I did not go straight home to our dull, gloomy, bachelor dwelling-place;
for I was not in the mood for an hour's soliloquy. Jack and I had
undertaken between us the charge of the patients belonging to a friend
of ours, who had been called out of town for a few days. I was passing
by the house, chewing the bitter cud of my reflections, and, recalling
this, I turned in to see if any messages were waiting there for us.
Lowry's footman told me a person had been with an urgent request that he
would go as soon as possible to No. 19 Bellringer Street. I did not know
the street, or what sort of a locality it was in.
"What kind of a person called?" I asked.
"A woman, sir; not a lady. On foot--poorly dressed. She's been here
before, and Dr. Lowry has visited the case twice. No. 19 Bellringer
Street. Perhaps you will find him in the case-book, sir."
I went in to consult the case-book. Half a dozen words contained the
diagnosis. It was the same disease, in an incipient form, of which my
poor mother died. I resolved to go and see this sufferer at once, late
as the hour was.
"Did the person expect some one to go to-night?" I asked, as I passed
through the hall.
"I couldn't promise her that, sir," was the answer. "I did say I'd send
on the message to you, and I was just coming with it, sir. She said
she'd sit up till twelve o'clock."
"Very good," I said.
Upon inquiry I found that the place was two miles away; and, as our old
friend Simmons was still on the cab-stand, I jumped into his cab, and
bade him drive me as fast as he could to No. 19 Bellringer Street. I
wanted a sense of motion, and a chance of scene. If I had been in
Guernsey, I should have mounted Madam, and had another midnight ride
round the island. This was a poor substitute for that; but the visit
would serve to turn my thoughts from Julia. If any one in London could
do the man good. I believed it was I; for I had studied that one malady
with my soul thrown into it.
"We turned at last into a shabby street, recognizable even in the
twilight of the scattered lamps as being a place for cheap
lodging-houses. There was a light burning in the second-floor windows of
No. 19; but all the rest of the front was in darkness. I paid Simmons
and dismissed him, saying I would walk home. By the time I turned to
knock at the door, it was opened quietly from within. A woman stood in
the doorway; I could not see her face, for the candle she had brought
with her was on the table behind her; neither was there light enough for
her to distinguish mine.
"Are you come from Dr. Lowry's?" she asked.
The voice sounded a familiar one, but I could not for the life of me
recall whose it was.
"Yes," I answered, "but I do not know the name of my patient here."
"Dr. Martin Dobrée!" she exclaimed, in an accent almost of terror.
I recollected her then as the person who had been in search of Olivia.
She had fallen back a few paces, and I could now see her face. It was
startled and doubtful, as if she hesitated to admit me. Was it possible
I had come to attend Olivia's husband?
"I don't know whatever to do!" she ejaculated; "he is very ill to-night,
but I don't think he ought to see _you_--I don't think he would."
"Listen to me," I said; "I do not think there is another man in London
as well qualified to do him good."
"Why?" she asked, eagerly.
"Because I have made this disease my special study," I answered. "Mind,
I am not anxious to attend him. I came here simply because my friend is
out of town. If he wishes to see me, I will see him, and do my best for
him. It rests entirely with himself."
"Will you wait here a few minutes?" she asked, "while I see what he
will do?"
She left me in the dimly-lighted hall, pervaded by a musty smell of
unventilated rooms, and a damp, dirty underground floor. The place was
altogether sordid, and dingy, and miserable. At last I heard her step
coming down the two flights of stairs, and I went to meet her.
"He will see you," she said, eying me herself with a steady gaze of
curiosity.
Her curiosity was not greater than mine. I was anxious to see Olivia's
husband, partly from the intense aversion I felt instinctively toward
him. He was lying back in an old, worn-out easy-chair, with a woman's
shawl thrown across his shoulders, for the night was chilly. His face
had the first sickly hue and emaciation of the disease, and was probably
refined by it. It was a handsome, regular, well-cut face, narrow across
the brows, with thin, firm lips, and eyes perfect in shape, but cold and
glittering as steel. I knew afterward that he was fifteen years older
than Olivia. Across his knees lay a shaggy, starved-looking cat, which
he held fast by the fore-paws, and from time to time entertained himself
by teasing and tormenting it. He scrutinized me as keenly as I did him.
"I believe we are in some sort connected. Dr. Martin Dobrée," he said,
smiling coldly; "my half-sister, Kate Daltrey, is married to your
father, Dr. Dobrée."
"Yes," I answered, shortly. The subject was eminently disagreeable to
me, and I had no wish to pursue it with him.
"Ay! she will make him a happy man," he continued, mockingly; "you are
not yourself married, I believe, Dr. Martin Dobrée?"
I took no notice whatever of his question, or the preceding remark, but
passed on to formal inquiries concerning his health. My close study of
his malady helped me here. I could assist him to describe and localize
his symptoms, and I soon discovered that the disease was as yet in a
very early stage.
"You have a better grip of it than Lowry," he said, sighing with
satisfaction. "I feel as if I were made of glass, and you could look
through me. Can you cure me?"
"I will do my best," I answered.
"So you all say," he muttered, "and the best is generally good for
nothing. You see I care less about getting over it than my wife does.
