Wilkinson described Ellen Martineau to me, when she was
talking about her visitor who had come to inquire after her, in that cab
which was standing at the door the last time you visited Mr. Foster--and
I had no suspicion of it--I grew quite frightened lest he should ever be
charged with marrying me while she was alive. So I persuaded him to let
me come here and make sure of it, though the journey costs a great deal,
and we have very little money to spare. We did not know what tricks
Olivia might do, and it made me very miserable to think she might be
still alive, and I in her place."

I could not but acknowledge to myself that there was some reason in Mrs.
Foster's statement of the case.

"There is not the slightest chance of your finding her," I remarked.

"Isn't there?" she asked, with an evil gleam in her eyes, which I just
caught before she hid her face again in her handkerchief.

"At any rate," I said, "you would have no power over her if you found
her. You could not take her back with you by force. I do not know how
the French laws would regard Foster's authority, but you can have none
whatever, and he is quite unfit to take this long journey to claim her.
Really I do not see what you can do; and I should think your wisest
plan would be to go back and take care of him, leaving her alone. I am
here to protect her, and I shall stay until I see you fairly out of the
place."

She did not speak again for some minutes, but she was evidently
reflecting upon what I had just said.

"But what are we to live upon?" she asked at last; "there is her money
lying in the bank, and neither she nor Richard can touch it. It must be
paid to her personally or to her order; and she cannot prove her
identity herself without the papers Richard holds. It is aggravating. I
am at my wits' end about it."

"Listen to me," I said. "Why cannot we come to some arrangement,
supposing Ellen Martineau proves to be Olivia? It would be better for
you all to make some division of her property by mutual agreement. You
know best whether Olivia could insist upon a judicial separation. But in
any other case why should not Foster agree to receive half her income,
and leave her free, as free as she can be, with the other half? Surely
some mutual agreement could be made."

"He would never do it!" she exclaimed, clasping her hands round her
knees, and swaying to and fro passionately; "he never loses any power.
She belongs to him, and he never gives