my unlucky ignorance of
law and business obliged me to seek from some one more experienced than
myself? Could I go to the lawyer whom I consulted when I was about to
marry Midwinter in my maiden name? Impossible! To say nothing of his
cold reception of me when I had last seen him, the advice I wanted this
time related (disguise the facts as I might) to commission of a Fraud--a
fraud of the sort that no prosperous lawyer would consent to assist if
he had a character to lose. Was there any other competent person I
could think of? There was one, and one only--the doctor who had died at
Pimlico, and had revived again at Hampstead.

"I knew him to be entirely without scruples; to have the business
experience that I wanted myself; and to be as cunning, as clever, and
as far-seeing a man as could be found in all London. Beyond this, I had
made two important discoveries in connection with him that morning. In
the first place, he was on bad terms with Mrs. Oldershaw, which would
protect me from all danger of the two leaguing together against me if
I trusted him. In the second place, circumstances still obliged him to
keep his identity carefully disguised, which gave me a hold over him in
no respect inferior to any hold that _I_ might give him over _me_. In
every way he was the right man, the only man, for my purpose; and yet I
hesitated at going to him--hesitated for a full hour and more, without
knowing why!

"It was two o'clock before I finally decided on paying the doctor a
visit. Having, after this, occupied nearly another hour in determining
to a hair-breadth how far I should take him into my confidence, I
sent for a cab at last, and set off toward three in the afternoon for
Hampstead.

"I found the Sanitarium with some little difficulty.

"Fairweather Vale proved to be a new neighborhood, situated below the
high ground of Hampstead, on the southern side. The day was overcast,
and the place looked very dreary. We approached it by a new road running
between trees, which might once have been the park avenue of a country
house. At the end we came upon a wilderness of open ground, with
half-finished villas dotted about, and a hideous litter of boards,
wheelbarrows, and building materials of all sorts scattered in every
direction. At one corner of this scene of desolation, stood a great
overgrown dismal house, plastered with drab-colored stucco, and
surrounded by a naked, unfinished garden, without a shrub or a flower
in it