“Your faithful, loving cousin, JOHANNA CAREY.”

I read this letter twice, with a singing in my ears and a whirling of my brain, before I could realize the meaning.  Then I refused to believe it.  No one knows better than a doctor how the most skilful head among us may be at fault.

My mother dying of an incurable disease!  Impossible!  I would go over at once and save her.  She ought to have told me first.  Who could have attended her so skilfully and devotedly as her only son?

Yet the numbing, deadly chill of dread rested upon my heart.  I felt keenly how slight my power was, as I had done once before when I thought Olivia would die.  But then I had no resources, no appliances.  Now I would take home with me every remedy the experience and researches of man had discovered.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH.

OVERMATCHED.

My mother had consulted Dr. Senior himself when she had been in London.  He did not positively cut off all hope from me, though I knew well he was giving me encouragement in spite of his own carefully-formed opinion.  He asserted emphatically that it was possible to alleviate her sufferings and prolong her life, especially if her mind was kept at rest.  There was not a question as to the necessity for my immediate return to her.  But there was still a day for me to tarry in London.

“Martin,” said Jack, “why have you never followed up the clew about your Olivia—­the advertisement, you know?  Shall we go to those folks in Gray’s-Inn Road this afternoon?”

It had been in my mind all along to do so, but the listless procrastination of idleness had caused me to put it off from time to time.  Besides, while I was absent from the Channel Islands my curiosity appeared to sleep.  It was enough to picture Olivia in her lowly home in Sark.  Now that I was returning to Guernsey, and the opportunity was about to slip by, I felt more anxious to seize it.  I would learn all I could about Olivia’s family and friends, without betraying any part of her secret.

At the nearest cab-stand we found a cabman patronized by Jack—­a red-faced, good-tempered, and good-humored man, who was as fond and proud of Jack’s notice as if he had been one of the royal princes.

Of course there was not the smallest difficulty in finding the office of Messrs. Scott and Brown.  It was on the second floor of an ordinary building, and, bidding the cabman wait for us, we proceeded at once up the staircase.

There did not seem much business going on, and our appearance was hailed with undisguised satisfaction.  The solicitors, if they were solicitors, were two inferior, common-looking men, but sharp enough to be a match for either of us.  We both felt it, as if we had detected a snake in the grass by its rattle.  I grew wary by instinct, though I had not come with any intention to tell them what I knew of Olivia.  My sole idea had been to learn something myself, not to impart any information.  But, when I was face to face with these men, my business, and the management of it, did not seem quite so simple as it had done until then.