She is very anxious for my recovery."
"Your wife!" I repeated, in utter surprise; "you are Richard Foster, I
believe?"
"Certainly," he replied.
"Does your wife know of your present illness?" I inquired.
"To be sure," he answered; "let me introduce you to Mrs. Richard
Foster."
The woman looked at me with flashing eyes and a mocking smile, while Mr.
Foster indulged himself with extorting a long and plaintive mew from the
poor cat on his knees.
"I cannot understand," I said. I did not know how to continue my speech.
Though they might choose to pass as husband and wife among strangers,
they could hardly expect to impose upon me.
"Ah! I see you do not," said Mr. Foster, with a visible sneer. "Olivia
is dead."
"Olivia dead!" I exclaimed.
I repeated the words mechanically, as if I could not make any meaning
out of them. Yet they had been spoken with such perfect deliberation and
certainty that there seemed to be no question about the fact. Mr.
Foster's glittering eyes dwelt delightedly upon my face.
"You were not aware of it?" he said, "I am afraid I have been too
sudden. Kate tells us you were in love with my first wife, and
sacrificed a most eligible match for her. Would it be too late to open
fresh negotiations with your cousin? You see I know all your family
history."
"When did Olivia die?" I inquired, though my tongue felt dry and
parched, and the room, with his fiendish face, was swimming giddily
before my eyes.
"When was it, Carry?" he asked, turning to his wife.
"We heard she was dead on the first of October," she answered. "You
married me the next day."
"Ah, yes!" he said; "Olivia had been dead to me for more than twelve
months and the moment I was free I married her, Dr. Martin. We could not
be married before, and there was no reason to wait longer. It was quite
legal."
"But what proof have you?" I asked, still incredulous, yet with a heart
so heavy that it could hardly rouse itself to hope.
"Carry, have you those letters?" said Richard Foster.
She was away for a few minutes, while he leaned back again in his chair,
regarding nic with his half-closed, cruel eyes. I said nothing, and
resolved to betray no emotion. Olivia dead! my Olivia! I could not
believe it.
"Here are the proofs," said Mrs. Foster, reentering the room. She put
into my hand an ordinary certificate of death, signed by J. Jones, M.D.
It stated that the deceased, Olivia Foster, had died on September the
27th, of acute inflammation of the lungs. Accompanying this was a letter
written in a good handwriting, purporting to be from a clergyman or
minister, of what denomination it was not stated, who had attended
Olivia in her fatal illness. He said that she had desired him to keep
the place of her death and burial a secret, and to forward no more than
the official certificate of the former event. This letter was signed E.
Jones. No clew was given by either document as to the place where they
were written.
"Are you not satisfied?" asked Foster.
"No," I replied; "how is it, if Olivia is dead, that you have not taken
possession of her property?"
"A shrewd question," he said, jeeringly. "Why am I in these cursed poor
lodgings? Why am I as poor as Job, when there are twenty thousand pounds
of my wife's estate lying unclaimed? My sweet, angelic Olivia left no
will, or none in my favor, you may be sure; and by her father's will, if
she dies intestate or without children, his property goes to build
almshouses, or some confounded nonsense, in Melbourne. All she bequeaths
to me is this ring, which I gave to her on our wedding-day, curse her!"
He held out his hand, on the little finger of which shone a diamond,
which might, as far as I knew, be the one I had once seen in Olivia's
possession.
"Perhaps you do not know," he continued, "that it was on this very
point, the making of her will, or securing her property to me in some
way, that my wife took offence and ran away from me. Carry was just a
little too hard upon her, and I was away in Paris. But consider, I
expected to be left penniless, just as you see me left, and Carry was
determined to prevent it."
"Then you are sure of her death?" I said.
"So sure," he replied, calmly, "that we were married the next day.
Olivia's letter to me, as well as those papers, was conclusive of her
identity. Will you like to see it?"
Mrs. Foster gave me a slip of paper, on which were written a few lines.
The words looked faint, and grew paler as I read them. They were without
doubt Olivia's writing:
"I know that, you are poor, and I send you all I can spare--the ring you
once gave to me. I am even poorer than yourself, but I have just enough
for my last necessities. I forgive you, as I trust that God forgives
me."
* * * * *
There was no more to be said or done. Conviction had been brought home
to me. I rose to take my leave, and Foster held out his hand to me,
perhaps with a kindly intention. Olivia's ring was glittering on it, and
I could not take it into mine.
"Well, well," he said, "I understand; I am sorry for you. Come again,
Dr. Martin Dobrée. If you know of any remedy for my ease, you are no
true man if you do not try it."
I went down the narrow staircase, closely followed by Mrs. Foster. Her
face had lost its gayety and boldness, and looked womanly and careworn,
as she laid her hand upon my arm before opening the house-door.
"For God's sake, come again," she said, "if you can do any thing for
him! We have money left yet, and I am earning more every day. We can pay
you well. Promise me you will come again."
"I can promise nothing to-night," I answered.
"You shall not go till you promise," she said, emphatically.
"Well, then, I promise," I answered, and she unfastened the chain almost
noiselessly, and opened the door into the street.