The wedding was fixed to take place the last week in July, a fortnight earlier than the time proposed; it was also a fortnight earlier than the date I was looking forward to most anxiously, when, if ever, news would reach Tardif from Olivia.  All my plans were most carefully made, in the event of her sending word where she was.  The deed of separation, signed by Foster, was preserved by me most cautiously, for I had a sort of haunting dread that Mrs. Foster would endeavor to get possession of it.  She was eminently sulky, and had been so ever since the signing of the deed.  Now that Foster was very near convalescence, they might be trying some stratagem to recover it.  But our servants were trustworthy, and the deed lay safe in the drawer of my desk.

At last Dr. Senior agreed with me that Foster was sufficiently advanced on the road to recovery to be removed from Fulham to the better air of the south coast.  The month of May had been hotter than usual, and June was sultry.  It was evidently to our patient’s advantage to exchange the atmosphere of London for that of the sea-shore, even though he had to dispense with our watchful attendance.  In fact he could not very well fall back now, with common prudence and self-denial.  We impressed upon him the urgent necessity of these virtues, and required Mrs. Foster to write us fully, three times a week, every variation she might observe in his health.  After that we started them off to a quiet village in Sussex.  I breathed more freely when they were out of my daily sphere of duty.

But before they went a hint of treachery reached me, which put me doubly on my guard.  One morning, when Jack and I were at breakfast, each deep in our papers, with an occasional comment to one another on their contents, Simmons, the cabby, was announced, as asking to speak to one or both of us immediately.  He was a favorite with Jack, who bade the servant show him in; and Simmons appeared, stroking his hat round and round with his hand, as if hardly knowing what to do with his limbs off the box.

“Nothing amiss with your wife, or the brats.  I hope?” said Jack.

“No, Dr. John, no,” he answered, “there ain’t any thing amiss with them, except being too many of ’em p’raps, and my old woman won’t own to that.  But there’s some thing in the wind as concerns Dr. Dobry, so I thought I’d better come and give you a hint of it.”

“Very good, Simmons,” said Jack.

“You recollect taking my cab to Gray’s-Inn Road about this time last year, when I showed up so green, don’t you?” he asked.

“To be sure,” I said, throwing down my paper, and listening eagerly.

“Well, doctors,” he continued, addressing us both, “the very last Monday as ever was, a lady walks slowly along the stand, eying us all very hard, but taking no heed to any of ’em, till she catches sight of me.  That’s not a uncommon event, doctors.  My wife says there’s something about me as gives confidence to her sex.  Anyhow, so it is, and I can’t gainsay it.  The lady comes along very slowly—­she looks hard at me—­she nods her head, as much as to say, ’You, and your cab, and your horse, are what I’m on the lookout for;’ and I gets down, opens the door, and sees her in quite comfortable.  Says she, ’Drive me to Messrs. Scott and Brown, in Gray’s-Inn Road.’”