilot-boats which had taken part in the enterprise--a
successful enterprise, as the event proved--for saving the
abandoned ship. _La Grace de Dieu_ had been discovered still
floating, and the body of Ingleby had been found on board,
drowned in the cabin. At dawn the next morning the dead man was
brought back by the yacht; and on the same day the funeral took
place in the Protestant cemetery."
"Stop!" said the voice from the bed, before the reader could turn
to a new leaf and begin the next paragraph.
There was a change in the room, and there were changes in the
audience, since Mr. Neal had last looked up from the narrative.
A ray of sunshine was crossing the death-bed; and the child,
overcome by drowsiness, lay peacefully asleep in the golden
light. The father's countenance had altered visibly. Forced into
action by the tortured mind, the muscles of the lower face, which
had never moved yet, were moving distortedly now. Warned by the
damps gathering heavily on his forehead, the doctor had risen to
revive the sinking man. On the other side of the bed the wife's
chair stood empty. At the moment when her husband had interrupted
the reading, she had drawn back behind the bed head, out of his
sight. Supporting herself against the wall, she stood there in
hiding, her eyes fastened in hungering suspense on the manuscript
in Mr. Neal's hand.
In a minute more the silence was broken again by Mr. Armadale.
"Where is she?" he asked, looking angrily at his wife's empty
chair. The doctor pointed to the place. She had no choice but
to come forward. She came slowly and stood before him.
"You promised to go when I told you," he said. "Go now."
Mr. Neal tried hard to control his hand as it kept his place
between the leaves of the manuscripts but it trembled in spite
of him. A suspicion which had been slowly forcing itself on
his mind, while he was reading, became a certainty when he heard
those words. From one revelation to another the letter had gone
on, until it had now reached the brink of a last disclosure to
come. At that brink the dying man had predetermined to silence
the reader's voice, before he had permitted his wife to hear the
narrative read. There was the secret which the son was to know
in after years, and which the mother was never to approach. From
that resolution, his wife's tenderest pleadings had never moved
him an inch--and now, from his own lips, his wife knew it.
She made him no answer. She stood there and looked at him; looked
her last entreaty--perhaps her last farewell. His eyes gave her
back no answering glance: they wandered from her mercilessly to
the sleeping boy. She turned speechless from the bed. Without
a look at the child--without a word to the two strangers
breathlessly watching her--she kept the promise she had given,
and in dead silence left the room.
There was something in the manner of her departure which shook
the self-possession of both the men who witnessed it. When the
door closed on her, they recoiled instinctively from advancing
further in the dark. The doctor's reluctance was the first to
express itself. He attempted to obtain the patient's permission
to withdraw until the letter was completed. The patient refused.
Mr. Neal spoke next at greater length and to more serious
purpose.
"The doctor is accustomed in his profession," he began, "and I am
accustomed in mine, to have the secrets of others placed in our
keeping. But it is my duty, before we go further, to ask if you
really understand the extraordinary position which we now occupy
toward one another. You have just excluded Mrs. Armadale, before
our own eyes, from a place in your confidence. And you are now
offering that same place to two men who are total strangers to
you."
"Yes," said Mr. Armadale, "_because_ you are strangers."
Few as the words were, the inference to be drawn from them was
not of a nature to set distrust at rest. Mr. Neal put it plainly
into words.
"You are in urgent need of my help and of the doctor's help," he
said. "Am I to understand (so long as you secure our assistance)
that the impression which the closing passages of this letter may
produce on us is a matter of indifference to you?"
"Yes. I don't spare you. I don't spare myself. I _do_ spare my
wife."
"You force me to a conclusion, sir, which is a very serious one,"
said Mr. Neal. "If I am to finish this letter under your
dictation, I must claim permission--having read aloud the greater
part of it already--to read aloud what remains, in the hearing
of this gentleman, as a witness."
"Read it."
Gravely doubting, the doctor resumed his chair. Gravely doubting,
Mr. Neal turned the leaf, and read the next words:
"There is more to tell before I can leave the dead man to
his rest. I have described the finding of his body. But I have
not described the circumstances under which he met his death.