Captain Carey!  I fairly gasped for breath.  Such an idea had never once occurred to me; though I knew she had been spending most of her time with the Careys at the Vale.  Captain Carey to marry! and to marry Julia!  To go and live in our house!  I was struck dumb, and fancied that I had heard wrongly.  All the pleasant, distant vision of a possible marriage with Julia, when my passion had died out, and I could be content in my affection and esteem for her—­all this vanished away, and left my whole future a blank.  If Julia wished for revenge—­and when is not revenge sweet to a jilted woman?—­she had it now.  I was as crestfallen, as amazed, almost as miserable, as she had been.  Yet I had no one to blame, as she had.  How could I blame her for preferring Captain Carey’s love to my rechauffe affections?

“Julia,” I said, after a long silence, and speaking as calmly as I could, “do you love Captain Carey?”

“That is not a fair question to ask,” answered Johanna.  “We have not been treacherous to you.  I scarcely know how it has all come about.  But my brother has never asked Julia if she loves him; for we wished to see you first, and hear how you felt about Olivia.  You say you shall never love again as you love her.  Set Julia free then, quite free, to accept my brother or reject him.  Be generous, be yourself, Martin.”

“I will,” I said.—­“My dear Julia, you are as free as air from all obligation to me.  You have been very good and very true to me.  If Captain Carey is as good and true to you, as I believe he will be, you will be a very happy woman—­happier than you would ever be with me.”

“And you will not make yourself unhappy about it?” asked Julia, looking up.

“No,” I answered, cheerfully, “I shall be a merry old bachelor, and visit you and Captain Carey, when we are all old folks.  Never mind me, Julia; I never was good enough for you.  I shall be very glad to know that you are happy.”

Yet when I found myself in the street—­for I made my escape as soon as I could get away from them—­I felt as if every thing worth living for were slipping away from me.  My mother and Olivia were gone, and here was Julia forsaking me.  I did not grudge her her new happiness.  There was neither jealousy nor envy in my feelings toward my supplanter.  But in some way I felt that I had lost a great deal since I entered their drawing-room two hours ago.

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-EIGHTH.

OLIVIA’S HUSBAND.

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.