else. Now you are your own mistress, and
can choose your own residence. But you could not have a better home than
this. It would not be well for you, so young and friendless, to live in
a house of your own."

"No," I said, somewhat sadly.

"Dr. Senior is delighted to have you here," he went on; "you will see
very good society in this house, and that is what you should do. You
ought to see more and better people than you have yet known. Does it
seem strange to you that we have assumed a sort of authority over you
and your affairs? You do not yet know how we have been involved in
them."

"How?" I asked, looking up into his face with a growing curiosity.

"Olivia," he said, "Foster was my patient for some months, and I knew
all his affairs intimately. He had married that person--"

"Married her!" I ejaculated.

"Yes. You want to know how he could do that? Well, he produced two
papers, one a medical certificate of your death, the other a letter
purporting to be from some clergyman. He had, too, a few lines in your
own handwriting, which stated you had sent him your ring, the only
valuable thing left to you, as you had sufficient for your last
necessities. Even I believed for a few hours that you were dead. But I
must tell you all about it another time."

"Did he believe it?" I asked, in a trembling voice.

"I do not know," he answered; "I cannot tell, even now, whether he knew
them to be forgeries or not. But I have no doubt, myself, that they were
forged by Mrs. Foster's brother and his partner, Scott and Brown."

"But for what reason?" I asked again.

"What reason!" he repeated; "you were too rich a prize for them to allow
Foster to risk losing any part of his claim upon you, if he found you.
You and all you had were his property on certain defined conditions. You
do not understand our marriage laws; it is as well for you not to
understand them. Mrs. Foster gave up to me to-day all his papers, and
the letters and credentials from your trustees in Melbourne to your
bankers here. There will be very little trouble for you now. Thank God!
all your life lies clear and fair before you."

I had still many questions to ask, but my lips trembled so much that I
could not speak readily. He was himself silent, probably because he also
had so much to say. All the others were sitting a little apart from us
at a chess-table, where Dr. Senior and Miss Carey were playing, while
Dr. John sat by holding Minima in his arm, thou