The letter informed me that my brother had written to Mr. Sherwin, simply asking whether he had recovered his daughter.  The answer to this question did not arrive till late in the day; and was in the negative—­Mr. Sherwin had not found his daughter.  She had left the hospital before he got there; and no one could tell him whither she had gone.  His language and manner, as he himself admitted, had been so violent that he was not allowed to enter the ward where Mannion lay.  When he returned home, he found his wife at the point of death; and on the same evening she expired.  Ralph described his letter, as the letter of a man half out of his senses.  He only mentioned his daughter, to declare, in terms almost of fury, that he would accuse her before his wife’s surviving relatives, of having been the cause of her mother’s death; and called down the most terrible denunciations on his own head, if he ever spoke to his child again, though he should see her starving before him in the streets.  In a postscript, Ralph informed me that he would call the next morning, and concert measures for tracking Sherwin’s daughter to her present retreat.

Every sentence in this letter bore warning of the crisis which was now close at hand; yet I had as little of the desire as of the power to prepare for it.  A superstitious conviction that my actions were governed by a fatality which no human foresight could alter or avoid, began to strengthen within me.  From this time forth, I awaited events with the uninquiring patience, the helpless resignation of despair.

My brother came, punctual to his appointment.  When he proposed that I should at once accompany him to the hospital, I never hesitated at doing as he desired.  We reached our destination; and Ralph approached the gates to make his first enquiries.

He was still speaking to the porter, when a gentleman advanced towards them, on his way out of the hospital.  I saw him recognise my brother, and heard Ralph exclaim: 

“Bernard!  Jack Bernard!  Have you come to England, of all the men in the world!”

“Why not?” was the answer.  “I got every surgical testimonial the Hotel Dieu could give me, six months ago; and couldn’t afford to stay in Paris only for my pleasure.  Do you remember calling me a ‘mute, inglorious Liston,’ long ago, when we last met?  Well, I have come to England to soar out of my obscurity and blaze into a shining light of the profession.  Plenty of practice at the hospital, here—­very little anywhere else, I am sorry to say.”

“You don’t mean that you belong to this hospital?”

“My dear fellow, I am regularly on the staff; I’m here every day of my life.”

“You’re the very man to enlighten us.  Here, Basil, cross over, and let me introduce you to an old Paris friend of mine.  Mr. Bernard—­my brother.  You’ve often heard me talk, Basil, of a younger son of old Sir William Bernard’s, who preferred a cure of bodies to a cure of souls; and actually insisted on working in a hospital when he might have idled in a family living.  This is the man—­the best of doctors and good fellows.”