"There is one thing more that haunts me almost as obstinately
as the Names.
"I wonder whether I am right in relying on Midwinter's
superstition (as I do) to help me in keeping him at arms-length.
After having let the excitement of the moment hurry me into
saying more than I need have said, he is certain to press me;
he is certain to come back, with a man's hateful selfishness
and impatience in such things, to the question of marrying me.
Will the Dream help me to check him? After alternately believing
and disbelieving in it, he has got, by his own confession, to
believing in it again. Can I say I believe in it, too? I have
better reasons for doing so than he knows of. I am not only
the person who helped Mrs. Armadale's marriage by helping her
to impose on her own father: I am the woman who tried to drown
herself; the woman who started the series of accidents which put
young Armadale in possession of his fortune; the woman who has
come Thorpe Ambrose to marry him for his fortune, now he has got
it; and more extraordinary still, the woman who stood in the
Shadow's place at the pool! These may be coincidences, but they
are strange coincidences.
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