when their
footmen announce Ozias Midwinter and Allan Armadale in the same breath!"
He burst into a harsh laugh, and repeated the two names again, with a
scornful bitterness of emphasis which insisted pitilessly on the marked
contrast between them.

Something in the sound of his laughter jarred painfully even on Allan's
easy nature. He raised himself on the deck and spoke seriously for the
first time. "A joke's a joke, Midwinter," he said, "as long as you don't
carry it too far. I remember your saying something of the same sort to
me once before when I was nursing you in Somersetshire. You forced me
to ask you if I deserved to be kept at arms-length by _you_ of all the
people in the world. Don't force me to say so again. Make as much fun of
me as you please, old fellow, in any other way. _That_ way hurts me."

Simple as the words were, and simply as they had been spoken, they
appeared to work an instant revolution in Midwinter's mind. His
impressible nature recoiled as from some sudden shock. Without a word of
reply, he walked away by himself to the forward part of the ship. He sat
down on some piled planks between the masts, and passed his hand over
his head in a vacant, bewildered way. Though his father's belief in
fatality was his own belief once more--though there was no longer the
shadow of a doubt in his mind that the woman whom Mr. Brock had met in
Somersetshire, and the woman who had tried to destroy herself in London,
were one and the same--though all the horror that mastered him when he
first read the letter from Wildbad had now mastered him again, Allan's
appeal to their past experience of each other had come home to his
heart, with a force more irresistible than the force of his superstition
itself. In the strength of that very superstition, he now sought the
pretext which might encourage him to sacrifice every less generous
feeling to the one predominant dread of wounding the sympathies of his
friend. "Why distress him?" he whispered to himself. "We are not the end
here: there is the Woman behind us in the dark. Why resist him when the
mischief's done, and the caution comes too late? What _is_ to be _will_
be. What have I to do with the future? and what has he?"

He went back to Allan, sat down by his side, and took his hand. "Forgive
me," he said, gently; "I have hurt you for the last time." Before it
was possible to reply, he snatched up the whisky flask from the deck.
"Come!" he exclaimed, with a sudd