I reached home just as Jack was coming in from his evening amusement.  He let me in with his latch-key, giving me a cheery greeting; but as soon as we had entered the dining-room, and he saw my face, he exclaimed.  “Good Heavens!  Martin, what has happened to you?”

“Olivia is dead,” I answered.

His arm was about my neck in a moment, for we were like boys together still, when we were alone.  He knew all about Olivia, and he waited patiently till I could put my tidings into words.

“It must be true,” he said, though in a doubtful tone; “the scoundrel would not have married again if he had not sufficient proof.”

“She must have died very soon after my mother,” I answered, “and I never knew it!”

“It’s strange!” he said.  “I wonder she never got anybody to write to you or Tardif.”

There was no way of accounting for that strange silence toward us.  We sat talking in short, broken sentences, while Jack smoked a cigar; but we could come to no conclusion about it.  It was late when we parted, and I went to bed, but not to sleep.

For as soon as the room was quite dark, visions of Olivia haunted me.  Phantasms of her followed one another rapidly through my brain.  She had died, so said the certificate, of inflammation of the lungs, after an illness of ten days.  I felt myself bound to go through every stage of her illness, dwelling upon all her sufferings, and thinking of her as under careless or unskilled attendance, with no friend at hand to take care of her.  She ought not to have died, with her perfect constitution.  If I had been there she should not have died.

About four o’clock Jack tapped softly upon the wall between our bedrooms—­it was a signal we had used when we were boys—­as though to inquire if I was all right; but it was quiet enough not to wake me if I were asleep.  It seemed like the friendly “Ahoy!” from a boat floating on the same dark sea.  Jack was lying awake, thinking of me as I was thinking of Olivia.  There was something so consolatory in this sympathy that I fell asleep while dwelling upon it.

Upon going downstairs in the morning I found that Jack was already off, having left a short note for me, saving he would visit my patients that day.  I had scarcely begun breakfast when the servant announced “a lady,” and as the lady followed close upon his heels, I saw behind his shoulder the familiar face of Johanna, looking extremely grave.  She was soon seated beside me, watching me with something of the tender, wistful gaze of my mother.  Her eyes were of the same shape and color, and I could hardly command myself to speak calmly.

“Your friend Dr. John Senior called upon us a short time since,” she said; “and told us this sad, sad news.”

I nodded silently.

“If we had only known it yesterday,” she continued, “you would never have heard what we then said.  This makes so vast a difference.  Julia could not have become your wife while there was another woman living whom you loved more.  You understand her feeling?”