Armadale by Wilkie Collins

hill-sides, crested black with firs, shone to the shining heavens in a glory of lustrous green. In and out, where the forest footpaths wound from the grass through the trees, from the trees over the grass, the bright spring dresses of women and children, on the search for wild-flowers, travelled to and fro in the lofty distance like spots of moving light. Below, on the walk by the stream side, the booths of the little bazaar that had opened punctually with the opening season, showed all their glittering trinkets, and fluttered in the balmy air their splendour of many-coloured flags. Longingly, here, the children looked at the show; patiently the sun-burnt lasses plied their knitting as they paced the walk; courteously the passing townspeople, by fours and fives, and the passing visitors, by ones and twos, greeted each other, hat in hand; and slowly, slowly, the crippled and the helpless in their chairs on wheels, came out in the cheerful noontide with the rest, and took their share of the blessed light that cheers, of the blessed sun that shines for all.
    On this scene the Scotchman looked, with eyes that never noted its beauty, with a mind far away from every lesson that it taught. One by one, he meditated the words he should say when the wife came in. One by one, he pondered over the conditions he might impose, before he took the pen in hand at the husband’s bedside.
    â€˜Mrs Armadale is here,’ said the doctor’s voice, interposing suddenly between his reflections and himself.
    He turned on the instant, and saw before him, with the pure midday light shining full on her, a woman of the mixed blood of the European and the African race, with the northern delicacy in the shape of her face, and the southern richness in its colour – a woman in the prime of her beauty, who moved with an inbred grace, who looked with an inbred fascination, whose large languid black eyes rested on him gratefully, whose little dusky hand offered itself to him, in mute expression of her thanks, with the welcome that is given to the coming of a friend. For the first time in his life, the Scotchman was taken by surprise. Every self-preservative word that he had been meditating but an instant since, dropped out of his memory. His thrice-impenetrable armour of habitual suspicion, habitual self-discipline, and habitual reserve, which had never fallen from him in a woman’s presence before, fell from him in this woman’s presence, and brought him to his knees, a conquered man. He took the hand she offered him, and bowed over it his first honest homage to the sex, in silence.
    She hesitated on her side. The quick feminine perception which, in happier circumstances, would have pounced on the secret of his embarrassment in an instant, failed her now. She attributed his strange reception of her to pride, to reluctance – to any cause but the unexpected revelation of her own beauty. ‘I have no words to thank you,’ she said faintly, trying to propitiate him. ‘I should only distress you if I tried to speak.’ Her lip began to tremble, she drew back a little, and turned away her head in silence.
    The doctor, who had been standing apart, quietly observant in a corner, advanced before Mr Neal could interfere, and led Mrs Armadale to a chair. ‘Don’t be afraid of him,’ whispered the good man, patting her gently on the shoulder. ‘He was hard as iron in my hands, but I think, by the look of him, he will be soft as wax in yours. Say the words I told you to say, and let us take him to your husband’s room, before those sharp wits of his have time to recover themselves.’
    She roused her sinking resolution, and advanced half-way to the window to meet Mr Neal. ‘My kind friend, the doctor, has told me, sir, that your only hesitation in coming here is a hesitation on my account,’ she said, her head drooping a little, and her rich colour fading away while she spoke. ‘I am deeply