attempting to alleviate.

Upon meeting again for a few minutes at luncheon, we made a slight
change in our plan; for we found a note from Foster awaiting me, in
which he requested me to visit him in the future, instead of Dr. John
Senior, as he felt more confidence in my knowledge of his malady.

CHAPTER THE FORTY-FIRST.

MARTIN DOBREE'S PLEDGE.

I followed Simmons's cab up Bellringer Street, and watched Johanna
alight and enter the house. The door was scarcely closed upon her when I
rang, and asked the slatternly drudge of a servant if I could see Mr.
Foster. She asked me to go up to the parlor on the second floor, and I
went alone, with little expectation of finding Mrs. Foster there, unless
Johanna was there also, in which case I was to appear as a stranger to
her.

The parlor looked poorer and shabbier by daylight than at night. There
was not a single element of comfort in it. The curtains hung in rags
about a window begrimed with soot and smoke. The only easy-chair was the
one occupied by Foster, who himself looked as shabby and worn as the
room. The cuffs and collar of his shirt were yellow and tattered; his
hair hung long and lank; and his skin had a sallow, unwholesome tint.
The diamond ring upon his finger was altogether out of keeping with his
threadbare coat, buttoned up to the chin, as if there were no waistcoat
beneath it. From head to foot he looked a broken-down, seedy fellow, yet
still preserving some lingering traces of the gentleman. This was
Olivia's husband!

A good deal to my surprise, I saw Mrs. Foster seated quietly at a table
drawn close to the window, very busily writing--engrossing, as I could
see, for some miserable pittance a page. She must have had some
considerable practice in the work, for it was done well, and her pen ran
quickly over the paper. A second chair left empty opposite to her showed
that Foster had been engaged at the same task, before he heard my step
on the stairs. He looked weary, and I could not help feeling something
akin to pity for him. I did not know that they had come down as low as
that.

"I did not expect you to come before night," he said, testily; "I like
to have some idea when my medical attendant is coming."

"I was obliged to come now," I answered, offering no other apology. The
man irritated me more than any other person that had ever come across
me. There was something perverse and splenetic in every word he uttered,
and every expression upon