“Then, Julia,” I said, “what folly it would be for you to sacrifice yourself to a false notion of faithfulness!  I could not accept such a sacrifice.  Think no more of me or my happiness.”

“But my poor aunt was so anxious for you to have a home of your own,” she said, sobbing, “and I do love you dearly.  Now you will never marry.  I know you will not, if you can have neither Olivia nor me for your wife.”

“Very likely,” I answered, trying to laugh away her agitation; “I shall be in love with two married women instead.  How shocking that will sound in Guernsey!  But I’m not afraid that Captain Carey will forbid me his house.”

“How little we thought!” exclaimed Julia.  I knew very well what her mind had gone back to—­the days when she and I and my mother were furnishing and settling the house that would now become Captain Carey’s home.

“Then it is all settled,” I said, “and I shall write to him by to-night’s post, inviting him back again—­that is, if he really left you last night.”

“Yes,” she replied; “he would not stay a day longer.”

Her face had grown calm as we talked together.  A scarcely perceptible smile was lurking about her lips, as if she rejoiced that her suspense was over.  There was something very like a pang in the idea of some one else filling the place I had once fully occupied in her heart; but the pain was unworthy of me.  I drove it away by throwing myself heart and soul into the mystery which hung over the fate of Olivia.

“We have hit upon a splendid plan,” said Jack:  “Miss Carey will take Simmons’s cab to Bellringer Street, and reach the house about the same time as I visit Foster.  That is for me to be at hand if she should need any protection, you know.  I shall stay up-stairs with Foster till I hear the cab drive off again, and it will wait for me at the corner of Dawson Street.  Then we will come direct here, and tell you every thing at once.  Of course, Miss Dobree will wish to hear it all.”

“Cannot I go with Johanna?” she asked.

“No,” I said, hastily; “it is very probable Mrs. Foster knows you by sight, though she is less likely to know Johanna.  I fancy Mrs. Wilkinson will turn out to be Mrs. Foster herself.  Yet why they should spirit Olivia away into a French school, and pretend that she is dead, I cannot see.”

Nor could any one of the others see the reason.  But as the morning was fast waning away, and both Jack and I were busy, we were compelled to close the discussion, and, with our minds preoccupied to a frightful extent, make those calls upon our patients which were supposed to be in each case full of anxious and particular thought for the ailments we were attempting to alleviate.

Upon meeting again for a few minutes at luncheon, we made a slight change in our plan; for we found a note from Foster awaiting me, in which he requested me to visit him in the future, instead of Dr. John Senior, as he felt more confidence in my knowledge of his malady.