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.

"I was too violently agitated to trust myself in her presence. I drew
back undiscovered, and, making my way to the front door of the house,
asked for her father first. Mr. Blanchard had retired to his room,
and could see nobody. Upon that I took courage, and asked for Miss
Blanchard. The servant smiled. 'My young lady is not Miss Blanchard any
longer, sir,' he said. 'She is married.' Those words would have struck
some men, in my position, to the earth. They fired my hot blood, and I
seized the servant by the throat, in a frenzy of rage 'It's a lie!' I
broke out, speaking to him as if he had been one of the slaves on my own
estate. 'It's the truth,' said the man, struggling with me; 'her husband
is in the house at this moment.' 'Who is he, you scoundrel?'The servant
answered by repeating my own name, to my own face: '_Allan Armadale_.'

"You can now guess the truth. Fergus Ingleby was the outlawed son whose
name and whose inheritance I had taken. And Fergus Ingleby was even with
me for depriving him of his birthright.

"Some account of the manner in which the deception had been carried out
is necessary to explain--I don't say to justify--the share I took in the
events that followed my arrival at Madeira.

"By Ingleby's own confession, he had come to Barbadoes--know