I had the deed drawn up by a lawyer, who warned me that, if Foster sued for a restitution of his rights, they would be enforced.  But I hoped that when Olivia was found she would have some evidence in her own favor, which would deter him from carrying the case into court.  The deed was signed by Foster, and left in my charge till Olivia’s signature could be obtained.

As soon as the deed was secured, I had my patient removed from Bellringer Street to some apartments in Fulham, near to Dr. Senior, whose interest in the case was now almost equal to my own.  Here, if I could not visit him every day, Dr. Senior did, while his great professional skill enabled him to detect symptoms which might have escaped my less experienced eye.  Never had any sufferer, under the highest and wealthiest ranks, greater care and science expended upon him than Richard Foster.

The progress of his recovery was slow, but it was sure.  I felt that it would be so from the first.  Day by day I watched the pallid hue of sickness upon his face changing into a more natural tone.  I saw his strength coming back by slight but steady degrees.  The malady was forced to retreat into its most hidden citadel, where it might lurk as a prisoner, but not dwell as a destroyer, for many years to come, if Foster would yield himself to the regime of life we prescribed.  But the malady lingered there, ready to break out again openly, if its dungeon-door were set ajar.  I had given life to him, but it was his part to hold it fast.

There was no triumph to me in this, as there would have been had my patient been any one else.  The cure aroused much interest among my colleagues, and made my name more known.  But what was that to me?  As long as this man lived, Olivia was doomed to a lonely and friendless life.  I tried to look into the future for her, and saw it stretch out into long, dreary years.  I wondered where she would find a home.  Could I persuade Johanna to receive her into her pleasant dwelling, which would become so lonely to her when Captain Carey had moved into Julia’s house in St. Peter-Port?  That was the best plan I could form.

CHAPTER THE FORTY-SEVENTH.

A FRIENDLY, CABMAN.

Julia’s marriage arrangements were going on speedily.  There was something ironical to me in the chance that made me so often the witness of them.  We were so merely cousins again, that she discussed her purchases, and displayed them before me, as if there had never been any notion between us of keeping house together.  Once more I assisted in the choice of a wedding-dress, for the one made a year before was said to be yellow and old-fashioned.  But this time Julia did not insist upon having white satin.  A dainty tint of gray was considered more suitable, either to her own complexion or the age of the bridegroom.  Captain Carey enjoyed the purchase with the rapture I had failed to experience.