slow, but it was sure. I felt that it
would be so from the first. Day by day I watched the pallid hue of
sickness upon his face changing into a more natural tone. I saw his
strength coming back by slight but steady degrees. The malady was forced
to retreat into its most hidden citadel, where it might lurk as a
prisoner, but not dwell as a destroyer, for many years to come, if
Foster would yield himself to the _regime_ of life we prescribed. But
the malady lingered there, ready to break out again openly, if its
dungeon-door were set ajar. I had given life to him, but it was his part
to hold it fast.

There was no triumph to me in this, as there would have been had my
patient been any one else. The cure aroused much interest among my
colleagues, and made my name more known. But what was that to me? As
long as this man lived, Olivia was doomed to a lonely and friendless
life. I tried to look into the future for her, and saw it stretch out
into long, dreary years. I wondered where she would find a home. Could I
persuade Johanna to receive her into her pleasant dwelling, which would
become so lonely to her when Captain Carey had moved into Julia's house
in St. Peter-Port? That was the best plan I could form.

CHAPTER THE FORTY-SEVENTH.

A FRIENDLY, CABMAN.

Julia's marriage arrangements were going on speedily. There was
something ironical to me in the chance that made me so often the witness
of them. We were so merely cousins again, that she discussed her
purchases, and displayed them before me, as if there had never been any
notion between us of keeping house together. Once more I assisted in the
choice of a wedding-dress, for the one made a year before was said to be
yellow and old-fashioned. But this time Julia did not insist upon having
white satin. A dainty tint of gray was considered more suitable, either
to her own complexion or the age of the bridegroom. Captain Carey
enjoyed the purchase with the rapture I had failed to experience.

The wedding was fixed to take place the last week in July, a fortnight
earlier than the time proposed; it was also a fortnight earlier than the
date I was looking forward to most anxiously, when, if ever, news would
reach Tardif from Olivia. All my plans were most carefully made, in the
event of her sending word where she was. The deed of separation, signed
by Foster, was preserved by me most cautiously, for I had a sort of
haunting dread that Mrs. Foster would endeavor to g