The morrow came—­and Mr. Merrick promised that she should see another old friend on the next day.  In the evening, when the inquiring voice asked after her, as usual, and when the door was opened a few inches to give the reply, she answered faintly for herself:  “I am better, thank you.”  There was a moment of silence—­and then, just as the door was shut again, the voice sank to a whisper, and said, fervently, “Thank God!” Who was he?  She had asked them all, and no one would tell her.  Who was he?

The next day came; and she heard her door opened softly.  Brisk footsteps tripped into the room; a lithe little figure advanced to the bed-side.  Was it a dream again?  No!  There he was in his own evergreen reality, with the copious flow of language pouring smoothly from his lips; with the lambent dash of humor twinkling in his party-colored eyes—­there he was, more audacious, more persuasive, more respectable than ever, in a suit of glossy black, with a speckless white cravat, and a rampant shirt frill—­the unblushing, the invincible, unchangeable Wragge!

“Not a word, my dear girl!” said the captain, seating himself comfortably at the bedside, in his old confidential way.  “I am to do all the talking; and, I think you will own, a more competent man for the purpose could not possibly have been found.  I am really delighted—­honestly delighted, if I may use such an apparently inappropriate word—­to see you again, and to see you getting well.  I have often thought of you; I have often missed you; I have often said to myself—­never mind what!  Clear the stage, and drop the curtain on the past. Dum vivimus, vivamus! Pardon the pedantry of a Latin quotation, my dear, and tell me how I look.  Am I, or am I not, the picture of a prosperous man?”

Magdalen attempted to answer him.  The captain’s deluge of words flowed over her again in a moment.

“Don’t exert yourself,” he said.  “I’ll put all your questions for you.  What have I been about?  Why do I look so remarkably well off?  And how in the world did I find my way to this house?  My dear girl, I have been occupied, since we last saw each other, in slightly modifying my old professional habits.  I have shifted from Moral Agriculture to Medical Agriculture.  Formerly I preyed on the public sympathy, now I prey on the public stomach.  Stomach and sympathy, sympathy and stomach—­look them both fairly in the face when you reach the wrong side of fifty, and you will agree with me that they come to much the same thing.  However that may be, here I am—­incredible as it may appear—­a man with an income, at last.  The founders of my fortune are three in number.  Their names are Aloes, Scammony, and Gamboge.  In plainer words, I am now living—­on a Pill.  I made a little money (if you remember) by my friendly connection with you.  I made a little more by the happy decease (Requiescat in Pace!) of that female relative of Mrs. Wragge’s from whom, as I told you, my wife had expectations.  Very good.  What do you think I did?  I invested the whole of my capital, at one fell swoop, in advertisements, and purchased my drugs and my pill-boxes on credit.  The result is now before you.  Here I am, a Grand Financial Fact.  Here I am, with my clothes positively paid for; with a balance at my banker’s; with my servant in livery, and my gig at the door; solvent, flourishing, popular—­and all on a Pill.”