actly as I anticipated; and we have only to account now-which may be done in two wordsfor the manner of their appearance in the dream. After having tried to introduce the waking impression of the doctor and the landlady separately, in connection with the wrong set of circumstances, the dreaming mind comes right at the third trial, and introduces the doctor and the landlady together, in connection with the right set of circumstances. There it is in a nut-shell! Permit me to hand you back the manuscript, with my best thanks for your very complete and striking confirmation of the rational theory of dreams." Saying those words, Mr. Hawbury returned the written paper to Midwinter, with the pitiless politeness of a conquering man.

"Wonderful! not a point missed any where 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. if we have succeeded in convincing your friend." "And yet I doubt "You have not convinced me," said Midwinter. "But I don't presume on that account to say that you are wrong.'

503

it, is to be identified with a living woman whom
your friend doesn't know?"

feel the lash of the doctor's logic.
Midwinter's color rose a little. He began to

distinguishing marks," he replied.
"The landscape-picture of the dream has its
that landscape the living woman will appear
when the living woman is first seen."
"And in

pursued the doctor, "with the man-shadow
"The same thing will happen, I suppose,"
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."

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

"I seriously tell you I believe it."

"And, according to your view, these fulfillcertain coming events, in which Mr. Armadale's Iments of the dream will mark the progress of happiness or Mr. Armadale's safety will be dangerously involved?"

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 ing-knife-considered for a moment-and took The doctor rose-laid aside his moral dissect

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.

"That is my firm conviction."

it up again.

"Have you

any reason to give for going out of your way to
"One last question," he said.
adopt such a mystical view as this, when an un-
answerably rational explanation of the dream
lies straight before you?"

give, either to you or to my friend."
"No reason," replied Midwinter, "that I can

of a man who is suddenly reminded that he has
The doctor looked at his watch with the air
been wasting his time.

"We have no common ground to start from,'
he said; "and if we talked till doomsday we

"Have I identified the Shadows with their should not agree. Excuse my leaving you rathliving 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

morning's batch of sick people are waiting for
er abruptly. It is later than I thought, and my
me in the surgery. I have convinced your mind,
Mr. Armadale, at any rate; so the time we have
lost. Pray stop here and smoke your cigar. I
given to this discussion has not been altogether
hour." He nodded cordially to Allan, bowed
shall be at your service again in less than an
formally to Midwinter, and quitted the room.

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

the doctor is over," said Allan, "I have got two
"Now the sparring-match between you and
words to say on my side.
thing for my sake which you won't do for your
own?"
Will you do some-

IN FOUR BOOKS.-BOOK THE SECOND. BIRDS OF A FEATHER.

CHAPTER XIV.

STRONG OF PURPOSE.

cease to haunt the scenes in which it had no place.

He went over it all again. He had lapsed THE sexton-task of piling earth above John into the condition in which he found himself, as

night conducive to many a man lapses into many a condition, with

sound sleep; but Rokesmith had some broken morning rest, and rose strengthened in his purpose. It was all over now. No ghost should trouble Mr. and Mrs. Boffin's peace; invisible and voiceless, the ghost should look on for a little while longer at the state of existence out of which it had departed, and then should forever

out perceiving the accumulative power of its separate circumstances. When in the distrust engendered by his wretched childhood and the action for evil-never yet for good within his knowledge then-of his father and his father's wealth on all within their influence, he conceived the idea of his first deception, it was meant to

MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE. (SEE FEBRUARY NUMBER, PAGE 382.] be harmless, it was to last but a few hours or days, it was to involve in it only the girl so capriciously forced upon him, and upon whom he was so capriciously forced, and it was honestly meant well toward her. For if he had found her unhappy in the prospect of that marriage (through her heart inclining to another man or for any other cause), he would seriously have said: "This is another of the old perverted uses of the misery-making money. I will let it go to my and my sister's only protectors and friends." When the snare into which he fell so outstripped his first intention as that he found himself placarded by the police authorities upon the London walls for dead, he confusedly accepted the aid that fell upon him, without considering how firmly it must seem to fix the Boffins in their accession to the fortune. When he saw them, and knew them, and even from his vantage

ground of inspection could find no flaw in them, he asked himself, " And shall I come to life to dispossess such people as these?" There was no good to set against the putting of them to that hard proof. He had heard from Bella's own lips when he stood tapping at the door on that night of his taking the lodgings, that the marriage would have been on her part thoroughly mercenary. He had since tried her, in his own unknown person and supposed station, and she not only rejected his advances but resented them. Was it for him to have the shame of buying her, or the meanness of punishing her? Yet, by coming to life, and accepting the condition of the inheritance, he must do the former; and by coming to life and rejecting it, he must do the latter.

Another consequence that he had never foreshadowed, was the implication of an innocent