e right by-and-by."

"But Captain Carey--" I began.

"There! not a word!" she interrupted imperatively. "Tell me all about
that wretch, Richard Foster. How did you come across him? Is he likely
to die? Is he any thing like Kate Daltrey?--I will never call her Kate
Dobree as long as the world lasts. Come, Martin, tell me every thing
about him."

She sat with me most of the morning, talking with animated perseverance,
and at last prevailed upon me to take her a walk in Hyde Park. Her
pertinacity did me good in spite of the irritation it caused me. When
her dinner-hour was at hand I felt bound to attend her to her house in
Hanover Street; and I could not get away from her without first speaking
to Julia. Her face was very sorrowful, and her manner sympathetic. We
said only a few words to one another, but I went away with the
impression that her heart was still with me.

CHAPTER THE FORTIETH.

A TORMENTING DOUBT.

At dinner Jack announced his intention of paying a visit to Richard
Foster.

"You are not fit to deal with the fellow," he said; "you may be sharp
enough upon your own black sheep in Guernsey, but you know nothing of
the breed here. Now, if I see him, I will squeeze out of him every
mortal thing he knows about Olivia. Where did those papers come from?"

"There was no place given," I answered.

"But there would be a post-mark on the envelop," he replied; "I will
make him show me the envelop they were in."

"Jack," I said, "you do not suppose he has any doubt of her death?"

"I can't say," he answered. "You see he has married again, and if she
were not dead that would be bigamy--an ugly sort of crime. But are you
sure they are married?"

"How can I be sure?" I asked fretfully, for grief as often makes men
fretful as illness. "I did not ask for their marriage-certificate."

"Well, well! I will go," he answered.

I awaited his return with impatience. With this doubt insinuated by
Jack, it began to seem almost incredible that Olivia's exquisitely
healthy frame should have succumbed suddenly under a malady to which she
had no predisposition whatever. Moreover, her original soundness of
constitution had been strengthened by ten months' residence in the pure,
bracing air of Sark. Yet what was I to think in face of those undated
documents, and of her own short letter to her husband? The one I knew
was genuine; why should I suppose the others to be forged? And if
forgeries, who had been guilty of s